"Come in!"--the Mayor cried, looking bigger:

And in did come the strangest figure!

His queer long coat from heel to head

Was half of yellow and half of red,

And he himself was tall and thin,

With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,

And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,

No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,

But lips where smiles went out and in;

There was no guessing his kith and kin:

And nobody could enough admire

The tall man and his quaint attire.

Quoth one: "It 's as my great-grandsire,

Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone,

Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"

VI

He advanced to the council-table:

And, "Please your honors," said he, "I 'm able,

By means of a secret charm, to draw

All creatures living beneath the sun,

That creep or swim or fly or run,

After me so as you never saw!

And I chiefly use my charm

On creatures that do people harm,

The mole and toad and newt and viper;

And people call me the Pied Piper."

(And here they noticed round his neck

A scarf of red and yellow stripe,

To match with his coat of the self-same cheque;

And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying

As if impatient to be playing

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled

Over his vesture so old-fangled.)

"Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am,

In Tartary I freed the Cham,

Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;

I eased in Asia the Nizam

Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats:

And as for what your brain bewilders,

If I can rid your town of rats

Will you give me a thousand guilders?"

"One? fifty thousand!"--was the exclamation

Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

VII

Into the street the Piper stept,

Smiling first a little smile,

As if he knew what magic slept

In his quiet pipe the while;

Then, like a musical adept,

To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,

And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled,

Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled;

And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,

You heard as if an army muttered;

And the muttering grew to a grumbling;

And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;

And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.

Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,

Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats,

Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,

Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,

Families by tens and dozens,

Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives--

Followed the Piper for their lives.

From street to street he piped advancing,

And step for step they followed dancing,

Until they came to the river Weser,

Wherein all plunged and perished!

--Save one who, stout as Julius Cæsar,

Swam across and lived to carry

(As he, the manuscript he cherished)

To Rat-land home his commentary:

Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe,

I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,

And putting apples, wondrous ripe,

Into a cider-press's gripe:

And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,

And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,

And a drawing the corks of train oil-flasks,

And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks:

And it seemed as if a voice

(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery

Is breathed) called out, 'Oh rats, rejoice!

The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!

So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,

_Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!_'

And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,

All ready staved, like a great sun shone

Glorious scarce an inch before me,

Just as methought it said, 'Come, bore me!'

--I found the Weser rolling o'er me."

VIII

You should have heard the Hamelin people

Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.

"Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles,

Poke out the nests and block up the holes!

Consult with carpenters and builders,

And leave in our town not even a trace

Of the rats!"--when suddenly, up the face

Of the Piper perked in the market-place,

With a, "First, if you please, my thousand guilders!"

IX

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;

So did the Corporation too.

For council dinners made rare havoc

With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;

And half the money would replenish

Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.

To pay this sum to a wandering fellow

With a gypsy coat of red and yellow!

"Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,

"Our business was done at the river's brink;

We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,

And what 's dead can't come to life, I think.

So, friend, we 're not the folks to shrink

From the duty of giving you something for drink,

And a matter of money to put in your poke;

But as for the guilders, what we spoke

Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.

Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.

A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!"

X

The Piper's face fell, and he cried,

"No trifling! I can't wait, beside!

I 've promised to visit by dinner time

Bagdat, and accept the prime

Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he 's rich in,

For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen,

Of a nest of scorpions no survivor:

With him I proved no bargain-driver,

With you, don't think I 'll bate a stiver!

And folks who put me in a passion

May find me pipe after another fashion."

XI

"How?" cried the Mayor, "d' ye think I brook

Being worse treated than a Cook?

Insulted by a lazy ribald

With idle pipe and vesture piebald?

You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst,

Blow your pipe there till you burst!"

XII

Once more he stept into the street,

And to his lips again

Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;

And ere he blew three notes (such sweet

Soft notes as yet musician's cunning

Never gave the enraptured air)

There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling

Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling;

Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,

Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,

And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is scattering,

Out came the children running.

All the little boys and girls,

With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,

And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after

The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

XIII

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood

As if they were changed into blocks of wood,

Unable to move a step, or cry

To the children merrily skipping by,

--Could only follow with the eye

That joyous crowd at the Piper's back.

But how the Mayor was on the rack,

And the wretched Council's bosoms beat,

As the Piper turned from the High Street

To where the Weser rolled its waters

Right in the way of their sons and daughters!

However, he turned from South to West,

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,

And after him the children pressed;

Great was the joy in every breast.

"He never can cross that mighty top!

He 's forced to let the piping drop,

And we shall see our children stop!"

When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side,

A wondrous portal opened wide,

As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;

And the Piper advanced and the children followed,

And when all were in to the very last,

The door in the mountain-side shut fast.

Did I say, all? No! One was lame,

And could not dance the whole of the way;

And in after years, if you would blame

His sadness, he was used to say,--

"It 's dull in our town since my playmates left!

I can't forget that I 'm bereft

Of all the pleasant sights they see,

Which the Piper also promised me.

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,

Joining the town and just at hand,

Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew

And flowers put forth a fairer hue,

And everything was strange and new;

The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,

And their dogs outran our fallow deer,

And honey-bees had lost their stings,

And horses were born with eagles' wings:

And just as I became assured

My lame foot would be speedily cured,

The music stopped and I stood still,

And found myself outside the hill,

Left alone against my will,

To go now limping as before,

And never hear of that country more!"

XIV

Alas, alas for Hamelin!

There came into many a burgher's pate

A text which says that heaven's gate

Opes to the rich at as easy rate

As the needle's eye takes a camel in!

The Mayor sent East, West, North and South,

To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,

Wherever it was men's lot to find him,

Silver and gold to his heart's content,

If he 'd only return the way he went,

And bring the children behind him.

But when they saw 't was a lost endeavor,

And Piper and dancers were gone forever,

They made a decree that lawyers never

Should think their records dated duly

If, after the day of the month and year,

These words did not as well appear,

"And so long after what happened here

On the Twenty-second of July,

Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:"

And the better in memory to fix

The place of the children's last retreat,

They called it, the Pied Piper's Street--

Where any one playing on pipe or tabor

Was sure for the future to lose his labor,

Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern

To shock with mirth a street so solemn;

But opposite the place of the cavern

They wrote the story on a column.

And on the great church-window painted

The same, to make the world acquainted

How their children were stolen away,

And there it stands to this very day.

And I must not omit to say

That in Transylvania there 's a tribe

Of alien people who ascribe

The outlandish ways and dress

On which their neighbors lay such stress,

To their fathers and mothers having risen

Out of some subterraneous prison

Into which they were trepanned

Long time ago in a mighty band

Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,

But how or why, they don't understand.

XV

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers

Of scores out with all men--especially pipers!

And, whether they pipe us free fróm rats or fróm mice,

If we 've promised them aught, let us keep our promise!

THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS

The first nine sections of this poem were printed in _Hood's Magazine_

for April, 1845.

The poem took its rise from a line--"Following the Queen of the

Gypsies, O!" the burden of a song which the poet, when a boy, heard

a woman singing on a Guy Fawkes' Day. As Browning was writing it, he

was interrupted by the arrival of a friend on some important business,

which drove all thoughts of the Duchess, and the scheme of her story,

out of the poet's head. But some months after the publication of the

first part, when he was staying at Bettisfield Park, in Shropshire, a

guest, speaking of early winter, said, "The deer had already to break

the ice in the pond." On this a fancy struck the poet, and, returning

home, he worked it up into the conclusion of the poem as it now stands.

I

You 're my friend:

I was the man the Duke spoke to;

I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too;

So, here 's the tale from beginning to end,

My friend!

II

Ours is a great wild country:

If you climb to our castle's top,

I don't see where your eye can stop;

For when you 've passed the cornfield country,

Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed,

And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,

And cattle-tract to open-chase,

And open-chase to the very base

Of the mountain where, at a funeral pace,

Round about, solemn and slow,

One by one, row after row,

Up and up the pine-trees go,

So, like black priests up, and so

Down the other side again

To another greater, wilder country,

That 's one vast red drear burnt-up plain,

Branched through and through with many a vein

Whence iron 's dug, and copper 's dealt;

Look right, look left, look straight before,--

Beneath they mine, above they smelt,

Copper-ore and iron-ore,

And forge and furnace mould and melt,

And so on, more and ever more,

Till at the last, for a bounding belt,

Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore,

--And the whole is our Duke's country.

III

I was born the day this present Duke was--

(And O, says the song, ere I was old!)

In the castle where the other Duke was--

(When I was happy and young, not old!)

I in the kennel, he in the bower:

We are of like age to an hour.

My father was huntsman in that day;

Who has not heard my father say

That, when a boar was brought to bay,

Three times, four times out of five,

With his huntspear he 'd contrive

To get the killing-place transfixed,

And pin him true, both eyes betwixt?

And that 's why the old Duke would rather

He lost a salt-pit than my father,

And loved to have him ever in call;

That 's why my father stood in the hall

When the old Duke brought his infant out

To show the people, and while they passed

The wondrous bantling round about,

Was first to start at the outside blast

As the Kaiser's courier blew his horn,

Just a month after the babe was born.

"And," quoth the Kaiser's courier, "since

The Duke has got an heir, our Prince

Needs the Duke's self at his side:"

The Duke looked down and seemed to wince,

But he thought of wars o'er the world wide,

Castles a-fire, men on their march,

The toppling tower, the crashing arch;

And up he looked, and awhile he eyed

The row of crests and shields and banners

Of all achievements after all manners,

And "ay," said the Duke with a surly pride.

The more was his comfort when he died

At next year's end, in a velvet suit,

With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot

In a silken shoe for a leather boot,

Petticoated like a herald,

In a chamber next to an ante-room,

Where he breathed the breath of page and groom,

What he called stink, and they, perfume:

--They should have set him on red Berold

Mad with pride, like fire to manage!

They should have got his cheek fresh tannage

Such a day as to-day in the merry sunshine!

Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin!

(Hark, the wind's on the heath at its game!

Oh for a noble falcon-lanner

To flap each broad wing like a banner,

And turn in the wind, and dance like flame!)

Had they broached a white-beer cask from Berlin

--Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine

Put to his lips, when they saw him pine,

A cup of our own Moldavia fine,

Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel

And ropy with sweet,--we shall not quarrel.

IV

So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess

Was left with the infant in her clutches,

She being the daughter of God knows who:

And now was the time to revisit her tribe.

Abroad and afar they went, the two,

And let our people rail and gibe

At the empty hall and extinguished fire,

As loud as we liked, but ever in vain,

Till after long years we had our desire,

And back came the Duke and his mother again.

V

And he came back the pertest little ape

That ever affronted human shape;

Full of his travel, struck at himself.

You 'd say, he despised our bluff old ways?

--Not he! For in Paris they told the elf

Our rough North land was the Land of Lays,

The one good thing left in evil days;

Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time,

And only in wild nooks like ours

Could you taste of it yet as in its prime,

And see true castles, with proper towers,

Young-hearted women, old-minded men,

And manners now as manners were then.

So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it,

This Duke would fain know he was, without being it;

'Twas not for the joy's self, but the joy of his showing it,

Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it,

He revived all usages thoroughly-worn-out,

The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out:

And chief in the chase his neck he perilled,

On a lathy horse, all legs and length,

With blood for bone, all speed, no strength;

--They should have set him on red Berold

With the red eye slow consuming in fire,

And the thin stiff ear like an abbey spire!

VI

Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard:

And out of a convent, at the word,

Came the lady, in time of spring.

--Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling!

That day, I know, with a dozen oaths

I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes

Fit for the chase of urochs or buffle

In winter-time when you need to muffle.

But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure,

And so we saw the lady arrive:

My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger!

She was the smallest lady alive,

Made in a piece of nature's madness,

Too small, almost, for the life and gladness

That over-filled her, as some hive

Out of the bears' reach on the high trees

Is crowded with its safe merry bees:

In truth, she was not hard to please!

Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead,

Straight at the castle, that's best indeed

To look at from outside the walls:

As for us, styled the "serfs and thralls,"

She as much thanked me as if she had said it,

(With her eyes, do you understand?)

Because I patted her horse while I led it;

And Max, who rode on her other hand,

Said, no bird flew past but she inquired

What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired--

If that was an eagle she saw hover,

And the green and gray bird on the field was the plover.

When suddenly appeared the Duke:

And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed

On to my hand,--as with a rebuke,

And as if his backbone were not jointed,

The Duke stepped rather aside than forward,

And welcomed her with his grandest smile;

And, mind you, his mother all the while

Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor'ward;

And up, like a weary yawn, with its pulleys

Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis;

And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies,

The lady's face stopped its play,

As if her first hair had grown gray;

For such things must begin some one day.

VII

In a day or two she was well again;

As who should say, "You labor in vain!

This is all a jest against God, who meant

I should ever be, as I am, content

And glad in his sight; therefore, glad I will be."

So, smiling: as at first went she.

VIII

She was active, stirring, all fire--

Could not rest, could not tire--

To a stone she might have given life!

(I myself loved once, in my day)

--For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife,

(I had a wife, I know what I say)

Never in all the world such an one!

And here was plenty to be done,

And she that could do it, great or small,

She was to do nothing at all.

There was already this man in his post,

This in his station, and that in his office,

And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most;

To meet his eye, with the other trophies,

Now outside the hall, now in it,

To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen,

At the proper place in the proper minute,

And die away the life between.

And it was amusing enough, each infraction

Of rule--(but for after-sadness that came)

To hear the consummate self-satisfaction

With which the young Duke and the old dame

Would let her advise, and criticise,

And, being a fool, instruct the wise,

And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame:

They bore it all in complacent guise,

As though an artificer, after contriving

A wheel-work image as if it were living,

Should find with delight it could motion to strike him!

So found the Duke, and his mother like him:

The lady hardly got a rebuff--

That had not been contemptuous enough,

With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause,

And kept off the old mother-cat's claws.

IX

So, the little lady grew silent and thin,

Paling and ever paling,

As the way is with a hid chagrin;

And the Duke perceived that she was ailing,

And said in his heart, "'Tis done to spite me,

But I shall find in my power to right me!"

Don't swear, friend! The old one, many a year,

Is in hell, and the Duke's self ... you shall hear.

X

Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning,

When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning,

A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice

That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice,

Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold,

And another and another, and faster and faster,

Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled:

Then it so chanced that the Duke our master

Asked himself what were the pleasures in season,

And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty,

He should do the Middle Age no treason

In resolving on a hunting-party.

Always provided, old books showed the way of it!

What meant old poets by their strictures?

And when old poets had said their say of it,

How taught old painters in their pictures?

We must revert to the proper channels,

Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels,

And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions:

Here was food for our various ambitions,

As on each case, exactly stated--

To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup,

Or best prayer to Saint Hubert on mounting your stirrup--

We of the household took thought and debated.

Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin

His sire was wont to do forest-work in;

Blesseder he who nobly sunk "ohs"

And "ahs" while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose;

What signified hats if they had no rims on,

Each slouching before and behind like the scallop,

And able to serve at sea for a shallop,

Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson?

So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on 't,

What with our Venerers, Prickers and Verderers,

Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers,

And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on 't!

XI

Now you must know that when the first dizziness

Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided,

The Duke put this question, "The Duke's part provided,

Had not the Duchess some share in the business?"

For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses

Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses:

And, after much laying of heads together,

Somebody's cap got a notable feather

By the announcement with proper unction

That he had discovered the lady's function;

Since ancient authors gave this tenet,

"When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege,

Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet.

And, with water to wash the hands of her liege

In a clean ewer with a fair towelling,

Let her preside at the disembowelling."

Now, my friend, if you had so little religion

As to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner,

And thrust her broad wings like a banner

Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon;

And if day by day and week by week

You cut her claws, and sealed her eyes,

And clipped her wings, and tied her beak,

Would it cause you any great surprise

If, when you decided to give her an airing,

You found she needed a little preparing?

--I say, should you be such a curmudgeon,

If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon?

Yet when the Duke to his lady signified,

Just a day before, as he judged most dignified,

In what a pleasure she was to participate,--

And, instead of leaping wide in flashes,

Her eyes just lifted their long lashes,

As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate,

And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought,

But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught,

Of the weight by day and the watch by night,

And much wrong now that used to be right,

So, thanking him, declined the hunting,--

Was conduct ever more affronting?

With all the ceremony settled--

With the towel ready, and the sewer

Polishing up his oldest ewer,

And the jennet pitched upon, a piebald,

Black-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-balled,--

No wonder if the Duke was nettled!

And when she persisted nevertheless,--

Well, I suppose here's the time to confess

That there ran half round our lady's chamber

A balcony none of the hardest to clamber;

And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting,

Stayed in call outside, what need of relating?

And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent

Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant;

And if she had the habit to peep through the casement,

How could I keep at any vast distance?

And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence,

The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement,

Stood for a while in a sultry smother,

And then, with a smile that partook of the awful,

Turned her over to his yellow mother

To learn what was held decorous and lawful:

And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct,

As her cheek quick whitened through all its quince-tinct.

Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once!

What meant she?--Who was she?--Her duty and station,

The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once,

Its decent regard and its fitting relation--

In brief, my friend, set all the devils in hell free

And turn them out to carouse in a belfry

And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon,

And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on!

Well, somehow or other it ended at last

And, licking her whiskers, out she passed;

And after her,--making (he hoped) a face

Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin,

Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace

Of ancient hero or modern paladin,

From door to staircase--oh such a solemn

Unbending of the vertebral column!

XII

However, at sunrise our company mustered;

And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel,

And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered,

With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel;

For the court-yard walls were filled with fog

You might have cut as an axe chops a log--

Like so much wool for color and bulkiness;

And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness,

Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily,

And a sinking at the lower abdomen

Begins the day with indifferent omen.

And lo, as he looked around uneasily,

The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder

This way and that from the valley under;

And, looking through the court-yard arch,

Down in the valley, what should meet him

But a troop of Gypsies on their march?

No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him.

XIII

Now, in your land, Gypsies reach you, only

After reaching all lands beside;

North they go, South they go, trooping or lonely,

And still, as they travel far and wide,

Catch they and keep now a trace here, a trace there,

That puts you in mind of a place here, a place there.

But with us, I believe they rise out of the ground,

And nowhere else, I take it, are found

With the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned:

Born, no doubt, like insects which breed on

The very fruit they are meant to feed on.

For the earth--not a use to which they don't turn it,

The ore that grows in the mountain's womb,

Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb,

They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it--

Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle

With side-bars never a brute can baffle;

Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards;

Or, if your colt's forefoot inclines to curve inwards,

Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel

And won't allow the hoof to shrivel.

Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle

That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle;

But the sand--they pinch and pound it like otters;

Commend me to Gypsy glass-makers and potters!

Glasses they'll blow you, crystal-clear,

Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear,

As if in pure water you dropped and let die

A bruised black-blooded mulberry;

And that other sort, their crowning pride,

With long white threads distinct inside,

Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangle

Loose such a length and never tangle,

Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters,

And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters:

Such are the works they put their hand to,

The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to.

And these made the troop, which our Duke saw sally

Toward his castle from out of the valley,

Men and women, like new-hatched spiders,

Come out with the morning to greet our riders.

And up they wound till they reached the ditch,

Whereat all stopped save one, a witch

That I knew, as she hobbled from the group,

By her gait directly and her stoop,

I, whom Jacynth was used to importune

To let that same witch tell us our fortune,

The oldest Gypsy then above ground;

And, sure as the autumn season came round,

She paid us a visit for profit or pastime,

And every time, as she swore, for the last time

And presently she was seen to sidle

Up to the Duke till she touched his bridle,

So that the horse of a sudden reared up

As under its nose the old witch peered up

With her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes

Of no use now but to gather brine,

And began a kind of level whine

Such as they use to sing to their viols

When their ditties they go grinding

Up and down with nobody minding:

And then, as of old, at the end of the humming

Her usual presents were forthcoming

--A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles,

(Just a sea-shore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles,)

Or a porcelain mouthpiece to screw on a pipe-end,--

And so she awaited her annual stipend.

But this time, the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe

A word in reply; and in vain she felt

With twitching fingers at her belt

For the purse of sleek pine-marten pelt,

Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe,--

Till, either to quicken his apprehension,

Or possibly with an after-intention,

She was come, she said, to pay her duty

To the new Duchess, the youthful beauty.

No sooner had she named his lady,

Than a shine lit up the face so shady,

And its smirk returned with a novel meaning--

For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning;

If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow,

She, foolish to-day, would be wiser to-morrow;

And who so fit a teacher of trouble

As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double?

So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture,

(If such it was, for they grow so hirsute

That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit)

He was contrasting, 'twas plain from his gesture,

The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate

With the loathsome squalor of this helicat.

I, in brief, was the man the Duke beckoned

From out of the throng, and while I drew near

He told the crone--as I since have reckoned

By the way he bent and spoke into her ear

With circumspection and mystery--

The main of the lady's history,

Her frowardness and ingratitude:

And for all the crone's submissive attitude

I could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening,

And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening,

As though she engaged with hearty goodwill

Whatever he now might enjoin to fulfil.

And promised the lady a thorough frightening.

And so, just giving her a glimpse

Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps

The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hern-shaw,

He bade me take the Gypsy mother

And set her telling some story or other

Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw,

To while away a weary hour

For the lady left alone in her bower,

Whose mind and body craved exertion

And yet shrank from all better diversion.

XIV

Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter,

Out rode the Duke, and after his hollo

Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor,

And back I turned and bade the crone follow.

And what makes me confident what's to be told you

Had all along been of this crone's devising,

Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you,

There was a novelty quick as surprising:

For first, she had shot up a full head in stature,

And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered,

As if age had foregone its usurpature,

And the ignoble mien was wholly altered,

And the face looked quite of another nature,

And the change reached too, whatever the change meant,

Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement:

For where its tatters hung loose like sedges,

Gold coins were glittering on the edges,

Like the band-roll strung with tomans

Which proves the veil a Persian woman's:

And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly

Come out as after the rain he paces,

Two unmistakable eye-points duly

Live and aware looked out of their places.

So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry

Of the lady's chamber standing sentry;

I told the command and produced my companion,

And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any one,

For since last night, by the same token,

Not a single word had the lady spoken:

They went in both to the presence together,

While I in the balcony watched the weather.

XV

And now, what took place at the very first of all,

I cannot tell, as I never could learn it:

Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall

On that little head of hers and burn it,

If she knew how she came to drop so soundly

Asleep of a sudden and there continue

The whole time sleeping as profoundly

As one of the boars my father would pin you

'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison,

--Jacynth forgive me the comparison!

But where I begin my own narration

Is a little after I took my station

To breathe the fresh air from the balcony,

And, having in those days a falcon eye,

To follow the hunt through the open country,

From where the bushes thinlier crested

The hillocks, to a plain where's not one tree.

When, in a moment, my ear was arrested

By--was it singing, or was it saying,

Or a strange musical instrument playing

In the chamber?--and to be certain

I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain,

And there lay Jacynth asleep,

Yet as if a watch she tried to keep,

In a rosy sleep along the floor

With her head against the door;

While in the midst, on the seat of state,

Was a queen--the Gypsy woman late,

With head and face downbent

On the lady's head and face intent:

For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease,

The lady sat between her knees,

And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met,

And on those hands her chin was set,

And her upturned face met the face of the crone

Wherein the eyes had grown and grown

As if she could double and quadruple

At pleasure the play of either pupil

--Very like, by her hands' slow fanning,

As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers

They moved to measure, or bell clappers.

I said, "Is it blessing, is it banning,

Do they applaud you or burlesque you--

Those hands and fingers with no flesh on?"

But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue,

At once I was stopped by the lady's expression:

For it was life her eyes were drinking

From the crone's wide pair above unwinking,

--Life's pure fire received without shrinking,

Into the heart and breast whose heaving

Told you no single drop they were leaving,

--Life, that filling her, passed redundant

Into her very hair, back swerving

Over each shoulder, loose and abundant,

As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving;

And the very tresses shared in the pleasure,

Moving to the mystic measure,

Bounding as the bosom bounded.

I stopped short, more and more confounded,

As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened,

As she listened and she listened:

When all at once a hand detained me,

The selfsame contagion gained me,

And I kept time to the wondrous chime,

Making out words and prose and rhyme,

Till it seemed that the music furled

Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped

From under the words it first had propped,

And left them midway in the world:

Word took word as hand takes hand,

I could hear at last, and understand,

And when I held the unbroken thread,

The Gypsy said:--

"And so at last we find my tribe.

And so I set thee in the midst,

And to one and all of them describe

What thou saidst and what thou didst,

Our long and terrible journey through,

And all thou art ready to say and do

In the trials that remain:

I trace them the vein and the other vein

That meet on thy brow and part again,

Making our rapid mystic mark;

And I bid my people prove and probe

Each eye's profound and glorious globe

Till they detect the kindred spark

In those depths so dear and dark,

Like the spots that snap and burst and flee,

Circling over the midnight sea.

And on that round young cheek of thine

I make them recognize the tinge,

As when of the costly scarlet wine

They drip so much as will impinge

And spread in a thinnest scale afloat

One thick gold drop from the olive's coat

Over a silver plate whose sheen

Still through the mixture shall be seen.

For so I prove thee, to one and all,

Fit, when my people ope their breast,

To see the sign, and hear the call,

And take the vow, and stand the test

Which adds one more child to the rest--

When the breast is bare and the arms are wide,

And the world is left outside.

For there is probation to decree,

And many and long must the trials be

Thou shalt victoriously endure,

If that brow is true and those eyes are sure;

Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay

Of the prize he dug from its mountain tomb--

Let once the vindicating ray

Leap out amid the anxious gloom,

And steel and fire have done their part

And the prize falls on its finder's heart;

So, trial after trial past,

Wilt thou fall at the very last

Breathless, half in trance

With the thrill of the great deliverance,

Into our arms forevermore;

And thou shalt know, those arms once curled

About thee, what we knew before,

How love is the only good in the world.

Henceforth be loved as heart can love,

Or brain devise, or hand approve!

Stand up, look below,

It is our life at thy feet we throw

To step with into light and joy;

Not a power of life but we employ

To satisfy thy nature's want;

Art thou the tree that props the plant,

Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree--

Canst thou help us, must we help thee?

If any two creatures grew into one,

They would do more than the world has done;

Though each apart were never so weak,

Ye vainly through the world should seek

For the knowledge and the might

Which in such union grew their right:

So, to approach at least that end,

And blend,--as much as may be, blend

Thee with us or us with thee,--

As climbing plant or propping tree,

Shall some one deck thee, over and down,

Up and about, with blossoms and leaves?

Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown,

Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves,

Die on thy boughs and disappear

While not a leaf of thine is sere?

Or is the other fate in store,

And art thou fitted to adore,

To give thy wondrous self away,

And take a stronger nature's sway?

I foresee and could foretell

Thy future portion, sure and well:

But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true,

Let them say what thou shalt do!

Only be sure thy daily life,

In its peace or in its strife,

Never shall be unobserved;

We pursue thy whole career.

And hope for it, or doubt, or fear,--

Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved,

We are beside thee in all thy ways,

With our blame, with our praise,

Our shame to feel, our pride to show,

Glad, angry--but indifferent, no!

Whether it be thy lot to go,

For the good of us all, where the haters meet

In the crowded city's horrible street;

Or thou step alone through the morass

Where never sound yet was

Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill,

For the air is still, and the water still,

When the blue breast of the dipping coot

Dives under, and all is mute.

So, at the last shall come old age,

Decrepit as befits that stage;

How else wouldst thou retire apart

With the hoarded memories of thy heart,

And gather all to the very least

Of the fragments of life's earlier feast,

Let fall through eagerness to find

The crowning dainties yet behind?

Ponder on the entire past

Laid together thus at last,

When the twilight helps to fuse

The first fresh with the faded hues,

And the outline of the whole,

As round eve's shades their framework roll,

Grandly fronts for once thy soul.

And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam

Of yet another morning breaks,

And like the hand which ends a dream,

Death, with the might of his sunbeam,

Touches the flesh and the soul awakes,

Then"--

Ay, then indeed something would happen!

But what? For here her voice changed like a bird's;

There grew more of the music and less of the words;

Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen

To paper and put you down every syllable

With those clever clerkly fingers,

All I've forgotten as well as what lingers

In this old brain of mine that 's but ill able

To give you even this poor version

Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering

--More fault of those who had the hammering

Of prosody into me and syntax,

And did it, not with hobnails but tintacks!

But to return from this excursion,--

Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest,

The peace most deep and the charm completest,

There came, shall I say, a snap--

And the charm vanished!

And my sense returned, so strangely banished,

And, starting as from a nap,

I knew the crone was bewitching my lady,

With Jacynth asleep; and but one spring made I

Down from the casement, round to the portal,

Another minute and I had entered,--

When the door opened, and more than mortal

Stood, with a face where to my mind centred

All beauties I ever saw or shall see,

The Duchess: I stopped as if struck by palsy.

She was so different, happy and beautiful,

I felt at once that all was best,

And that I had nothing to do, for the rest,

But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful.

Not that, in fact, there was any commanding;

I saw the glory of her eye,

And the brow's height and the breast's expanding,

And I was hers to live or to die.

As for finding what she wanted,

You know God Almighty granted

Such little signs should serve wild creatures

To tell one another all their desires,

So that each knows what his friend requires,

And does its bidding without teachers.

I preceded her; the crone

Followed silent and alone;

I spoke to her, but she merely jabbered

In the old style; both her eyes had slunk

Back to their pits; her stature shrunk;

In short, the soul in its body sunk

Like a blade sent home to its scabbard.

We descended, I preceding;

Crossed the court with nobody heeding;

All the world was at the chase,

The court-yard like a desert-place,

The stable emptied of its small fry;

I saddled myself the very palfrey

I remember patting while it carried her,

The day she arrived and the Duke married her.

And, do you know, though it 's easy deceiving

One's self in such matters, I can't help believing

The lady had not forgotten it either,

And knew the poor devil so much beneath her

Would have been only too glad for her service

To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise,

But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it,

Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it:

For though the moment I began setting

His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting,

(Not that I meant to be obtrusive)

She stopped me, while his rug was shifting,

By a single rapid finger's lifting,

And, with a gesture kind but conclusive,

And a little shake of the head, refused me,--

I say, although she never used me,

Yet when she was mounted, the Gypsy behind her,

And I ventured to remind her,

I suppose with a voice of less steadiness

Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me,

--Something to the effect that I was in readiness

Whenever God should please she needed me,--

Then, do you know, her face looked down on me

With a look that placed a crown on me,

And she felt in her bosom,--mark, her bosom--

And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom,

Dropped me ... ah, had it been a purse

Of silver, my friend, or gold that 's worse,

Why, you see, as soon as I found myself

So understood,--that a true heart so may gain

Such a reward,--I should have gone home again,

Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself!

It was a little plait of hair

Such as friends in a convent make

To wear, each for the other's sake,--

This, see, which at my breast I wear,

Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment),

And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment.

And then,--and then,--to cut short,--this is idle,

These are feelings it is not good to foster,--

I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle,

And the palfrey bounded,--and so we lost her.

XVI

When the liquor 's out why clink the cannikin?

I did think to describe you the panic in

The redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin,

And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness,

How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib

Clean off, sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib,

When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness

--But it seems such child's play,

What they said and did with the lady away!

And to dance on, when we've lost the music,

Always made me--and no doubt makes you--sick.

Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern

As that sweet form disappeared through the postern,

She that kept it in constant good-humor,

It ought to have stopped; there seemed nothing to do more.

But the world thought otherwise and went on,

And my head 's one that its spite was spent on:

Thirty years are fled since that morning,

And with them all my head's adorning.

Nor did the old Duchess die outright,

As you expect, of suppressed spite,

The natural end of every adder

Not suffered to empty its poison-bladder:

But she and her son agreed, I take it,

That no one should touch on the story to wake it,

For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery,

So, they made no search and small inquiry--

And when fresh Gypsies have paid us a visit, I've

Noticed the couple were never inquisitive,

But told them they 're folks the Duke don't want here,

And bade them make haste and cross the frontier.

Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it,

And the old one was in the young one's stead,

And took, in her place, the household's head,

And a blessed time the household had of it!

And were I not, as a man may say, cautious

How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous,

I could favor you with sundry touches

Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess

Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness

(To get on faster) until at last her

Cheek grew to be one master-plaster

Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse:

In short, she grew from scalp to udder

Just the object to make you shudder.

XVII

You 're my friend--

What a thing friendship is, world without end!

How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up

As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet,

And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit,

Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup,

Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids--

Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids;

Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs,

Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts

Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees

Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease.

I have seen my little lady once more,

Jacynth, the Gypsy, Berold, and the rest of it,

For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before;

I always wanted to make a clean breast of it:

And now it is made--why, my heart's blood, that went trickle,

Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets,

Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle,

And genially floats me about the giblets.

I 'll tell you what I intend to do:

I must see this fellow his sad life through--

He is our Duke, after all,

And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall.

My father was born here, and I inherit

His fame, a chain he bound his son with;

Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it,

But there 's no mine to blow up and get done with:

So, I must stay till the end of the chapter,

For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter,

Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on,

Some day or other, his head in a morion

And breast in a hauberk, his heels he 'll kick up,

Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup.

And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust,

And its leathern sheath lie o'ergrown with a blue crust,

Then I shall scrape together my earnings;

For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes,

And our children all went the way of the roses:

It 's a long lane that knows no turnings.

One needs but little tackle to travel in;

So, just one stout cloak shall I indue:

And for a staff, what beats the javelin

With which his boars my father pinned you?

And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently,

Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful,

I shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly!

Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful.

What 's a man's age? He must hurry more, that 's all;

Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold:

When we mind labor, then only, we 're too old--

What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul?

And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees,

(Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil)

I hope to get safely out of the turmoil

And arrive one day at the land of the Gypsies,

And find my lady, or hear the last news of her

From some old thief and son of Lucifer,

His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop,

Sunburned all over like an Æthiop.

And when my Cotnar begins to operate

And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate,

And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent,

I shall drop in with--as if by accident--

"You never knew, then, how it all ended,

What fortune good or bad attended

The little lady your Queen befriended?"

--And when that 's told me, what 's remaining?

This world 's too hard for my explaining.

The same wise judge of matters equine

Who still preferred some slim four-year-old

To the big-boned stock of mighty Berold,

And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine,

He also must be such a lady's scorner!

Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau:

Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw.

--So, I shall find out some snug corner

Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight,

Turn myself round and bid the world goodnight;

And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing

Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen)

To a world where will be no further throwing

Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen!

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE

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!

All 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, through 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.

THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY

A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE

_Rosa Mundi; seu, fulcite me Floribus. A Conceit of Master

Gysbrecht, Canon-Regular of Saint Jodocus-by-the-Bar, Ypres City._

_Cantuque_, Virgilius. _And hath often been sung at Hock-tide and

Festivals._ _Gavisus eram_, Jessides.

(It would seem to be a glimpse from the burning of Jacques du

Bourg-Molay, at Paris, A. D. 1314; as distorted by the refraction from

Flemish brain to brain, during the course of a couple of centuries. R.

B.)

PREADMONISHETH THE ABBOT DEODAET

THE Lord, we look to once for all,

Is the Lord we should look at, all at once:

He knows not to vary, saith Saint Paul,

Nor the shadow of turning, for the nonce.

See him no other than as he is!

Give both the infinitudes their due--

Infinite mercy, but, I wis,

As infinite a justice too.

[_Organ: plagal-cadence._

As infinite a justice too.

ONE SINGETH

John, Master of the Temple of God,

Falling to sin the Unknown Sin,

What he bought of Emperor Aldabrod,

He sold it to Sultan Saladin:

Till, caught by Pope Clement, a-buzzing there,

Hornet-prince of the mad wasps' hive,

And clipt of his wings in Paris square,

They bring him now to be burned alive.

[_And wanteth there grace of lute or clavicithern, ye shall say to

confirm him who singeth_--

We bring John now to be burned alive.

In the midst is a goodly gallows built;

'Twixt fork and fork, a stake is stuck;

But first they set divers tumbrils a-tilt,

Make a trench all round with the city muck;

Inside they pile log upon log, good store;

Fagots not few, blocks great and small,

Reach a man's mid-thigh, no less, no more,--

For they mean he should roast in the sight of all.

CHO.--We mean he should roast in the sight of all.

Good sappy bavins that kindle forthwith;

Billets that blaze substantial and slow;

Pine-stump split deftly, dry as pith;

Larch-heart that chars to a chalk-white glow:

Then up they hoist me John in a chafe,

Sling him fast like a hog to scorch,

Spit in his face, then leap back safe,

Sing "Laudes" and bid clap-to the torch.

CHO.--_Laus Deo_--who bids clap-to the torch.

John of the Temple, whose fame so bragged,

Is burning alive in Paris square!

How can he curse, if his mouth is gagged?

Or wriggle his neck, with a collar there?

Or heave his chest, which a band goes round?

Or threat with his fist, since his arms are spliced?

Or kick with his feet, now his legs are bound?

--Thinks John, I will call upon Jesus Christ.

[_Here one crosseth himself._

Jesus Christ--John had bought and sold,

Jesus Christ--John had eaten and drunk;

To him, the Flesh meant silver and gold.

(_Salva reverentia._)

Now it was, "Saviour, bountiful lamb,

I have roasted thee Turks, though men roast me!

See thy servant, the plight wherein I am!

Art thou a saviour? Save thou me!"

CHO.--'T is John the mocker cries, "Save thou me!"

Who maketh God's menace an idle word?

--Saith, it no more means what it proclaims,

Than a damsel's threat to her wanton bird?--

For she too prattles of ugly names.

--Saith, he knoweth but one thing,--what he knows?

That God is good and the rest is breath;

Why else is the same styled Sharon's rose?

Once a rose, ever a rose, he saith.

CHO.--Oh, John shall yet find a rose, he saith!

Alack, there be roses and roses, John!

Some, honeyed of taste like your leman's tongue:

Some, bitter; for why? (roast gayly on!)

Their tree struck root in devil's dung.

When Paul once reasoned of righteousness

And of temperance and of judgment to come,

Good Felix trembled, he could no less:

John, snickering, crook'd his wicked thumb.

CHO.--What cometh to John of the wicked thumb?

Ha ha, John plucketh now at his rose

To rid himself of a sorrow at heart!

Lo,--petal on petal, fierce rays unclose;

Anther on anther, sharp spikes outstart;

And with blood for dew, the bosom boils;

And a gust of sulphur is all its smell;

And lo, he is horribly in the toils

Of a coal-black giant flower of hell!

CHO.--What maketh heaven, That maketh hell.

So, as John called now, through the fire amain,

On the Name, he had cursed with, all his life--

To the Person, he bought and sold again--

For the Face, with his daily buffets rife--

Feature by feature It took its place:

And his voice, like a mad dog's choking bark,

At the steady whole of the Judge's face--

Died. Forth John's soul flared into the dark.

SUBJOINETH THE ABBOT DEODAET

God help all poor souls lost in the dark!

HOLY-CROSS DAY

ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN

ROME

The passage from a mock-historic Diary which follows is by Browning

himself.

"Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his

first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in the merciful

bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her

conspicuous table here in Rome should be, though but once yearly, cast

to the famishing dogs, under-trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the

feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of

the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally

brought--nay, (for He saith, 'Compel them to come in') haled, as it

were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to

partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving with

tears, what working of a yeasty conscience! Nor was my lord wanting to

himself on so apt an occasion; witness the abundance of conversions

which did incontinently reward him: though not to my lord be altogether

the glory."--_Diary by the Bishop's Secretary_, 1600.

What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather

to this effect:--

Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!

Blessedest Thursday 's the fat of the week.

Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough,

Stinking and savory, smug and gruff,

Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime

Gives us the summons--'t is sermon-time!

Boh, here 's Barnabas! Job, that 's you?

Up stumps Solomon--bustling too?

Shame, man! greedy beyond your years

To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears?

Fair play 's a jewel! Leave friends in the lurch?

Stand on a line ere you start for the church!

Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie,

Rats in a hamper, swine in a sty,

Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve,

Worms in a carcass, fleas in a sleeve.

Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs

And buzz for the bishop--here he comes.

Bow, wow, wow--a bone for the dog!

I liken his Grace to an acorned hog.

What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass,

To help and handle my lord's hour-glass!

Didst ever behold so lithe a chine?

His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine.

Aaron's asleep--shove hip to haunch,

Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch!

Look at the purse with the tassel and knob,

And the gown with the angel and thingumbob!

What's he at, quotha? reading his text!

Now you've his curtsey--and what comes next?

See to our converts--you doomed black dozen--

No stealing away--nor cog nor cozen!

You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly;

You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely;

You took your turn and dipped in the hat,

Got fortune--and fortune gets you; mind that!

Give your first groan--compunction's at work;

And soft! from a Jew you mount to a Turk.

Lo, Micah,--the selfsame beard on chin

He was four times already converted in!

Here's a knife, clip quick--it's a sign of grace--

Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face.

Whom now is the bishop a-leering at?

I know a point where his text falls pat.

I'll tell him to-morrow, a word just now

Went to my heart and made me vow

I meddle no more with the worst of trades--

Let somebody else pay his serenades.

Groan all together now, whee--hee--hee!

It's a-work, it's a-work, ah, woe is me!

It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed,

Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist;

Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent

To usher in worthily Christian Lent.

It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds,

Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds:

It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed

Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed:

And it overflows, when, to even the odd,

Men I helped to their sins help me to their God.

But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock,

And the rest sit silent and count the clock,

Since forced to muse the appointed time

On these precious facts and truths sublime,--

Let us fitly employ it, under our breath,

In saying Ben Ezra's Song of Death.

For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died,

Called sons and sons' sons to his side,

And spoke, "This world has been harsh and strange;

Something is wrong: there needeth a change.

But what, or where? at the last or first?

In one point only we sinned, at worst.

"The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet.

And again in his border see Israel set.

When Judah beholds Jerusalem,

The stranger-seed shall be joined to them:

To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave.

So the Prophet saith and his sons believe.

"Ay, the children of the chosen race

Shall carry and bring them to their place:

In the land of the Lord shall lead the same,

Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame.

When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o'er

The oppressor triumph forevermore?

"God spoke, and gave us the word to keep:

Bade never fold the hands nor sleep

'Mid a faithless world,--at watch and ward,

Till Christ at the end relieve our guard.

By his servant Moses the watch was set:

Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet.

"Thou! if thou wast he, who at mid-watch came,

By the starlight, naming a dubious name!

And if, too heavy with sleep--too rash

With fear--O thou, if that martyr-gash

Fell on thee coming to take thine own,

And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne--

"Thou art the Judge. We are bruisèd thus.

But, the Judgment over, join sides with us!

Thine too is the cause! and not more thine

Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine,

Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed,

Who maintain thee in word, and defy thee in deed!

"We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how

At least we withstand Barabbas now!

Was our outrage sore? But the worst we spared,

To have called these--Christians, had we dared!

Let defiance to them pay mistrust of thee,

And Rome make amends for Calvary!

"By the torture, prolonged from age to age.

By the infamy, Israel's heritage,

By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace,

By the badge of shame, by the felon's place,

By the branding-tool, the bloody whip,

And the summons to Christian fellowship,--

"We boast our proof that at least the Jew

Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew.

Thy face took never so deep a shade

But we fought them in it, God our aid!

A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band,

South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land!"[4]

PROTUS

Among these latter busts we count by scores,

Half-emperors and quarter-emperors.

Bach with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,

Lorie and low-browed Gorgon on the breast,--

One loves a baby face, with violets there,

Violets instead of laurel in the hair,

As those were all the little locks could bear.

Now read here. "Protus ends a period

Of empery beginning with a god;

Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant,

Queens by his cradle, proud and ministrant:

And if he quickened breath there, 't would like fire

Pantingly through the dim vast realm transpire.

A fame that he was missing spread afar:

The world, from its four corners, rose in war,

Till he was borne out on a balcony

To pacify the world when it should see.

The captains ranged before him, one, his hand

Made baby points at, gained the chief command.

And day by day more beautiful he grew

In shape, all said, in feature and in hue,

While young Greek sculptors, gazing on the child

Became with old Greek sculpture reconciled.

Already sages labored to condense

In easy tomes a life's experience:

And artists took grave counsel to impart

In one breath and one hand-sweep, all their art--

To make his graces prompt as blossoming

Of plentifully-watered palms in spring:

Since well beseems it, whoso mounts the throne,

For beauty, knowledge, strength, should stand alone,

And mortals love the letters of his name."

--Stop! Have you turned two pages? Still the same

New reign, same date. The scribe goes on to say

How that same year, on such a month and day,

"John the Pannonian, groundedly believed

A blacksmith's bastard, whose hard hand reprieved

The Empire from its fate the year before,--

Came, had a mind to take the crown, and wore

The same for six years (during which the Huns

Kept off their fingers from us), till his sons

Put something in his liquor"--and so forth.

Then a new reign. Stay--"Take at its just worth"

(Subjoins an annotator) "what I give

As hearsay. Some think, John let Protus live

And slip away. 'T is said, he reached man's age

At some blind northern court; made, first a page,

Then tutor to the children; last, of use

About the hunting-stables. I deduce

He wrote the little tract 'On worming dogs,'

Whereof the name in sundry catalogues

Is extant yet. A Protus of the race

Is rumored to have died a monk in Thrace,--

And if the same, he reached senility."

Here's John the Smith's rough-hammered head. Great eye,

Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can

To give you the crown-grasper. What a man!

THE STATUE AND THE BUST

This poem was published first in 1855 as an independent issue. A

correspondent of an American paper once asked the following questions

respecting this poem:--

"1. When, how, and where did it happen? Browning's divine vagueness

lets one gather only that the lady's husband was a Riccardi. 2. Who

was the lady? who the duke? 3. The magnificent house wherein Florence

lodges her préfet is known to all Florentine ball-goers as the Palazzo

Riccardi. It was bought by the Riccardi from the Medici in 1659. From

none of its windows did the lady gaze at her more than royal lover.

From what window, then, if from any? Are the statue and the bust still

in their original positions?"

The letter fell into the hands of Mr. Thomas J. Wise, who sent it to

Mr. Browning, and received the following answer.

Jan. 8, 1887.

DEAR MR. WISE,--I have seldom met with, such a strange

inability to understand what seems the plainest matter possible:

'ball-goers' are probably not history-readers, but any guide-book would

confirm what is sufficiently stated in the poem. I will append a note

or two, however. 1. 'This story the townsmen tell;' 'when, how, and

where,' constitutes the subject of the poem. 2. The lady was the wife

of Riccardi; and the duke, Ferdinand, just as the poem says. 3. As it

was built by, and inhabited by, the Medici till sold, long after, to

the Riccardi, it was not from the duke's palace, but a window in that

of the Riccardi, that the lady gazed at her lover riding by. The statue

is still in its place, looking at the window under which 'now is the

empty shrine.' Can anything be clearer? My 'vagueness' leaves what to

be 'gathered' when all these things are put down in black and white?

Oh, 'ball-goers'!"

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."

That 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.

"'T is 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 "'T was 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!"

And then to himself--"Which night shall bring

Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool--

Or I am the fool, and thou art the king!

"Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool--

For to-night the Envoy arrives from France

Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool.

"I need thee still and might miss perchance.

To-day is not wholly lost, beside,

With its hope of my lady's countenance:

"For I ride--what should I do but ride?

And passing her palace, if I list,

May glance at its window--well betide!"

So said, so done: nor the lady missed

One ray that broke from the ardent brow,

Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.

Be sure that each renewed the vow,

No morrow's sun should arise and set

And leave them then as it left them now.

But next day passed, and next day yet,

'With still fresh cause to wait one day more

Ere each leaped over the parapet.

And still, as love's brief morning wore,

With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh,

They found love not as it seemed before.

They thought it would work infallibly,

But not in despite of heaven and earth:

The rose would blow when the storm passed by.

Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth

By store of fruits that supplant the rose:

The world and its ways have a certain worth:

And to press a point while these oppose

Were simple policy; better wait:

We lose no friends and we gain no foes.

Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate,

Who daily may ride and pass and look

Where his lady watches behind the grate!

And she--she watched the square like a book

Holding one picture and only one,

Which daily to find she undertook:

When the picture was reached the book was done,

And she turned from the picture at night to scheme

Of tearing it out for herself next sun.

So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam

The glory dropped from their youth and love,

And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;

Which hovered as dreams do, still above:

But who can take a dream for a truth?

Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove!

One day as the lady saw her youth

Depart, and the silver thread that streaked

Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth,

The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked,--

And wondered who the woman was,

Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked,

Fronting her silent in the glass--

"Summon here," she suddenly said,

"Before the rest of my old self pass,

"Him, the Carver, a hand to aid,

Who fashions the clay no love will change,

And fixes a beauty never to fade.

"Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange

Arrest the remains of young and fair,

And rivet them while the seasons range.

"Make me a face on the window there,

Waiting as ever, mute the while,

My love to pass below in the square!

"And let me think that it may beguile

Dreary days which the dead must spend

Down in their darkness under the aisle,

"To say, 'What matters it at the end?

I did no more while my heart was warm

Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.'

"Where is the use of the lip's red charm,

The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow,

And the blood that blues the inside arm--

"Unless we turn, as the soul knows how,

The earthly gift to an end divine?

A lady of clay is as good, I trow."

But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine,

With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace,

Was set where now is the empty shrine--

(And, leaning out of a bright blue space,

As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky,

The passionate pale lady's face--

Eying ever, with earnest eye

And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch,

Some one who ever is passing by--)

The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch

In Florence, "Youth--my dream escapes!

Will its record stay?" And he bade them fetch

Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes--

"Can the soul, the will, die out of a man

Ere his body find the grave that gapes?

"John of Douay shall effect my plan,

Set me on horseback here aloft,

Alive, as the crafty sculptor can,

"In the very square I have crossed so oft:

That men may admire, when future suns

Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft,

"While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze--

Admire and say, 'When he was alive

How he would take his pleasure once!'

"And it shall go hard but I contrive

To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb

At idleness which aspires to strive."

* * * * *

So! While these wait the trump of doom,

How do their spirits pass, I wonder,

Nights and days in the narrow room?

Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder

What a gift life was, ages ago,

Six steps out of the chapel yonder.

Only they see not God, I know,

Nor all that chivalry of his,

The soldier-saints who, row on row,

Burn upward each to his point of bliss--

Since, the end of life being manifest,

He had burned his way through the world to this.

I hear you reproach, "But delay was best,

For their end was a crime."--Oh, a crime will do

As well, I reply, to serve for a test,

As a virtue golden through and through,

Sufficient to vindicate itself

And prove its worth at a moment's view!

Must a game be played for the sake of pelf?

Where a button goes, 't were an epigram

To offer the stamp of the very Guelph.

The true has no value beyond the sham:

As well the counter as coin, I submit,

When your table's a hat, and your prize, a dram.

Stake your counter as boldly every whit,

Venture as warily, use the same skill,

Do your best, whether winning or losing it,

If you choose to play!--is my principle.

Let a man contend to the uttermost

For his life's set prize, be it what it will!

The counter our lovers staked was lost

As surely as if it were lawful coin:

And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost

Is--the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,

Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.

You of the virtue (we issue join)

How strive you? _De te, fabula!_

PORPHYRIA'S LOVER

First printed in Mr. Fox's _Monthly Repository_ in 1836, under the

signature Z. When issued in _Bells and Pomegranates_ it was grouped

with _Johannes Agricola in Meditation_ as No. II. of _Madhouse Cells_.

The poem has an interest as the earliest, apparently, of Browning's

monologues.

The rain set early in to-night,

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall,

And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist,

And made her smooth white shoulder bare

And all her yellow hair displaced,

And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,

And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me--she

Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,

To set its struggling passion free

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me forever.

But passion sometimes would prevail,

Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale

For love of her, and all in vain:

So, she was come through wind and rain.

Be sure I looked up at her eyes

Happy and proud; at last I knew

Porphyria worshipped me; surprise

Made my heart swell, and still it grew

While I debated what to do.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds a bee,

I warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And I untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:

I propped her head up as before,

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still:

The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will,

That all it scorned at once is fled,

And I, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria's love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said a word!

"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"

See Edgar's song in _Lear_.

My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of his lie

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford

Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored

Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?

What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare

All travellers who might find him posted there,

And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh

Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph

For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree,

Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

So much as gladness that some end might be.

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering.

What with my search drawn out through years, my hope

Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

With that obstreperous joy success would bring,--

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring

My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

As when a sick man very near to death

Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end

The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend,

And hears one bid the other go, draw breath

Freelier outside, ("since all is o'er," he saith,

"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;")

While some discuss if near the other graves

Be room enough for this, and when a day

Suits best for carrying the corpse away,

With care about the banners, scarves and staves:

And still the man hears all, and only craves

He may not shame such tender love and stay.

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,

Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ

So many times among "The Band"--to wit,

The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed

Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best,

And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,

That hateful cripple, out of his highway

Into the path he pointed. All the day

Had been a dreary one at best, and dim

Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim

Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found

Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,

Than, pausing to throw backward a last view

O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round:

Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.

I might go on; naught else remained to do.

So, on I went. I think I never saw

Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:

For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove!

But cockle, spurge, according to their law

Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,

You'd think: a burr had been a treasure trove.

No! penury, inertness and grimace,

In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See

Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,

"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:

'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,

Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."

If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk

Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents

Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents

In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk

All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk

Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair

In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud

Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.

One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,

Stood stupefied, however he came there:

Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,

With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,

And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;

Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;.

I never saw a brute I hated so;

He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.

As a man calls for wine before he fights,

I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,

Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.

Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art:

One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face

Beneath its garniture of curly gold,

Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold

An arm in mine to fix me to the place,

That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!.

Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.

Giles then, the soul of honor--there he stands

Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.

What honest man should dare (he said) lie durst.

Good--but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands

Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands

Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!

Better this present than a past like that;

Back therefore to my darkening path again!

No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.

Will the night send a howlet or a bat?

I asked: when something on the dismal flat

Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

A sudden little river crossed my path

As unexpected as a serpent comes.

No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;

This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath

For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath

Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

So petty yet so spiteful! All along,

Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;

Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit

Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:

The river which had done them all the wrong,

Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.

Which, while I forded,--good saints, how I feared

To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,

Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!

--It may have been a water-rat I speared,

But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.

Glad was I when I reached the other bank.

Now for a better country. Vain presage!

Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,

Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank

Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,

Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.

What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?

No footprint leading to that horrid mews,

None out of it. Mad brewage set to work

Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk

Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

And more than that--a furlong on--why, there!

What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,

Or brake, not wheel--that harrow fit to reel

Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air

Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware,

Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,

Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth

Desperate and done with: (so a fool finds mirth,

Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood

Changes and off he goes!) within a rood--

Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.

Now blotches rankling, colored gay and grim,

Now patches where some leanness of the soil's

Broke into moss or substances like boils;

Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him

Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim

Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

And just as far as ever from the end!

Naught in the distance but the evening, naught

To point my footstep further! At the thought,

A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,

Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned

That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,

'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place

All round to mountains--with such name to grace

Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.

How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you!

How to get from them was no clearer case.

Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick

Of mischief happened to me, God knows when--

In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,

Progress this way. When, in the very nick

Of giving up, one time more, came a click

As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den!

Burningly it came on me all at once,

This was the place! those two hills on the right,

Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;

While to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,

Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,

After a life spent training for the sight!

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?

The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,

Built of brown stone, without a counterpart

In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf

Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf

He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day

Came back again for that! before it left,

The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:

The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,

Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,--

"Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!"

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled

Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears,

Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--

How such a one was strong, and such was bold,

And such was fortunate, yet each of old

Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

For one more picture! in a sheet of flame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,

And blew. "_Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came._"

A SOUL'S TRAGEDY

ACT FIRST, BEING WHAT WAS CALLED THE POETRY OF CHIAPPINO'S LIFE; AND

ACT SECOND, ITS PROSE

This drama was first printed with _Luria_ as the concluding number of

_Bells and Pomegranates_ in April, 1846.

PERSONS

LUITOLFO and EULALIA, betrothed lovers.

CHIAPPINO, their friend.

OGNIBEN, the Pope's Legate.

Citizens of Faenza.

TIME, 15--. Place, FAENZA.

ACT I

_Inside_ LUITOLFO'S _house._ CHIAPPINO, EULALIA.

_Eulalia._ What is it keeps Luitolfo? Night 's fast falling,

And 't was scarce sunset ... had the ave-bell

Sounded before he sought the Provost's house?

I think not: all he had to say would take

Few minutes, such a very few, to say!

How do you think, Chiappino? If our lord

The Provost were less friendly to your friend

Than everybody here professes him,

I should begin to tremble--should not you?

Why are you silent when so many times

I turn and speak to you?

_Chiappino._ That 's good!

_Eu._ You laugh!

_Ch._ Yes. I had fancied nothing that bears price

In the whole world was left to call my own;

And, maybe, felt a little pride thereat.

Up to a single man's or woman's love,

Down to the right in my own flesh and blood,

There 's nothing mine, I fancied,--till you spoke:

--Counting, you see, as "nothing" the permission

To study this peculiar lot of mine

In silence: well, go silence with the rest

Of the world's good! What can I say, shall serve?

_Eu._ This,--lest you, even more than needs, embitter

Our parting: say your wrongs have cast, for once,

A cloud across your spirit!

_Ch._ How a cloud?

_Eu._ No man nor woman loves you, did you say?

_Ch._ My God, were 't not for thee!

_Eu._ Ay, God remains,

Even did men forsake you.

_Ch._ Oh, not so!

Were 't not for God, I mean, what hope of truth--

Speaking truth, hearing truth, would stay with man?

I, now--the homeless friendless penniless

Proscribed and exiled wretch who speak to you,--

Ought to speak truth, yet could not, for my death,

(The thing that tempts me most) help speaking lies

About your friendship and Luitolfo's courage

And all our townsfolk's equanimity--

Through sheer incompetence to rid myself

Of the old miserable lying trick

Caught from the liars I have lived with,--God,

Did I not turn to thee! It is thy prompting

I dare to be ashamed of, and thy counsel

Would die along my coward lip, I know.

But I do turn to thee. This craven tongue,

These features which refuse the soul its way,

Reclaim thou! Give me truth--truth, power to speak

--And after be sole present to approve

The spoken truth! Or, stay, that spoken truth,

Who knows but you, too, may approve?

_Eu._ Ah, well--

Keep silence then, Chiappino!

_Ch._ You would hear,--

You shall now,--why the thing we please to style

My gratitude to you and all your friends

For service done me, is just gratitude

So much as yours was service: no whit more.

I was born here, so was Luitolfo; both

At one time, much with the same circumstance

Of rank and wealth; and both, up to this night

Of parting company, have side by side

Still fared, he in the sunshine--I, the shadow.

"Why?" asks the world. "Because," replies the world

To its complacent self, "these playfellows,

Who took at church the holy-water drop

Each from the other's finger, and so forth,--

Were of two moods: Luitolfo was the proper

Friend-making, everywhere friend-finding soul,

Fit for the sunshine, so, it followed him.

A happy-tempered bringer of the best

Out of the worst; who bears with what 's past cure,

And puts so good a face on 't--wisely passive

Where action 's fruitless, while he remedies

In silence what the foolish rail against;

A man to smooth such natures as parade

Of opposition must exasperate;

No general gauntlet-gatherer for the weak

Against the strong, yet over-scrupulous

At lucky junctures; one who won't forego

The after-battle work of binding wounds,

Because, forsooth he 'd have to bring himself

To side with wound-inflictors for their leave!"

--Why do you gaze, nor help me to repeat

What comes so glibly from the common mouth,

About Luitolfo and his so-styled friend?

_Eu._ Because, that friend's sense is obscured ...

_Ch._ I thought

You would be readier with the other half

Of the world's story, my half! Yet, 't is true.

For all the world does say it. Say your worst!

True, I thank God, I ever said "you sin,"

When a man did sin: if I could not say it,

I glared it at him; if I could not glare it,

I prayed against him; then my part seemed over.

God's may begin yet: so it will, I trust.

_Eu._ If the world outraged you, did we?

_Ch._ What 's "me"

That you use well or ill? It 's man, in me,

All your successes are an outrage to,

You all, whom sunshine follows, as you say!

Here 's our Faenza birthplace; they send here

A provost from Ravenna: how he rules,

You can at times be eloquent about.

"Then, end his rule!"--" Ah yes, one stroke does that!

But patience under wrong works slow and sure.

Must violence still bring peace forth? He, beside,

Returns so blandly one's obeisance! ah--

Some latent virtue may be lingering yet,

Some human sympathy which, once excite,

And all the lump were leavened quietly:

So, no more talk of striking, for this time!"

But I, as one of those he rules, won't bear

These pretty takings-up and layings-down

Our cause, just as you think occasion suits.

Enough of earnest, is there? You'll play, will you?

Diversify your tactics, give submission,

Obsequiousness and flattery a turn,

While we die in our misery patient deaths?

We all are outraged then, and I the first:

I, for mankind, resent each shrug and smirk,

Each beck and bend, each ... all you do and are,

I hate!

_Eu._ We share a common censure, then.

'T is well you have not poor Luitolfo's part

Nor mine to point out in the wide offence.

_Ch._ Oh, shall I let you so escape me, lady?

Come, on your own ground, lady,--from yourself,

(Leaving the people's wrong, which most is mine)

What have I got to be so grateful for?

These three last fines, no doubt, one on the other

Paid by Luitolfo?

_Eu._ Shame, Chiappino!

_Ch._ Shame

Fall presently on who deserves it most!

--Which is to see. He paid my fines--my friend,

Your prosperous smooth lover presently,

Then, scarce your wooer,--soon, your husband: well--

I loved you.

_Eu._ Hold!

_Ch._ You knew it, years ago.

When my voice faltered and my eye grew dim

Because you gave me your silk mask to hold--

My voice that greatens when there 's need to curse

The people's Provost to their heart's content,

--My eye, the Provost, who bears all men's eyes,

Banishes now because he cannot bear,--

You knew ... but you do your parts--my part, I:

So be it! You flourish, I decay: all 's well.

_Eu._ I hear this for the first time.

_Ch._ The fault 's there?

Then my days spoke not, and my nights of fire

Were voiceless? Then the very heart may burst.

Yet all prove naught, because no mincing speech

Tells leisurely that thus it is and thus?

Eulalia, truce with toying for this once!

A banished fool, who troubles you to-night

For the last time--why, what 's to fear from me?

You knew I loved you!

_Eu._ Not so, on my faith!

You were my now-affianced lover's friend--

Came in, went out with him, could speak as he.

All praise your ready parts and pregnant wit;

See how your words come from you in a crowd!

Luitolfo 's first to place you o'er himself

In all that challenges respect and love:

Yet you were silent then, who blame me now.

I say all this by fascination, sure:

I, all but wed to one I love, yet listen!

It must be, you are wronged, and that the wrongs

Luitolfo pities ...

_Ch._ --You too pity? Do!

But hear first what my wrongs are; so began

This talk and so shall end this talk. I say,

Was 't not enough that I must strive (I saw)

To grow so far familiar with your charms

As next contrive some way to win them--which

To do, an age seemed far too brief--for, see!

We all aspire to heaven; and there lies heaven

Above us: go there! Dare we go? no, surely!

How dare we go without a reverent pause,

A growing less unfit for heaven? Just so,

I dared not speak: the greater fool, it seems!

Was 't not enough to struggle with such folly,

But I must have, beside, the very man

Whose slight free loose and incapacious soul

Gave his tongue scope to say whate'er he would

--Must have him load me with his benefits

--For fortune's fiercest stroke?

_Eu._ Justice to him

That 's now entreating, at his risk perhaps,

Justice for you! Did he once call those acts

Of simple friendship--bounties, benefits?

_Ch._ No: the straight course had been to call them thus.

Then, I had flung them back, and kept myself

Unhampered, free as he to win the prize

We both sought. But "the gold was dross," he said:

"He loved me, and I loved him not: why spurn

A trifle out of superfluity?

He had forgotten he had done as much."

So had not I! Henceforth, try as I could

To take him at his word, there stood by you

My benefactor; who might speak and laugh

And urge his nothings, even banter me

Before you--but my tongue was tied. A dream!

Let 's wake: your husband ... how you shake at that!

Good--my revenge!

_Eu._ Why should I shake? What forced

Or forces me to be Luitolfo's bride?

_Ch._ There 's my revenge, that nothing forces you.

No gratitude, no liking of the eye

Nor longing of the heart, but the poor bond

Of habit--here so many times he came,

So much he spoke,--all these compose the tie

That pulls you from me. Well, he paid my fines,

Nor missed, a cloak from wardrobe, dish from table;

He spoke a good word to the Provost here,

Held me up when my fortunes fell away,

--It had not looked so well to let me drop,--

Men take pains to preserve a tree-stump, even,

Whose boughs they played beneath--much more a friend.

But one grows tired of seeing, after the first,

Pains spent upon impracticable stuff

Like me. I could not change: you know the rest:

I 've spoke my mind too fully out, by chance,

This morning to our Provost; so, ere night

I leave the city on pain of death. And now

On my account there 's gallant intercession

Goes forward--that 's so graceful!--and anon

He 'll noisily come back: "the intercession

Was made and fails; all 's over for us both;

'T is vain contending; I would better go."

And I do go--and straight to you he turns

Light of a load; and ease of that permits

His visage to repair the natural bland

Œconomy, sore broken late to suit

My discontent. Thus, all are pleased--you, with him,

He with himself, and all of you with me

--"Who," say the citizens, "had done far better

In letting people sleep upon their woes,

If not possessed with talent to relieve them

When once awake;--but then I had," they 'll say,

"Doubtless some unknown compensating pride

In what I did; and as I seem content

With ruining myself, why, so should they be."

And so they are, and so be with his prize

The devil, when he gets them speedily!

Why does not your Luitolfo come? I long

To don this cloak and take the Lugo path.

It seems you never loved me, then?

_Eu._ Chiappino!

_Ch._ Never?

_Eu._ Never.

_Ch._ That 's sad. Say what I might,

There was no help from being sure this while

You loved me. Love like mine must have return,

I thought: no river starts but to some sea.

And had you loved me, I could soon devise

Some specious reason why you stifled love,

Some fancied self-denial on your part,

Which made you choose Luitolfo; so, excepting

From the wide condemnation of all here,

One woman. Well, the other dream may break!

If I knew any heart, as mine loved you,

Loved me, though in the vilest breast 't were lodged,

I should, I think, be forced to love again:

Else there 's no right nor reason in the world.

_Eu._ "If you knew," say you,--but I did not know.

That 's where you 're blind, Chiappino!--a disease

Which if I may remove, I 'll not repent

The listening to. You cannot, will not, see

How, place you but in every circumstance

Of us, you are just now indignant at,

You 'd be as we.

_Ch._ I should be?... that; again!

I, to my friend, my country and my love,

Be as Luitolfo and these Faentines?

_Eu._ As we.

_Ch._ Now, I 'll say something to remember.

I trust in nature for the stable laws

Of beauty and utility.--Spring shall plant,

And Autumn garner to the end of time:

I trust in God--the right shall be the right

And other than the wrong, while he endures:

I trust in my own soul, that can perceive

The outward and the inward, nature's good

And God's: so, seeing these men and myself,

Having a right to speak, thus do I speak.

I 'll not curse--God bears with them, well may I--

But I--protest against their claiming me.

I simply say, if that 's allowable,

I would not (broadly) do as they have done.

--God curse this townful of born slaves, bred slaves,

Branded into the blood and bone, slaves! Curse

Whoever loves, above his liberty,

House, land or life! and ...

[_A knocking without._

--bless my hero-friend,

Luitolfo!

_Eu._ How he knocks!

_Ch._ The peril, lady!

"Chiappino, I have run a risk--a risk!

For when I prayed the Provost (he 's my friend)

To grant you a week's respite of the sentence

That confiscates your goods, exiles yourself,

He shrugged his shoulder--I say, shrugged it! Yes,

And fright of that drove all else from my head.

Here 's a good purse of _scudi:_ off with you,

Lest of that shrug come what God only knows!

The _scudi_--friend, they 're trash--no thanks, I beg!

Take the north gate,--for San Vitale's suburb,

Whose double taxes you appealed against,

In discomposure at your ill-success

Is apt to stone you: there, there--only go!

Beside, Eulalia here looks sleepily.

Shake ... oh, you hurt me, so you squeeze my wrist!"

--Is it not thus you 'll speak, adventurous friend?

[_As he opens the door_, LUITOLFO _rushes in, his garments

disordered_.

_Eu._ Luitolfo! Blood?

_Luitolfo._ There 's more--and more of it!

Eulalia--take the garment! No--you, friend!

You take it and the blood from me--you dare!

_Eu._ Oh, who has hurt you? where's the wound?

_Ch._ "Who," say you?

The man with many a touch of virtue yet!

The Provost's friend has proved too frank of speech,

And this comes of it. Miserable hound!

This comes of temporizing, as I said!

Here 's fruit of your smooth speeches and soft looks!

Now see my way! As God lives, I go straight

To the palace and do justice, once for all!

_Luit._ What says he?

_Ch._ I'll do justice on him.

_Luit._ Him?

_Ch._ The Provost.

_Luit._ I 've just killed him.

_Eu._ Oh, my God!

_Luit._ My friend, they 're on my trace; they 'll have me--now!

They 're round him, busy with him: soon they 'll find

He 's past their help, and then they 'll be on me!

Chiappino, save Eulalia! I forget ...

Were you not bound for ...

_Ch._ Lugo?

_Luit._ Ah--yes--yes!

That was the point I prayed of him to change.

Well, go--be happy! Is Eulalia safe?

They 're on me!

_Ch._ 'T is through me they reach you, then!

Friend, seem the man you are! Lock arms--that 's right!

Now tell me what you 've done; explain how you,

That still professed forbearance, still preached peace,

Could bring yourself ...

_Luit._ What was peace for, Chiappino?

I tried peace: did that promise, when peace failed,

Strife should not follow? All my peaceful days

Were just the prelude to a day like this.

I cried "You call me 'friend': save my true friend!

Save him, or lose me!"

_Ch._ But you never said

You meant to tell the Provost thus and thus.

_Luit._ Why should I say it? What else did I mean?

_Ch._ Well? He persisted?

_Luit._ --"Would so order it

You should not trouble him too soon again."

I saw a meaning in his eye and lip;

I poured my heart's store of indignant words

Out on him: then--I know not! He retorted.

And I ... some staff lay there to hand--I think

He bade his servants thrust me out--I struck ...

Ah, they come! Fly you, save yourselves, you two!

The dead back-weight of the beheading axe!

The glowing trip-hook, thumbscrews and the gadge!

_Eu._ They do come! Torches in the Place! Farewell,

Chiappino! You can work no good to us--

Much to yourself; believe not, all the world

Must needs be cursed henceforth!

_Ch._ And you?

_Eu._ I stay.

_Ch_. Ha, ha! Now, listen! I am master here!

This was my coarse disguise; this paper shows

My path of flight and place of refuge--see--

Lugo, Argenta, past San Nicolo,

Ferrara, then to Venice and all 's safe!

Put on the cloak! His people have to fetch

A compass round about. There 's time enough

Ere they can reach us, so you straightway make

For Lugo ... nay, he hears not! On with it--

The cloak, Luitolfo, do you hear me? See--

He obeys he knows not how. Then, if I must--

Answer me! Do you know the Lugo gate?

_Eu._ The northwest gate, over the bridge?

_Luit._ I know.

_Ch._ Well, there--you are not frightened? all my route

Is traced in that: at Venice you escape

Their power. Eulalia, I am master here!

[_Shouts from without. He pushes out_ LUITOLFO, _who complies

mechanically_.

In time! Nay, help me with him--so! He 's gone.

_Eu._ What have you done? On you, perchance, all know

The Provost's hater, will men's vengeance fall

As our accomplice.

_Ch._ Mere accomplice? See!

[_Putting on_ LUITOLFO'S _vest_.

Now, lady, am I true to my profession,

Or one of these?

_Eu._ You take Luitolfo's place?

_Ch._ Die for him.

_Eu._ Well done!

[_Shouts increase._

_Ch._ How the people tarry!

I can't be silent; I must speak: or sing--

How natural to sing now!

_Eu._ Hush and pray!

We are to die; but even I perceive

'T is not a very hard thing so to die.

My cousin of the pale-blue tearful eyes,

Poor Cesca, suffers more from one day's life

With the stern husband; Tisbe's heart goes forth

Each evening after that wild son of hers,

To track his thoughtless footstep through the streets:

How easy for them both to die like this!

I am not sure that I could live as they.

_Ch._ Here they come, crowds! they pass the gate? Yes!--No!--

One torch is in the courtyard. Here flock all.

_Eu._ At least Luitolfo has escaped. What cries!

_Ch._ If they would drag one to the marketplace,

One might speak there!