With all the binding all of a blister,
And great blue spots where the ink has run,
And reddish streaks that wink and glister
O'er the page so beautifully yellow:
Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks!
Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow?
Here's one stuck in his chapter six!
How did he like it when the live creatures
Tickled and toused and browsed him all over,
And worm, slug, eft, with serious features,
Came in, each one, for his right of trover?
--When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face
Made of her eggs the stately deposit,
And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface
As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet?
All that life and fun and romping,
All that frisking and twisting and coupling,
While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping
And clasps were cracking and covers suppling!
As if you had carried sour John Knox
To the play-house at Paris, Vienna or Munich,
Fastened him into a front-row box,
And danced off the ballet with trousers and tunic.
Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it?
Back to my room shall you take your sweet self.
Good-bye, mother-beetle; husband-eft, _sufficit_!
See the snug niche I have made on my shelf!
A's book shall prop you up, B's shall cover you,
Here's C to be grave with, or D to be gay,
And with E on each side, and F right over you,
Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day!
* * * * *
A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL
SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE
1855
Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
Air the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it;
No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:
Wait ye the warning?
Our low life was the level's and the night's;
He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous calm and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.
"Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!
He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,
Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!
Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow?
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,"
Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!
My dance is finished?"
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,
Make for the city!)
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?
Show me their shaping,"
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,--
"Give!"--So, he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that book to its last page:
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain:
"Time to taste life," another would have said,
"Up with the curtain!"
This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?
Patience a moment!
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
Still there's the comment.
Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
painful or easy!
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
Ay, nor feel queasy."
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts--
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place
Gaping before us.)
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace
(Hearten our chorus!)
That before living he'd learn how to live--
No end to learning:
Earn the means first--God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:
Live now or never!"
He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
Man has Forever."
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:
_Calculus_ racked him:
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:
_Tussis_ attacked him.
"Now, master, take a little rest!"--not he!
(Caution redoubled,
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)
Not a whit troubled
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great? did not he throw on God,
(He loves the burthen)--
God's task to make the heavenly period
Perfect the earthen?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant?
He would not discount life, as fools do here,
Paid by instalment
He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:
Hence with life's pale lure!"
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here--should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled _Hoti's_ business--let it be!--
Properly based _Oun_--
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _De_,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know--
Bury this man there?
Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects:
Loftily lying,
Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.
In the amusing poem, _Up at a Villa--Down in the City_, Browning
compares the beauty of city and country life from an unusual point
of view. It is generally assumed that the country is more poetical
than the city; but it would be difficult to prove this, if we were
put to the test. Natural scenery is now much admired, and mountains
are in the height of fashion; every one is forced to express raptures,
whether one feels them or not. But this has not always been the case.
When Addison travelled to Italy, he regarded the Alps as disgusting;
they were a disagreeable and dangerous barrier, that must be crossed
before he could reach the object of his journey. He wrote home from
Italy that he was delighted at the sight of a plain--a remark that
would damn a modern pilgrim. The first man in English literature to
bring out the real beauty of mountains was Thomas Gray.
Very few people have a sincere and genuine love of the country--as
is proved by the way they flock to the cities. We love the country
for a change, for a rest, for its novelty: how many of us would be
willing to live there the year around? We know that Wordsworth loved
the country, for he chose to live among the lonely lakes when he
could have lived in London. But most intelligent persons live in
towns, and take to the country for change and recreation.
The speaker in Browning's poem is an absolutely honest Philistine,
who does not know that every word he says spells artistic damnation.
He is disgusted with the situation of his house:
.... stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull.
In other words the site is so magnificent that to-day expensive
hotels are built there, and people come from all over the world to
enjoy the view. In fact it is just this situation which Browning
admires in the poem _De Gustibus_.
What I love best in all the world
Is a castle, precipice-encurled,
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine.
But our man does not know what he _ought_ to say; he says simply
what he really thinks. The views of a sincere Philistine on natural
scenery, works of art, pieces of music, are interesting because they
are sincere. The conventional admiration may or may not be genuine.
This man says the city is much cooler in summer than the country:
that spring visits the city earlier: that what we call the
monotonous row of houses in a city street is far more beautiful than
the irregularity of the country. It appeals to his sense of beauty.
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry.
But his real rapture over the city is because city life is
interesting. There is something going on every moment of the blessed
day. It is a perpetual theatre, admission free. This is undoubtedly
the real reason why the poor prefer crowded, squalid city tenements
to the space, fresh air and hygienic advantages of the country. Many
well-meaning folk wonder why men with their families remain in city
slums, when they could easily secure work on farms, where there
would be abundance of fresh air, wholesome food, and cool nights for
sleep. Our Italian gives the correct answer. People can not stand
dullness and loneliness: they crave excitement, and this is supplied
day and night by the city street. Indeed in some cases, where by the
Fresh Air Fund, children are taken for a vacation to the country,
they become homesick for the slums.
* * * * *
UP AT A VILLA--DOWN IN THE CITY
(AS DISTINGUISHED BY AN ITALIAN PERSON OF QUALITY)
1855
I
Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
II
Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.
III
Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
--I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.
IV
But the city, oh the city--the square with the houses! Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take
the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.
V
What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights,
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the
heights:
You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and
wheeze,
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint grey olive-trees.
VI
Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns.
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and
sell.
VII
Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and
splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows
flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and
pash
Round the lady atop in her conch--fifty gazers do not abash,
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort
of sash.
VIII
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger.
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicida is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous
firs on the hill.
Enough of the seasons,--I spare you the months of the fever
and chill.
IX
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells
begin:
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
By-and-by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood,
draws teeth;
Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene-picture--the new play, piping
hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves
were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law
of the Duke's!
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome and Cicero,
"And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts of
Saint Paul has reached,
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous
than ever he preached,"
Noon strikes,--here sweeps the procession!
our Lady borne smiling and smart With a pink gauze gown all
spangles,
and seven swords stuck in her heart!
_Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife;
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.
X
But bless you, it's dear--it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the
rate.
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing
the gate
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still--ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and
sandals,
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow
candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with
handles,
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention
of scandals:
_Bang-whang-whang_ goes the drum, _tootle-te-tootle_ the fife.
Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life!
No poem of Browning's has given more trouble to his whole-souled
admirers than _The Statue and the Bust_: and yet, if this is taken
as a paradox, its meaning is abundantly clear.
The square spoken of in the poem is the Piazza Annunziata in Florence:
in the midst of the square stands the equestrian statue of the Duke:
and if one follows the direction of the bronze eyes of the man, it
will appear that they rest steadfastly on the right hand window in
the upper storey of the palace. This is the farthest window facing
the East. There is no bust there; but it is in this window that the
lady sat and regarded the daily passage of the Duke.
The reason why this poem has troubled the minds of many good people
is because it seems (on a very superficial view) to sympathise with
unlawful love; even in certain circumstances to recommend the pursuit
of it to fruition. Let us see what the facts are. Before the Duke
saw the bride, he was, as Browning says, empty and fine like a
swordless sheath. This is a good description of many young men. They
are like an empty sheath. The sheath may be beautiful, it may be
exquisitely and appropriately enchased; but a sheath is no good
without a sword. So, many young men are attractive and accomplished,
their minds are cultivated by books and travel, but they have no
driving purpose in life, no energy directed to one aim, no end; and
therefore all their attractiveness is without positive value. They
are empty like a handsome sheath minus the sword.
The moment the Duke saw the lady a great purpose filled his life: he
became temporarily a resolute, ambitious man, with capacity for
usefulness. No moral scruple kept the lovers apart; and they
determined to fly. This purpose was frustrated by procrastination,
trivial hindrances, irresolution, till it was forever too late. Now
the statue and the bust gaze at each other in eternal ironical
mockery, for these lovers in life might as well have been made of
bronze and stone; they never really lived.
Contrary to his usual custom--it is only very seldom as in this poem
and in _Bishop Blougram's Apology_, and in both cases because he
knew he would otherwise be misunderstood--Browning added a personal
postscript. Where are these lovers now? How do they spend their time
in the spiritual world? I do not know where they are, says Browning,
but I know very well where they are _not_: they are not with God. No,
replies the reader, because they wanted to commit adultery. Ah, says
Browning, they are not exiled from God because they wanted to commit
adultery: they are exiled because they did not actually do it. This
is the paradox.
Browning takes a crime to test character; for a crime can test
character as well as a virtue. We must draw a clear distinction here
between society and the individual. It is a good thing for society
that people are restrained from crime by what are really bad
motives--fear, presence of police, irresolution, love of ease,
selfishness: furthermore, society and the law do not consider men's
motives, but only their actual deeds. A white-souled girl and a
blackhearted villain with no criminal record are exactly equal in
the eyes of the law, both perfectly innocent.
But from the point of view of the individual, or as a Christian
would say, in the sight of God, it is the heart that makes all the
difference between virtue and depravity. In the case of our lovers
delay was best for society, but bad for them: the purposed crime was
a test of their characters, and they added the sin of cowardice to
the sin of adultery, which they had already committed in their hearts.
Suppose four men agree to hold up a train. When the light of the
locomotive appears, three lose their courage: the fourth stops the
train, and single-handed takes the money from the express-car and
from the passengers, killing the conductor and the express-messenger.
After the train has been sent on its way, the three timid ones
divide up with the man who actually committed the crimes. Who is the
most virtuous among the four? Which has the best chance to be with
God? Manifestly the brave one, although he is a robber and a murderer.
From the point of view of the people who owned the money, from the
point of view of the families of the dead men, it would have been
better if all four of the would-be robbers had been cowards: but for
that criminal's individual soul, he was better than his mates,
because the crime tested his character and found him sound: he did
not add the sin of cowardice to the sins of robbery and murder.
Browning changes the figure. If you choose to play a game--no one is
obliged to play, but if you do choose to play--then play with all
your energy, whether the stakes are money or worthless counters. Now
our lovers chose to play. The stake they played for was not the true
coin of marriage, but the false counter of adultery. Still, the game
was a real test of their characters, and it proved them lacking in
every true quality that makes men and women noble and useful.
Even now Browning knew that some readers would not understand him:
so he added the last two lines, which ought to make his lesson clear.
You virtuous people (I see by your expression you disapprove and are
ready to quarrel with me) how strive you? _De te, fabula_! My whole
story concerns you. You say that the lovers should have remained
virtuous: you say that virtue should be the great aim of life. Very
well, do _you_ act as if you believed what you say? Is virtue the
greatest thing in _your_ life? Do you strive to the uttermost toward
that goal? Do you really prefer virtue to your own ease, comfort and
happiness?
I find Browning's poem both clear and morally stimulating. My one
objection would be that he puts rather too much value on mere energy.
I do not believe that the greatest thing in life is striving,
struggle, and force: there are deep, quiet souls who accomplish much
in this world without being especially strenuous. But in the sphere
of virtue Browning was essentially a fighting man.
THE STATUE AND THE BUST
1855
There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do our townsmen tell.
Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the East
Asked, "Who rides by with the royal air?"
The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased;
She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased--
They felt by its beats her heart expand--
As one at each ear and both in a breath
Whispered, "The Great-Duke Ferdinand."
The selfsame instant, underneath,
The Duke rode past in his idle way,
Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.
Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,
Till he threw his head back--"Who is she?"
--"A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day."
Hair in heaps lay heavily
Over a pale brow spirit-pure--
Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree,
Crisped like a war-steed's encolure--
And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes
Of the blackest black our eyes endure,
And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise
Filled the fine empty sheath of a man,--
The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.
He looked at her, as a lover can;
She looked at him, as one who awakes:
The past was a sleep, and her life began.
Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,
A feast was held that selfsame night
In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.
(For Via Larga is three-parts light,
But the palace overshadows one,
Because of a crime, which may God requite!
To Florence and God the wrong was done,
Through the first republic's murder there
By Cosimo and his cursed son.)
The Duke (with the statue's face in the square)
Turned in the midst of his multitude
At the bright approach of the bridal pair.
Face to face the lovers stood
A single minute and no more,
While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued--
Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor--
For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,
As the courtly custom was of yore.
In a minute can lovers exchange a word?
If a word did pass, which I do not think,
Only one out of a thousand heard.
That was the bridegroom. At day's brink
He and his bride were alone at last
In a bed chamber by a taper's blink.
Calmly he said that her lot was cast,
That the door she had passed was shut on her
Till the final catafalk repassed.
The world meanwhile, its noise and stir,
Through a certain window facing the East
She could watch like a convent's chronicler.
Since passing the door might lead to a feast,
And a feast might lead to so much beside,
He, of many evils, chose the least.
"Freely I choose too," said the bride--
"Your window and its world suffice,"
Replied the tongue, while the heart replied--
"If I spend the night with that devil twice,
May his window serve as my loop of hell
Whence a damned soul looks on paradise!"
"I fly to the Duke who loves me well,
Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow
Ere I count another ave-bell."
"'Tis only the coat of a page to borrow,
And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim.
And I save my soul--but not to-morrow"--
(She checked herself and her eye grew dim)
"My father tarries to bless my state:
I must keep it one day more for him."
"Is one day more so long to wait?
Moreover the Duke rides past, I know;
We shall see each other, sure as fate."
She turned on her side and slept. Just so!
So we resolve on a thing and sleep:
So did the lady, ages ago.
That night the Duke said, "Dear or cheap
As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove
To body or soul, I will drain it deep."
And on the morrow, bold with love,
He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,
As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove)
And smiled "Twas a very funeral,
Your lady will think, this feast of ours,--
A shame to efface, whate'er befall!"
"What if we break from the Arno bowers,
And try if Petraja, cool and green,
Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?"
The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen
On his steady brow and quiet mouth,
Said, "Too much favor for me so mean!"
"But, alas! my lady leaves the South;
Each wind that comes from the Apennine
Is a menace to her tender youth:"
"Nor a way exists, the wise opine,
If she quits her palace twice this year,
To avert the flower of life's decline."
Quoth the Duke, "A sage and a kindly fear.
Moreover Petraja is cold this spring:
Be our feast to-night as usual here!"