"If he rejoin, 'But this was all the while

A trick; the fault was, first of all, in thee,

Thy story of the places, names and dates,

Where, when and how the ultimate truth had rise,

--Thy prior truth, at last discovered none,

Whence now the second suffers detriment.

What good of giving knowledge if, because

O' the manner of the gift, its profit fail?

And why refuse what modicum of help

Had stopped the after-doubt, impossible

I' the face of tenth--truth absolute, uniform?

Why must I hit of this and miss of that,

Distinguish just as I be weak or strong,

And not ask of thee and have answer prompt,

Was this once, was it not once?--then and now

And evermore, plain truth from man to man.

Is John's procedure just the heathen bard's?

Put question of his famous play again

How for the ephemerals' sake, Jove's fire was filched,

And carried in a cane and brought to earth:

_The fact is in the fable_, cry the wise,

_Mortals obtained the boon, so much is fact,_

_Though fire be spirit and produced on earth._

As with the Titan's, so now with thy tale:

Why breed in us perplexity, mistake,

Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words?'

"I answer, Have ye yet to argue out

The very primal thesis, plainest law,

--Man is not God but hath God's end to serve,

A master to obey, a course to take,

Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become?

Grant this, then man must pass from old to new,

From vain to real, from mistake to fact,

From what once seemed good, to what now proves best.

How could man have progression otherwise?

Before the point was mooted 'What is God?'

No savage man inquired 'What am myself?'

Much less replied, 'First, last, and best of things.'

Man takes that title now if he believes

Might can exist with neither will nor love,

In God's case--what he names now Nature's Law--

While in himself he recognizes love

No less than might and will: and rightly takes.

Since if man prove the sole existent thing

Where these combine, whatever their degree,

However weak the might or will or love,

So they be found there, put in evidence,--

He is as surely higher in the scale

Than any might with neither love nor will,

As life, apparent in the poorest midge,

(When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wing,)

Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' self--

Given to the nobler midge for resting-place!

Thus, man proves best and highest--God, in fine,

And thus the victory leads but to defeat,

The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall,

His life becomes impossible, which is death.

"But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch

He is mere man, and in humility

Neither may know God nor mistake himself;

I point to the immediate consequence

And say, by such confession straight he falls

Into man's place, a thing nor God nor beast,

Made to know that he can know and not more:

Lower than God who knows all and can all,

Higher than beasts which know and can so far

As each beast's limit, perfect to an end,

Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more;

While man knows partly but conceives beside,

Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact,

And in this striving, this converting air

Into a solid he may grasp and use,

Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone,

Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are,

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.

Such progress could no more attend his soul

Were all it struggles after found at first

And guesses changed to knowledge absolute,

Than motion wait his body, were all else

Than it the solid earth on every side,

Where now through space he moves from rest to rest.

Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect

He could not, what he knows now, know at first;

What he considers that he knows to-day,

Come but to-morrow, he will find misknown;

Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns

Because he lives, which is to be a man,

Set to instruct himself by his past self:

First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn,

Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind,

Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law.

God's gift was that man should conceive of truth

And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake,

As midway help till he reach fact indeed.

The statuary ere he mould a shape

Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and next

The aspiration to produce the same;

So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout,

Cries ever 'Now I have the thing I see:'

Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought,

From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself.

How were it had he cried, 'I see no face,

No breast, no feet i' the ineffectual clay'?

Rather commend him that he clapped his hands,

And laughed 'It is my shape and lives again!'

Enjoyed the falsehood, touched it on to truth,

Until yourselves applaud the flesh indeed

In what is still flesh-imitating clay.

Right in you, right in him, such way be man's!

God only makes the live shape at a jet.

Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship?

The pattern on the Mount subsists no more,

Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness;

But copies, Moses strove to make thereby,

Serve still and are replaced as time requires:

By these, make newest vessels, reach the type!

If ye demur, this judgment on your head,

Never to reach the ultimate, angels' law,

Indulging every instinct of the soul

There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!

"Such is the burden of the latest time.

I have survived to hear it with my ears,

Answer it with my lips: does this suffice?

For if there be a further woe than such,

Wherein my brothers struggling need a hand,

So long as any pulse is left in mine,

May I be absent even longer yet,

Plucking the blind ones back from the abyss,

Though I should tarry a new hundred years!"

But he was dead: 't was about noon, the day

Somewhat declining: we five buried him

That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways,

And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus.

By this, the cave's mouth must be filled with sand.

Valens is lost, I know not of his trace;

The Bactrian was but a wild childish man,

And could not write nor speak, but only loved:

So, lest the memory of this go quite,

Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts,

I tell the same to Phœbas, whom believe!

For many look again to find that face,

Beloved John's to whom I ministered,

Somewhere in life about the world; they err:

Either mistaking what was darkly spoke

At ending of his book, as he relates,

Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech

Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose.

Believe ye will not see him any more

About the world with his divine regard!

For all was as I say, and now the man

Lies as he lay once, breast to breast with God.

* * * * *

[Cerinthus read and mused; one added this:

"If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men

Mere man, the first and best but nothing more,--

Account him, for reward of what he was,

Now and forever, wretchedest of all.

For see; himself conceived of life as love,

Conceived of love as what must enter in,

Fill up, make one with his each soul he loved:

Thus much for man's joy, all men's joy for him.

Well, he is gone, thou sayest, to fit reward.

But by this time are many souls set free,

And very many still retained alive:

Nay, should his coming be delayed awhile,

Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute),

See if, for every finger of thy hands,

There be not found, that day the world shall end,

Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ's word

That he will grow incorporate with all,

With me as Pamphylax, with him as John,

Groom for each bride! Can a mere man do this?

Yet Christ saith, this he lived and died to do.

Call Christ, then, the illimitable God,

Or lost!"

But 't was Cerinthus that is lost.]

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS;

OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself."

['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,

Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,

With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.

And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,

And feels about his spine small eft-things course,

Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:

And while above his head a pompion-plant,

Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,

Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,

And now a flower drops with a bee inside,

And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,--

He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross

And recross till they weave a spider-web,

(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times,)

And talks to his own self, howe'er he please,

Touching that other, whom his dam called God.

Because to talk about Him, vexes--ha,

Could He but know! and time to vex is now,

When talk is safer than in winter-time.

Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep

In confidence he drudges at their task,

And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,

Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]

Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!

'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.

'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,

But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;

Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:

Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,

And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.

'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:

He hated that He cannot change His cold,

Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish

That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,

And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine

O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,

A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;

Only, she ever sickened, found repulse

At the other kind of water, not her life,

(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun,)

Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,

And in her old bounds buried her despair,

Hating and loving warmth alike: so He.

'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,

Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.

Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;

Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,

That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown

He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye

By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue

That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,

And says a plain word when she finds her prize,

But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves

That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks

About their hole--He made all these and more,

Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?

He could not, Himself, make a second self

To be His mate; as well have made Himself:

He would not make what He mislikes or slights,

An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains:

But did, in envy, listlessness or sport,

Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be--

Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,

Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,

Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it.

Because, so brave, so better though they be,

It nothing skills if He begin to plague.

Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,

Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,

Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,--

Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,

Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain;

Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme,

And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.

Put case, unable to be what I wish,

I yet could make a live bird out of clay:

Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban

Able to fly?--for, there, see, he hath wings,

And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,

And there, a sting to do his foes offence,

There, and I will that he begin to live,

Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns

Of grigs high up that make the merry din,

Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not.

In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,

And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh;

And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,

Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,

Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,--

Well, as the chance were, this might take or else

Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,

And give the manikin three sound legs for one,

Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,

And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.

Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,

Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,

Making and marring clay at will? So He.

'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,

Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.

'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs

That march now from the mountain to the sea;

'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,

Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.

'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots

Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;

'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,

And two worms he whose nippers end in red;

As it likes me each time, I do: so He.

Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main,

Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,

But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!

Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,

And envieth that, so helped, such things do more

Than He who made them! What consoles but this?

That they, unless through Him, do naught at all,

And must submit: what other use in things?

'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint

That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay

When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:

Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay

Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt:

Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth,

"I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,

I make the cry my maker cannot make

With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!"

Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?

Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,

What knows,--the something over Setebos

That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,

Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.

There may be something quiet o'er His head,

Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,

Since both derive from weakness in some way.

I joy because the quails come; would not joy

Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:

This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.

'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,

But never spends much thought nor care that way.

It may look up, work up,--the worse for those

It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos

The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,

Who, making Himself feared through what He does,

Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar

To what is quiet and hath happy life;

Next looks down here, and out of very spite

Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,

These good things to match those as hips do grapes.

'T is solace making baubles, ay, and sport.

Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books

Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:

Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,

Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;

Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;

Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe

The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;

And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,

A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,

Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,

And saith she is Miranda and my wife:

'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane

He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;

Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,

Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,

And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge

In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;

A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.

'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,

Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.

His dam held that the Quiet made all things

Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.

Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.

Had He meant other, while His hand was in,

Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,

Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,

Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint,

Like an orc's armor? Ay,--so spoil His sport!

He is the One now: only He doth all.

'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.

Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?

'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast

Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,

But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate

Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.

Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,

Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,

By no means for the love of what is worked.

'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world

When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,

And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,

Than trying what to do with wit and strength.

'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,

And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,

And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,

And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,

And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,

Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.

No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;

'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.

'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!

One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.

He hath a spite against me, that I know,

Just as He favors Prosper, who knows why?

So it is, all the same, as well I find.

'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm

With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises

Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,

Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,

Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,

And licked the whole labor flat: so much for spite.

'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)

Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade:

Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!

'Dug up a newt He may have envied once

And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.

Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does?

Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!

There is the sport: discover how or die!

All need not die, for of the things o' the isle

Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;

Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most

When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice!

Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.

You must not know His ways, and play Him off,

Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:

'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears

But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,

And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:

'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,

Curls up into a ball, pretending death

For fright at my approach: the two ways please.

But what would move my choler more than this,

That either creature counted on its life

To-morrow and next day and all days to come,

Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart,

"Because he did so yesterday with me,

And otherwise with such another brute,

So must he do henceforth and always."--Ay?

Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means!

'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.

'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,

And we shall have to live in fear of Him

So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,

If He have done His best, make no new world

To please Him more, so leave off watching this,--

If He surprise not even the Quiet's self

Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it

As grubs grow butterflies: else, here we are,

And there is He, and nowhere help at all.

'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.

His dam held different, that after death

He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:

Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,

Giving just respite lest we die through pain,

Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end.

Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire

Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,

Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,

Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.

'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball

On head and tail as if to save their lives:

Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.

Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose

This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,

And always, above all else, envies Him;

Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,

Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,

And never speaks his mind save housed as now:

Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here,

O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"

'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,

Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,

Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,

Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:

While myself lit a fire, and made a song

And sung it, "_What I hate, be consecrate_

_To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate_

_For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?_"

Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,

Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,

That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch

And conquer Setebos, or likelier He

Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.

* * * * *

[What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!

Crickets stop hissing; not a bird--or, yes,

There scuds His raven that has told Him all!

It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind

Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,

And fast invading fires begin! White blaze--

A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there,

His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!

Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!

'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,

Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month

One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]

CONFESSIONS

What is he buzzing in my ears?

"Now that I come to die,

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"

Ah, reverend sir, not I!

What I viewed there once, what I view again

Where the physic bottles stand

On the table's edge,--is a suburb lane,

With a wall to my bedside hand.

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,

From a house you could descry

O'er the garden-wall; is the curtain blue

Or green to a healthy eye?

To mine, it serves for the old June weather

Blue above lane and wall;

And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"

Is the house o'ertopping all.

At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,

There watched for me, one June,

A girl: I know, sir, it 's improper,

My poor mind 's out of tune.

Only, there was a way ... you crept

Close by the side, to dodge

Eyes in the house, two eyes except:

They styled their house "The Lodge."

What right had a lounger up their lane?

But, by creeping very close,

With the good wall's help,--their eyes might strain

And stretch themselves to Oes,

Yet never catch her and me together,

As she left the attic, there,

By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"

And stole from stair to stair,

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,

We loved, sir--used to meet:

How sad and bad and mad it was--

But then, how it was sweet!

MAY AND DEATH

Among Browning's companions in boyhood were three Silverthornes,

cousins on his mother's side. The name of Charles in the poem stands

for the more familiar Jim, and it was in remembrance of him, the eldest

and most talented of the three, that this poem was written. First

published in _The Keepsake_, 1857.

I wish that when you died last May,

Charles, there had died along with you

Three parts of spring's delightful things;

Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.

A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps!

There must be many a pair of friends

Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm

Moon-births and the long evening-ends.

So, for their sake, be May still May!

Let their new time, as mine of old,

Do all it did for me: I bid

Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold.

Only, one little sight, one plant,

Woods have in May, that starts up green

Save a sole streak which, so to speak,

Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,--

That, they might spare; a certain wood

Might miss the plant; their loss were small:

But I,--whene'er the leaf grows there,

Its drop comes from my heart, that 's all.

DEAF AND DUMB

A GROUP BY WOOLNER

Only the prism's obstruction shows aright

The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light

Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;

So may a glory from defect arise:

Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak

Its insuppressive sense on brow and cheek,

Only by Dumbness adequately speak

As favored mouth could never, through the eyes.

PROSPICE

Written in the autumn following Mrs. Browning's death. The closing

lines intensify the association.

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,

The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote

I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,

The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,

Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,

And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,

The black minute's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,

Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,

Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,

And with God be the rest!

EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS

A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON

First published, without metrical divisions, in the _Royal Academy

Catalogue_, 1864.

But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow!

Let them once more absorb me! One look now

Will lap me round forever, not to pass

Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond:

Hold me but safe again within the bond

Of one immortal look! All woe that was,

Forgotten, and all terror that may be,

Defied,--no past is mine, no future: look at me!

YOUTH AND ART

It once might have been, once only:

We lodged in a street together,

You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,

I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

Your trade was with sticks and clay,

You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,

Then laughed "They will see some day

Smith made, and Gibson demolished."

My business was song, song, song;

I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered,

"Kate Brown's on the boards ere long,

And Grisi's existence embittered!"

I earned no more by a warble

Than you by a sketch in plaster;

You wanted a piece of marble,

I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles,

Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,

For air, looked out on the tiles,

For fun, watched each other's windows.

You lounged, like a boy of the South,

Cap and blouse--nay, a bit of beard too;

Or you got it, rubbing your mouth

With fingers the clay adhered to.

And I--soon managed to find

Weak points in the flower-fence facing,

Was forced to put up a blind

And be safe in my corset-lacing.

No harm! It was not my fault

If you never turned your eye's tail up

As I shook upon E _in alt._,

Or ran the chromatic scale up:

For spring bade the sparrows pair,

And the boys and girls gave guesses,

And stalls in our street looked rare

With bulrush and watercresses.

Why did not you pinch a flower

In a pellet of clay and fling it?

Why did not I put a power

Of thanks in a look, or sing it?

I did look, sharp as a lynx,

(And yet the memory rankles,)

When models arrived, some minx

Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.

But I think I gave you as good!

"That foreign fellow,--who can know

How she pays, in a playful mood,

For his tuning her that piano?"

Could you say so, and never say,

"Suppose we join hands and fortunes,

And I fetch her from over the way,

Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes"?

No, no: you would not be rash,

Nor I rasher and something over:

You 've to settle yet Gibson's hash,

And Grisi yet lives in clover.

But you meet the Prince at the Board,

I 'm queen myself at _bals-paré_,

I 've married a rich old lord,

And you 're dubbed knight and an R. A.

Each life unfulfilled, you see;

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:

We have not sighed deep, laughed free,

Starved, feasted, despaired,--been happy,

And nobody calls you a dunce,

And people suppose me clever:

This could but have happened once,

And we missed it, lost it forever.

A FACE

If one could have that little head of hers

Painted upon a background of pale gold,

Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers!

No shade encroaching on the matchless mould

Of those two lips, which should be opening soft

In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,

For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft

Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's

Burden of honey-colored buds to kiss

And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.

Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,

How it should waver on the pale gold ground

Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!

I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts

Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb

Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:

But these are only massed there, I should think,

Waiting to see some wonder momently

Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky

(That 's the pale ground you 'd see this sweet face by),

All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye

Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

A LIKENESS

Some people hang portraits up

In a room where they dine or sup:

And the wife clinks tea-things under,

And her cousin, he stirs his cup,

Asks, "Who was the lady, I wonder?"

"'T is a daub John bought at a sale,"

Quoth the wife,--looks black as thunder.

"What a shade beneath her nose!

Snuff-taking, I suppose,"--

Adds the cousin, while John's corns ail.

Or else, there 's no wife in the case,

But the portrait 's queen of the place,

Alone 'mid the other spoils

Of youth,--masks, gloves and foils,

And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,

And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,

And the cast from a fist ("not, alas! mine,

But my master's, the Tipton Slasher"),

And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,

And a satin shoe uses for cigar-case,

And the chamois-horns ("shot in the Chablais"),

And prints--Rarey drumming on Cruiser,

And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,

And the little edition of Rabelais:

Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets,

May saunter up close to examine it,

And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it,

"But the eyes are half out of their sockets;

That hair 's not so bad, where the gloss is,

But they 've made the girl's nose a proboscis:

Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy!

What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?"

All that I own is a print,

An etching, a mezzotint;

'T is a study, a fancy, a fiction,

Yet a fact (take my conviction)

Because it has more than a hint

Of a certain face, I never

Saw elsewhere touch or trace of

In women I 've seen the face of:

Just an etching, and, so far, clever.

I keep my prints, an imbroglio,

Fifty in one portfolio.

When somebody tries my claret,

We turn round chairs to the fire,

Chirp over days in a garret,

Chuckle o'er increase of salary,

Taste the good fruits of our leisure,

Talk about pencil and lyre,

And the National Portrait Gallery:

Then I exhibit my treasure.

After we 've turned over twenty,

And the debt of wonder my crony owes

Is paid to my Marc Antonios,

He stops me--"_Festina lentè!_

What 's that sweet thing there, the etching?"

How my waistcoat-strings want stretching,

How my cheeks grow red as tomatoes,

How my heart leaps! But hearts, after leaps, ache.

"By the by, you must take, for a keepsake,

That other, you praised, of Volpato's."

The fool! would he try a flight further and say--

He never saw, never before to-day,

What was able to take his breath away,

A face to lose youth for, to occupy age

With the dream of, meet death with,--why, I 'll not engage

But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage,

I should toss him the thing's self--"'T is only a duplicate,

A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!"

MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM"

Mr. D. D. Home, an American spiritualist, attracted much attention in

the circle in which Mr. and Mrs. Browning lived in Florence.

Now, don't, sir! Don't expose me! Just this once!

This was the first and only time, I 'll swear,--

Look at me,--see, I kneel,--the only time,

I swear, I ever cheated,--yes, by the soul

Of Her who hears--(your sainted mother, sir!)

All, except this last accident, was truth--

This little kind of slip!--and even this,

It was your own wine, sir, the good champagne,

(I took it for Catawba, you 're so kind,)

Which put the folly in my head!

"Get up?"

You still inflict on me that terrible face?

You show no mercy?--Not for Her dear sake,

The sainted spirit's, whose soft breath even now

Blows on my cheek--(don't you feel something, sir?)

You 'll tell?

Go tell, then! Who the devil cares

What such a rowdy chooses to ...

Aie--aie--aie!

Please, sir! your thumbs are through my windpipe, sir!

Ch--ch!

Well, sir, I hope you 've done it now!

Oh Lord! I little thought, sir, yesterday,

When your departed mother spoke those words

Of peace through me, and moved you, sir, so much,

You gave me--(very kind it was of you)

These shirt-studs--(better take them back again,

Please, sir)--yes, little did I think so soon

A trifle of trick, all through a glass too much

Of his own champagne, would change my best of friends

Into an angry gentleman!

Though, 't was wrong.

I don't contest the point; your anger 's just:

Whatever put such folly in my head,

I know 't was wicked of me. There 's a thick

Dusk undeveloped spirit (I 've observed)

Owes me a grudge--a negro's, I should say,

Or else an Irish emigrant's; yourself

Explained the case so well last Sunday, sir,

When we had summoned Franklin to clear up

A point about those shares i' the telegraph:

Ay, and he swore ... or might it be Tom Paine? ...

Thumping the table close by where I crouched,

He 'd do me soon a mischief: that 's come true!

Why, now your face clears! I was sure it would!

Then, this one time ... don't take your hand away,

Through yours I surely kiss your mother's hand ...

You 'll promise to forgive me?--or, at least,

Tell nobody of this? Consider, sir!

What harm can mercy do? Would but the shade

Of the venerable dead-one just vouchsafe

A rap or tip! What bit of paper 's here?

Suppose we take a pencil, let her write,

Make the least sign, she urges on her child

Forgiveness? There now! Eh? Oh! 'T was your foot,

And not a natural creak, sir?

Answer, then!

Once, twice, thrice ... see, I 'm waiting to say "thrice!"

All to no use? No sort of hope for me?

It 's all to post to Greeley's newspaper?

What? If I told you all about the tricks?

Upon my soul!--the whole truth, and naught else.

And how there 's been some falsehood--for your part,

Will you engage to pay my passage out,

And hold your tongue until I 'm safe on board?

England 's the place, not Boston--no offence!

I see what makes you hesitate: don't fear!

I mean to change my trade and cheat no more,

Yes, this time really it 's upon my soul!

Be my salvation!--under Heaven, of course.

I 'll tell some queer things. Sixty V's must do.

A trifle, though, to start with! We 'll refer

The question to this table?

How you 're changed!

Then split the difference; thirty more, we 'll say.

Ay, but you leave my presents! Else I 'll swear

'T was all through those: you wanted yours again,

So, picked a quarrel with me, to get them back!

Tread on a worm, it turns, sir! If I turn,

Your fault! 'T is you 'll have forced me! Who 's obliged

To give up life yet try no self-defence?

At all events, I 'll run the risk. Eh?

Done!

May I sit, sir? This dear old table, now!

Please, sir, a parting eggnog and cigar!

I 've been so happy with you! Nice stuffed chairs,

And sympathetic sideboards; what an end

To all the instructive evenings! (It 's alight.)

Well, nothing lasts, as Bacon came and said.

Here goes,--but keep your temper, or I 'll scream!

Fol-lol-the-rido-liddle-iddle-ol!

You see, sir, it 's your own fault more than mine;

It 's all your fault, you curious gentlefolk!

You 're prigs,--excuse me,--like to look so spry,

So clever, while you cling by half a claw

To the perch whereon you puff yourselves at roost,

Such piece of self-conceit as serves for perch

Because you chose it, so it must be safe.

Oh, otherwise you 're sharp enough! You spy

Who slips, who slides, who holds by help of wing,

Wanting real foothold,--who can't keep upright

On the other perch, your neighbor chose, not you:

There 's no outwitting you respecting him!

For instance, men love money--that, you know--

And what men do to gain it: well, suppose

A poor lad, say a help's son in your house,

Listening at keyholes, hears the company

Talk grand of dollars, V-notes, and so forth,

How hard they are to get, how good to hold,

How much they buy,--if, suddenly, in pops he--

"_I_ 've got a V-note!"--what do you say to him?

What 's your first word which follows your last kick?

"Where did you steal it, rascal?" That 's because

He finds you, fain would fool you, off your perch,

Not on the special piece of nonsense, sir,

Elected your parade-ground: let him try

Lies to the end of the list,--"He picked it up,

His cousin died and left it him by will,

The President flung it to him, riding by,

An actress trucked it for a curl of his hair,

He dreamed of luck and found his shoe enriched,

He dug-up clay, and out of clay made gold"--

How would you treat such possibilities!

Would not you, prompt, investigate the case

With cowhide? "Lies, lies, lies," you 'd shout: and why?

Which of the stories might not prove mere truth?

This last, perhaps, that clay was turned to coin!

Let 's see, now, give him me to speak for him!

How many of your rare philosophers,

In plaguy books I 've had to dip into,

Believed gold could be made thus, saw it made,

And made it? Oh, with such philosophers

You 're on your best behavior! While the lad--

With him, in a trice, you settle likelihoods,

Nor doubt a moment how he got his prize:

In his case, you hear, judge and execute,

All in a breath: so would most men of sense.

But let the same lad hear you talk as grand

At the same keyhole, you and company,

Of signs and wonders, the invisible world;

How wisdom scouts our vulgar unbelief

More than our vulgarest credulity;

How good men have desired to see a ghost,

What Johnson used to say, what Wesley did,

Mother Goose thought, and fiddle-diddle-dee:--

If he break in with, "Sir, _I_ saw a ghost!"

Ah, the ways change! He finds you perched and prim;

It 's a conceit of yours that ghosts may be:

There 's no talk now of cowhide. "Tell it out!

Don't fear us! Take your time and recollect!

Sit down first: try a glass of wine, my boy!

And, David, (is not that your Christian name?)

Of all things, should this happen twice--it may--

Be sure, while fresh in mind, you let us know!"

Does the boy blunder, blurt out this, blab that,

Break down in the other, as beginners will?

All 's candor, all 's considerateness--"No haste!

Pause and collect yourself! We understand!

That 's the bad memory, or the natural shock,

Or the unexplained _phenomena!_"

Egad,

The boy takes heart of grace; finds, never fear,

The readiest way to ope your own heart wide,

Show--what I call your peacock-perch, pet post

To strut, and spread the tail, and squawk upon!

"Just as you thought, much as you might expect!

There be more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," ...

And so on. Shall not David take the hint,

Grow bolder, stroke you down at quickened rate?

If he ruffle a feather, it 's "Gently, patiently!

Manifestations are so weak at first!

Doubting, moreover, kills them, cuts all short,

Cures with a vengeance!"

There, sir, that 's your style!

You and your boy--such pains bestowed on him,

Or any headpiece of the average worth,

To teach, say, Greek, would perfect him apace,

Make him a Person ("Porson?" thank you, sir!)

Much more, proficient in the art of lies.

You never leave the lesson! Fire alight,

Catch you permitting it to die! You 've friends;

There 's no withholding knowledge,--least from those

Apt to look elsewhere for their souls' supply:

Why should not you parade your lawful prize?

Who finds a picture, digs a medal up,

Hits on a first edition,--he henceforth

Gives it his name, grows notable: how much more,

Who ferrets out a "medium"? "David's yours,

You highly-favored man? Then, pity souls

Less privileged! Allow us share your luck!"

So, David holds the circle, rules the roast,

Narrates the vision, peeps in the glass ball,

Sets-to the spirit-writing, hears the raps,

As the case may be.

Now mark! To be precise--

Though I say, "lies" all these, at this first stage,

'T is just for science' sake: I call such grubs

By the name of what they 'll turn to, dragon-flies.

Strictly it 's what good people style untruth;

But yet, so far, not quite the full-grown thing:

It 's fancying, fable-making, nonsense-work--

What never meant to be so very bad--

The knack of story-telling, brightening up

Each dull old bit of fact that drops its shine.

One does see somewhat when one shuts one's eyes,

If only spots and streaks; tables do tip

In the oddest way of themselves: and pens, good Lord,

Who knows if you drive them or they drive you?

'T is but a foot in the water and out again;

Not that duck-under which decides your dive.

Note this, for it 's important: listen why.

I 'll prove, you push on David till he dives

And ends the shivering. Here 's your circle, now:

Two-thirds of them, with heads like you their host,

Turn up their eyes, and cry, as you expect,

"Lord, who 'd have thought it!" But there 's always one

Looks wise, compassionately smiles, submits,

"Of your veracity no kind of doubt,

But--do you feel so certain of that boy's?

Really, I wonder! I confess myself

More chary of my faith!" That 's galling, sir!

What, he the investigator, he the sage,

When all 's done? Then, you just have shut your eyes,

Opened your mouth, and gulped down David whole,

You! Terrible were such catastrophe!

So, evidence is redoubled, doubled again,

And doubled besides; once more, "He heard, we heard,

You and they heard, your mother and your wife,

Your children and the stranger in your gates:

Did they or did they not?" So much for him,

The black sheep, guest without the wedding-garb,

The doubting Thomas! Now 's your turn to crow:

"He 's kind to think you such a fool: Sludge cheats?

Leave you alone to take precautions!"

Straight

The rest join chorus. Thomas stands abashed,

Sips silent some such beverage as this,

Considers if it be harder, shutting eyes

And gulping David in good fellowship,

Than going elsewhere, getting, in exchange,

With no eggnog to lubricate the food,

Some just as tough a morsel. Over the way,

Holds Captain Sparks his court: is it better there?

Have not you hunting-stories, scalping scenes,

And Mexican War exploits to swallow plump

If you 'd be free o' the stove-side, rocking-chair,

And trio of affable daughters?

Doubt succumbs!

Victory! All your circle 's yours again!

Out of the clubbing of submissive wits,

David's performance rounds, each chink gets patched,

Every protrusion of a point 's filed fine,

All 's fit to set a-rolling round the world,

And then return to David finally,

Lies seven feet thick about his first half-inch.

Here 's a choice birth o' the supernatural,

Poor David 's pledged to! You 've employed no tool

That law exclaims at, save the devil's own,

Yet screwed him into henceforth gulling you

To the top o' your bent,--all out of one half-lie!

You hold, if there 's one half or a hundredth part

Of a lie, that 's his fault,--his be the penalty!

I dare say! You 'd prove firmer in his place?

You 'd find the courage,--that first flurry over,

That mild bit of romancing-work at end,--

To interpose with "It gets serious, this;

Must stop here. Sir, I saw no ghost at all.

Inform your friends I made ... well, fools of them,

And found you ready made. I 've lived in clover

These three weeks: take it out in kicks of me!"

I doubt it. Ask your conscience! Let me know,

Twelve months hence, with how few embellishments

You 've told almighty Boston of this passage

Of arms between us, your first taste o' the foil

From Sludge who could not fence, sir! Sludge, your boy!

I lied, sir,--there! I got up from my gorge

On offal in the gutter, and preferred

Your canvas-backs: I took their carver's size,

Measured his modicum of intelligence,

Tickled him on the cockles of his heart

With a raven feather, and next week found myself

Sweet and clean, dining daintily, dizened smart,

Set on a stool buttressed by ladies' knees,

Every soft smiler calling me her pet,

Encouraging my story to uncoil

And creep out from its hole, inch after inch,

"How last night, I no sooner snug in bed,

Tucked up, just as they left me,--than came raps!

While a light whisked" ... "Shaped somewhat like a star?"

"Well, like some sort of stars, ma'am."--"So we thought!

And any voice? Not yet? Try hard, next time,

If you can't hear a voice; we think you may:

At least, the Pennsylvanian 'mediums' did."

Oh, next time comes the voice! "Just as we hoped!"

Are not the hopers proud now, pleased, profuse

O' the natural acknowledgment?

Of course!

So, off we push, illy-oh-yo, trim the boat,

On we sweep with a cataract ahead,

We 're midway to the Horse-shoe: stop, who can.

The dance of bubbles gay about our prow!

Experiences become worth waiting for,

Spirits now speak up, tell their inmost mind,

And compliment the "medium" properly,

Concern themselves about his Sunday coat,

See rings on his hand with pleasure. Ask yourself

How you 'd receive a course of treats like these!

Why, take the quietest hack and stall him up,

Cram him with corn a month, then out with him

Among his mates on a bright April morn,

With the turf to tread; see if you find or no

A caper in him, if he bucks or bolts!

Much more a youth whose fancies sprout as rank

As toadstool-clump from melon-bed. 'T is soon,

"Sirrah, you spirit, come, go, fetch and carry,

Read, write, rap, rub-a-dub, and hang yourself!"

I 'm spared all further trouble; all 's arranged;

Your circle does my business; I may rave

Like an epileptic dervish in the books,

Foam, fling myself flat, rend my clothes to shreds;

No matter: lovers, friends and countrymen

Will lay down spiritual laws, read wrong things right

By the rule o' reverse. If Francis Verulam

Styles himself Bacon, spells the name beside

With a _y_ and a _k_, says he drew breath in York,

Gave up the ghost in Wales when Cromwell reigned,

(As, sir, we somewhat fear he was apt to say,

Before I found the useful book that knows)--

Why, what harm 's done? The circle smiles apace,

"It was not Bacon, after all, you see!

We understand; the trick 's but natural:

Such spirits' individuality

Is hard to put in evidence: they incline

To gibe and jeer, these undeveloped sorts.

You see, their world 's much like a jail broke loose,

While this of ours remains shut, bolted, barred,

With a single window to it. Sludge, our friend,

Serves as this window, whether thin or thick,

Or stained or stainless; he 's the medium-pane

Through which, to see us and be seen, they peep:

They crowd each other, hustle for a chance,

Tread on their neighbor's kibes, play tricks enough!

Does Bacon, tired of waiting, swerve aside?

Up in his place jumps Barnum--'I 'm your man,

I 'll answer you for Bacon!' Try once more!'

Or else it 's--"What 's a 'medium'? He 's a means,

Good, bad, indifferent, still the only means

Spirits can speak by; he may misconceive,

Stutter and stammer,--he 's their Sludge and drudge,

Take him or leave him; they must hold their peace,

Or else, put up with having knowledge strained

To half-expression through his ignorance.

Suppose, the spirit Beethoven wants to shed

New music he 's brimful of; why, he turns

The handle of this organ, grinds with Sludge,

And what he poured in at the mouth o' the mill

As a Thirty-third Sonata, (fancy now!)

Comes from the hopper as bran-new Sludge, naught else,

The Shakers' Hymn in G, with a natural F,

Or the 'Stars and Stripes' set to consecutive fourths."

Sir, where 's the scrape you did not help me through,

You that are wise? And for the fools, the folk

Who came to see,--the guests, (observe that word!)

Pray do you find guests criticise your wine,

Your furniture, your grammar, or your nose?

Then, why your "medium"? What 's the difference?

Prove your madeira red-ink and gamboge,--

Your Sludge a cheat--then, somebody 's a goose

For vaunting both as genuine. "Guests!" Don't fear!

They 'll make a wry face, nor too much of that,

And leave you in your glory.

"No, sometimes

They doubt and say as much!" Ay, doubt they do!

And what 's the consequence? "Of course they doubt"--

(You triumph)--"that explains the hitch at once!

Doubt posed our 'medium,' puddled his pure mind;

He gave them back their rubbish: pitch chaff in,

Could flour come out o' the honest mill?" So, prompt

Applaud the faithful: cases flock in point,

"How, when a mocker willed a 'medium' once

Should name a spirit James whose name was George,

'James,' cried the 'medium,'--'t was the test of truth!"

In short, a hit proves much, a miss proves more.

Does this convince? The better: does it fail?

Time for the double-shotted broadside, then--

The grand means, last resource. Look black and big!

"You style us idiots, therefore--why stop short?

Accomplices in rascality: this we hear

In our own house, from our invited guest

Found brave enough to outrage a poor boy

Exposed by our good faith! Have you been heard?

Now, then, hear us; one man 's not quite worth twelve.

You see a cheat? Here 's some twelve see an ass:

Excuse me if I calculate: good day!"

Out slinks the skeptic, all the laughs explode,

Sludge waves his hat in triumph!

Or--he don't.

There 's something in real truth (explain who can!)

One casts a wistful eye at, like the horse

Who mopes beneath stuffed hay-racks and won't munch

Because he spies a corn-bag: hang that truth,

It spoils all dainties proffered in its place!

I 've felt at times when, cockered, cosseted

And coddled by the aforesaid company,

Bidden enjoy their bullying,--never fear,

But o'er their shoulders spit at the flying man,--

I 've felt a child; only, a fractious child

That, dandled soft by nurse, aunt, grandmother,

Who keep him from the kennel, sun and wind,

Good fun and wholesome mud,--enjoined be sweet,

And comely and superior,--eyes askance

The ragged sons o' the gutter at their game,

Fain would be down with them i' the thick o' the filth,

Making dirt-pies, laughing free, speaking plain,

And calling granny the gray old cat she is.

I 've felt a spite, I say, at you, at them,

Huggings and humbug--gnashed my teeth to mark

A decent dog pass! It 's too bad, I say,

Ruining a soul so!

But what 's "so," what 's fixed,

Where may one stop? Nowhere! The cheating 's nursed

Out of the lying, softly and surely spun

To just your length, sir! I 'd stop soon enough:

But you 're for progress. "All old, nothing new?

Only the usual talking through the mouth,

Or writing by the hand? I own, I thought

This would develop, grow demonstrable,

Make doubt absurd, give figures we might see,

Flowers we might touch. There 's no one doubts you, Sludge!

You dream the dreams, you see the spiritual sights,

The speeches come in your head, beyond dispute.

Still, for the skeptics' sake, to stop all mouths.

We want some outward manifestation!--well,

The Pennsylvanians gained such; why not Sludge?

He may improve with time!"

Ay, that he may!

He sees his lot: there 's no avoiding fate.

'T is a trifle at first. "Eh, David? Did you hear?

You jogged the table, your foot caused the squeak,

This time you 're ... joking, are you not, my boy?"

"N-n-no!"--and I 'm done for, bought and sold henceforth

The old good easy jog-trot way, the ... eh?

The ... not so very false, as falsehood goes,

The spinning out and drawing fine, you know,--

Really mere novel-writing of a sort,

Acting, or improvising, make-believe,

Surely not downright cheatery,--anyhow,

'T is done with and my lot cast; Cheat 's my name:

The fatal dash of brandy in your tea

Has settled what you 'll have the souchong's smack:

The caddy gives way to the dram-bottle.

Then, it 's so cruel easy! Oh, those tricks

That can't be tricks, those feats by sleight of hand,

Clearly no common conjurer's!--no, indeed!

A conjurer? Choose me any craft i' the world

A man puts hand to; and with six months' pains,

I 'll play you twenty tricks miraculous

To people untaught the trade: have you seen glass blown,

Pipes pierced? Why, just this biscuit that I chip,

Did you ever watch a baker toss one flat

To the oven? Try and do it! Take my word,

Practice but half as much, while limbs are lithe,

To turn, shove, tilt a table, crack your joints,

Manage your feet, dispose your hands aright,

Work wires that twitch the curtains, play the glove

At end o' your slipper,--then put out the lights

And ... there, there, all you want you 'll get, I hope!

I found it slip, easy as an old shoe.

Now, lights on table again! I've done my part,

You take my place while I give thanks and rest.

"Well, Judge Humgruffin, what 's your verdict, sir?

You, hardest head in the United States,--

Did you detect a cheat here? Wait! Let 's see!

Just an experiment first, for candor's sake!

I 'll try and cheat you, Judge! the table tilts:

Is it I that move it? Write! I 'll press your hand:

Cry when I push, or guide your pencil, Judge!"

Sludge still triumphant! "That a rap, indeed?

That, the real writing? Very like a whale!

Then, if, sir, you--a most distinguished man,

And, were the Judge not here, I 'd say, ... no matter!

Well, sir, if you fail, you can't take us in,--

There 's little fear that Sludge will!"

Won't he, ma'am?

But what if our distinguished host, like Sludge,

Bade God bear witness that he played no trick,

While you believed that what produced the raps

Was just a certain child who died, you know,

And whose last breath you thought your lips had felt?

Eh? That 's a capital point, ma'am: Sludge begins

At your entreaty with your dearest dead,

The little voice set lisping once again,

The tiny hand made feel for yours once more,

The poor lost image brought back, plain as dreams,

Which image, if a word had chanced recall,

The customary cloud would cross your eyes,

Your heart return the old tick, pay its pang!

A right mood for investigation, this!

One 's at one's ease with Saul and Jonathan,

Pompey and Cæsar: but one's own lost child ...

I wonder, when you heard the first clod drop

From the spadeful at the grave-side, felt you free

To investigate who twitched your funeral scarf

Or brushed your flounces? Then, it came of course,

You should be stunned and stupid; then (how else?)

Your breath stopped with your blood, your brain struck work.

But now, such causes fail of such effects,

All 's changed,--the little voice begins afresh,

Yet you, calm, consequent, can test and try

And touch the truth. "Tests? Did n't the creature tell

Its nurse's name, and say it lived six years,

And rode a rocking-horse? Enough of tests!

Sludge never could learn that!"

He could not, eh?

You compliment him. "Could not?" Speak for yourself!

I 'd like to know the man I ever saw

Once,--never mind where, how, why, when,--once saw,

Of whom I do not keep some matter in mind

He 'd swear I "could not" know, sagacious soul!

What? Do you live in this world's blow of blacks,

Palaver, gossipry, a single hour

Nor find one smut has settled on your nose,

Of a smut's worth, no more, no less?--one fact

Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn

What some one was, somewhere, somewhen, somewhy?

You don't tell folk--"See what has stuck to me!

Judge Humgruffin, our most distinguished man,

Your uncle was a tailor, and your wife

Thought to have married Miggs, missed him, hit you!"--

Do you, sir, though you see him twice a-week?

"No," you reply, "what use retailing it?

Why should I?" But, you see, one day you _should_,

Because one day there 's much use,--when this fact

Brings you the Judge upon both gouty knees

Before the supernatural; proves that Sludge

Knows, as you say, a thing he "could not" know:

Will not Sludge thenceforth keep an outstretched face,

The way the wind drives?

"Could not!" Look you now,

I 'll tell you a story! There 's a whiskered chap,

A foreigner, that teaches music here

And gets his bread,--knowing no better way:

He says, the fellow who informed of him

And made him fly his country and fall West,

Was a hunchback cobbler, sat, stitched soles and sang,

In some outlandish place, the city Rome,

In a cellar by their Broadway, all day long;

Never asked questions, stopped to listen or look,

Nor lifted nose from lapstone; let the world

Roll round his three-legged stool, and news run in

The ears he hardly seemed to keep pricked up.

Well, that man went on Sundays, touched his pay,

And took his praise from government, you see;

For something like two dollars every week,

He 'd engage tell you some one little thing

Of some one man, which led to many more,

(Because one truth leads right to the world's end,)

And make you that man's master--when he dined

And on what dish, where walked to keep his health

And to what street. His trade was, throwing thus

His sense out, like an ant-eater's long tongue,

Soft, innocent, warm, moist, impassible,

And when 't was crusted o'er with creatures--slick,

Their juice enriched his palate. "Could not Sludge!"

I 'll go yet a step further, and maintain,

Once the imposture plunged its proper depth

I' the rotten of your natures, all of you,--

(If one 's not mad nor drunk, and hardly then)

It 's impossible to cheat--that 's, be found out!

Go tell your brotherhood this first slip of mine,

All to-day's tale, how you detected Sludge,

Behaved unpleasantly, till he was fain confess,

And so has come to grief! You 'll find, I think,

Why Sludge still snaps his fingers in your face.

There now, you 've told them! What 's their prompt reply?

"Sir, did that youth confess he had cheated me,

I 'd disbelieve him. He may cheat at times;

That 's in the 'medium'-nature, thus they 're made,

Vain and vindictive, cowards, prone to scratch.

And so all cats are; still, a cat 's the beast

You coax the strange electric sparks from out,

By rubbing back its fur; not so a dog,

Nor lion, nor lamb: 't is the cat's nature, sir!

Why not the dog's? Ask God, who made them beasts!

D' ye think the sound, the nicely-balanced man

(Like me"--aside)--"like you yourself,"--(aloud)

"--He 's stuff to make a 'medium'? Bless your soul,

'T is these hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs,

Equivocal, worthless vermin yield the fire!

We take such as we find them, 'ware their tricks,

Wanting their service. Sir, Sludge took in you--

How, I can't say, not being there to watch:

He was tried, was tempted by your easiness,--

He did not take in me!"

Thank you for Sludge!

I 'm to be grateful to such patrons, eh,

When what you hear 's my best word? 'T is a challenge,

"Snap at all strangers, half-tamed prairie-dog,

So you cower duly at your keeper's beck!

Cat, show what claws were made for, muffling them

Only to me! Cheat others if you can,

Me, if you dare!" And, my wise sir, I dared--

Did cheat you first, made you cheat others next,

And had the help o' your vaunted manliness

To bully the incredulous. You used me?

Have not I used you, taken full revenge,

Persuaded folk they knew not their own name,

And straight they 'd own the error! Who was the fool

When, to an awe-struck wide-eyed open-mouthed

Circle of sages, Sludge would introduce

Milton composing baby-rhymes, and Locke

Reasoning in gibberish, Homer writing Greek

In naughts and crosses, Asaph setting psalms

To crotchet and quaver? I 've made a spirit squeak

In sham voice for a minute, then outbroke

Bold in my own, defying the imbeciles--

Have copied some ghost's pothooks, half a page,

Then ended with my own scrawl undisguised.

"All right! The ghost was merely using Sludge,

Suiting itself from his imperfect stock!"

Don't talk of gratitude to me! For what?

For being treated as a showman's ape,

Encouraged to be wicked and make sport,

Fret or sulk, grin or whimper, any mood

So long as the ape be in it and no man--

Because a nut pays every mood alike.

Curse your superior, superintending sort,

Who, since you hate smoke, send up boys that climb

To cure your chimney, bid a "medium" lie

To sweep you truth down! Curse your women too,

Your insolent wives and daughters, that fire up

Or faint away if a male hand squeeze theirs,

Yet, to encourage Sludge, may play with Sludge

As only a "medium," only the kind of thing

They must humor, fondle ... oh, to misconceive

Were too preposterous! But I 've paid them out!

They 've had their wish--called for the naked truth,

And in she tripped, sat down and bade them stare:

They had to blush a little and forgive!

"The fact is, children talk so; in next world

All our conventions are reversed,--perhaps

Made light of: something like old prints, my dear!

The Judge has one, he brought from Italy,

A metropolis in the background,--o'er a bridge,

A team of trotting roadsters,--cheerful groups

Of wayside travellers, peasants at their work,

And, full in front, quite unconcerned, why not?

Three nymphs conversing with a cavalier,

And never a rag among them: 'fine,' folk cry--

And heavenly manners seem not much unlike!

Let Sludge go on; we'll fancy it's in print!"

If such as came for wool, sir, went home shorn,

Where is the wrong I did them? 'Twas their choice;

They tried the adventure, ran the risk, tossed up

And lost, as some one's sure to do in games;

They fancied I was made to lose,--smoked glass

Useful to spy the sun through, spare their eyes:

And had I proved a red-hot iron plate

They thought to pierce, and, for their pains, grew blind,

Whose were the fault but theirs? While, as things go,

Their loss amounts to gain, the more 's the shame!

They 've had their peep into the spirit-world,

And all this world may know it! They 've fed fat

Their self-conceit which else had starved: what chance

Save this, of cackling o'er a golden egg

And compassing distinction from the flock,

Friends of a feather? Well, they paid for it,

And not prodigiously; the price o' the play,

Not counting certain pleasant interludes,

Was scarce a vulgar play's worth. When you buy

The actor's talent, do you dare propose

For his soul beside? Whereas, my soul you buy!

Sludge acts Macbeth, obliged to be Macbeth,

Or you 'll not hear his first word! Just go through

That slight formality, swear himself's the Thane,

And thenceforth he may strut and fret his hour,

Spout, spawl, or spin his target, no one cares!

Why had n't I leave to play tricks, Sludge as Sludge?

Enough of it all! I 've wiped out scores with you--

Vented your fustian, let myself be streaked

Like tom-fool with your ochre and carmine,

Worn patchwork your respectable fingers sewed

To metamorphose somebody,--yes, I've earned

My wages, swallowed down my bread of shame,

And shake the crumbs off--where but in your face?

As for religion--why, I served it, sir!

I 'll stick to that! With my _phenomena_

I laid the atheist sprawling on his back,

Propped up Saint Paul, or, at least, Swedenborg!

In fact, it 's just the proper way to balk

These troublesome fellows--liars, one and all,

Are not these skeptics? Well, to baffle them,

No use in being squeamish: lie yourself!

Erect your buttress just as wide o' the line,

Your side, as they build up the wall on theirs;

Where both meet, midway in a point, is truth,

High overhead: so, take your room, pile bricks,

Lie! Oh, there 's titillation in all shame!

What snow may lose in white, snow gains in rose!

Miss Stokes turns--Rahab,--nor a bad exchange!

Glory be on her, for the good she wrought,

Breeding belief anew 'neath ribs of death,

Browbeating now the unabashed before,

Ridding us of their whole life's gathered straws

By a live coal from the altar! Why, of old,

Great men spent years and years in writing books

To prove we 've souls, and hardly proved it then:

Miss Stokes with her live coal, for you and me!

Surely, to this good issue, all was fair--

Not only fondling Sludge, but, even suppose

He let escape some spice of knavery,--well,

In wisely being blind to it! Don't you praise

Nelson for setting spy-glass to blind eye

And saying ... what was it--that he could not see

The signal he was bothered with? Ay, indeed!

I 'll go beyond: there 's a real love of a lie,

Liars find ready-made for lies they make,

As hand for glove, or tongue for sugar-plum.

At best, 't is never pure and full belief;

Those furthest in the quagmire,--don't suppose

They strayed there with no warning, got no chance

Of a filth-speck in their face, which they clenched teeth,

Bent brow against! Be sure they had their doubts,

And fears, and fairest challenges to try

The floor o' the seeming solid sand! But no!

Their faith was pledged, acquaintance too apprised,

All but the last step ventured, kerchiefs waved,

And Sludge called "pet:" 't was easier marching on

To the promised land; join those who, Thursday next,

Meant to meet Shakespeare; better follow Sludge--

Prudent, oh sure!--on the alert, how else?

But making for the mid-bog, all the same!

To hear your outcries, one would think I caught

Miss Stokes by the scruff o' the neck, and pitched her flat,

Foolish-face-foremost! Hear these simpletons,

That 's all I beg, before my work 's begun,

Before I 've touched them with my finger-tip!

Thus they await me (do but listen, now!

It 's reasoning, this is,--I can't imitate

The baby voice, though),--"In so many tales

Must be some truth, truth though a pin-point big,

Yet, some: a single man 's deceived, perhaps--

Hardly, a thousand: to suppose one cheat

Can gull all these, were more miraculous far

Than aught we should confess a miracle,"--

And so on. Then the Judge sums up--(it 's rare)

Bids you respect the authorities that leap

To the judgment-seat at once,--why don't you note

The limpid nature, the unblemished life,

The spotless honor, indisputable sense

Of the first upstart with his story? What--

Outrage a boy on whom you ne'er till now

Set eyes, because he finds raps trouble him?

Fools, these are: ay, and how of their opposites

Who never did, at bottom of their hearts,

Believe for a moment?--Men emasculate,

Blank of belief, who played, as eunuchs use,

With superstition safely,--cold of blood,

Who saw what made for them i' the mystery,

Took their occasion, and supported Sludge

--As proselytes? No, thank you, far too shrewd!

--But promisers of fair play, encouragers

O' the claimant; who in candor needs must hoist

Sludge up on Mars' Hill, get speech out of Sludge

To carry off, criticise, and cant about!

Didn't Athens treat Saint Paul so?---at any rate,

It's "a new thing" philosophy fumbles at.

Then there 's the other picker-out of pearl

From dungheaps,--ay, your literary man,

Who draws on his kid gloves to deal with Sludge

Daintily and discreetly,--shakes a dust

O' the doctrine, flavors thence, he well knows how,

The narrative or the novel,--half-believes,

All for the book's sake, and the public's stare,

And the cash that's God's sole solid in this world!

Look at him! Try to be too bold, too gross

For the master! Not you! He's the man for muck;

Shovel it forth, full-splash, he'll smooth your brown

Into artistic richness, never fear!

Find him the crude stuff; when you recognize

Your lie again, you'll doff your hat to it,

Dressed out for company! "For company,"

I say, since there 's the relish of success:

Let all pay due respect, call the lie truth,

Save the soft silent smirking gentleman

Who ushered in the stranger: you must sigh

"How melancholy, he, the only one,

Fails to perceive the bearing of the truth

Himself gave birth to!"--There 's the triumph's smack!

That man would choose to see the whole world roll

I' the slime o' the slough, so he might touch the tip

Of his brush with what I call the best of browns--

Tint ghost-tales, spirit-stories, past the power

Of the outworn umber and bistre!

Yet I think

There 's a more hateful form of foolery--

The social sage's, Solomon of saloons

And philosophic diner-out, the fribble

Who wants a doctrine for a chopping-block

To try the edge of his faculty upon,

Prove how much common sense he 'll hack and hew

I' the critical moment 'twixt the soup and fish!

These were my patrons: these, and the like of them

Who, rising in my soul now, sicken it,--

These I have injured! Gratitude to these?

The gratitude, forsooth, of a prostitute

To the greenhorn and the bully--friends of hers,

From the wag that wants the queer jokes for his club,

To the snuffbox-decorator, honest man,

Who just was at his wits' end where to find

So genial a Pasiphae! All and each

Pay, compliment, protect from the police:

And how she hates them for their pains, like me!

So much for my remorse at thanklessness

Toward a deserving public!

But, for God?

Ay, that 's a question! Well, sir, since you press--

(How you do tease the whole thing out of me!

I don't mean you, you know, when I say "them:"

Hate you, indeed! But that Miss Stokes, that Judge!

Enough, enough--with sugar: thank you, sir!)

Now for it, then! Will you believe me, though?

You 've heard what I confess; I don't unsay

A single word: I cheated when I could,

Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work,

Wrote down names weak in sympathetic ink,

Rubbed odic lights with ends of phosphor-match,

And all the rest; believe that: believe this,

By the same token, though it seem to set

The crooked straight again, unsay the said,

Stick up what I 've knocked down; I can't help that

It 's truth! I somehow vomit truth to-day.

This trade of mine--I don't know, can't be sure

But there was something in it, tricks and all!

Really, I want to light up my own mind.

They were tricks,--true, but what I mean to add

Is also true. First,--don't it strike you, sir?

Go back to the beginning,--the first fact

We 're taught is, there 's a world beside this world,

With spirits, not mankind, for tenantry;

That much within that world once sojourned here,

That all upon this world will visit there,

And therefore that we, bodily here below,

Must have exactly such an interest

In learning what may be the ways o' the world

Above us, as the disembodied folk

Have (by all analogic likelihood)

In watching how things go in the old home

With us, their sons, successors, and whatnot.

Oh, yes, with added powers probably,

Fit for the novel state,--old loves grown pure,

Old interests understood aright,--they watch!

Eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to help,

Proportionate to advancement: they 're ahead,

That 's all--do what we do, but noblier done--

Use plate, whereas we eat our meals off delf,

(To use a figure.)

Concede that, and I ask

Next what may be the mode of intercourse

Between us men here, and those once-men there?

First comes the Bible's speech; then, history

With the supernatural element,--you know--

All that we sucked in with our mothers' milk,

Grew up with, got inside of us at last,

Till it 's found bone of bone and flesh of flesh.

See now, we start with the miraculous,

And know it used, to be, at all events:

What 's the first step we take, and can't but take,

In arguing from the known to the obscure?

Why this: "What was before, may be to-day.

Since Samuel's ghost appeared to Saul,--of course

My brother's spirit may appear to me."

Go tell your teacher that! What 's his reply?

What brings a shade of doubt for the first time

O'er his brow late so luminous with faith?

"Such things have been," says he, "and there 's no doubt

Such things may be: but I advise mistrust

Of eyes, ears, stomach, and, more than all, your brain,

Unless it be of your great-grandmother,

Whenever they propose a ghost to you!"

The end is, there 's a composition struck;

'T is settled, we 've some way of intercourse

Just as in Saul's time; only, different:

How, when and where, precisely,--find it out!

I want to know, then, what 's so natural

As that a person born into this world

And seized on by such teaching, should begin

With firm expectancy and a frank look-out

For his own allotment, his especial share

I' the secret,--his particular ghost, in fine?

I mean, a person born to look that way,

Since natures differ: take the painter-sort,

One man lives fifty years in ignorance

Whether grass be green or red,--"No kind of eye

For color," say you; while another picks

And puts away even pebbles, when a child,

Because of bluish spots and pinky veins--

"Give him forthwith a paint-box!" Just the same

Was I born ... "medium," you won't let me say,--

Well, seer of the supernatural

Everywhen, everyhow, and everywhere,--

Will that do?

I and all such boys of course

Started with the same stock of Bible-truth;

Only,---what in the rest you style their sense,

Instinct, blind reasoning but imperative,

This, betimes, taught them the old world had one law

And ours another: "New world, new laws," cried they:

"None but old laws, seen everywhere at work,"

Cried I, and by their help explained my life

The Jews' way, still a working way to me.

Ghosts made the noises, fairies waved the lights,

Or Santa Claus slid down on New Year's Eve

And stuffed with cakes the stocking at my bed,

Changed the worn shoes, rubbed clean the fingered slate

O' the sum that came to grief the day before.

This could not last long: soon enough I found

Who had worked wonders thus, and to what end:

But did I find all easy, like my mates?

Henceforth no supernatural any more?

Not a whit: what projects the billiard-balls?

"A cue," you answer. "Yes, a cue," said I;

"But what hand, off the cushion, moved the cue?

What unseen agency, outside the world,

Prompted its puppets to do this and that,

Put cakes and shoes and slates into their mind,

These mothers and aunts, nay even schoolmasters?"

Thus high I sprang, and there have settled since.

Just so I reason, in sober earnest still,

About the greater godsends, what you call

The serious gains and losses of my life.

What do I know or care about your world

Which either is or seems to be? This snap

O' my fingers, sir! My care is for myself;

Myself am whole and sole reality

Inside a raree-show and a market-mob

Gathered about it: that 's the use of things.

'T is easy saying they serve vast purposes,

Advantage their grand selves: be it true or false,

Each thing may have two uses. What 's a star?

A world, or a world's sun: doesn't it serve

As taper also, timepiece, weather-glass,

And almanac? Are stars not set for signs

When we should shear our sheep, sow corn, prune trees?

The Bible says so.

Well, I add one use

To all the acknowledged uses, and declare

If I spy Charles's Wain at twelve to-night,

It warns me, "Go, nor lose another day,

And have your hair cut, Sludge!" You laugh: and why?

Were such a sign too hard for God to give?

No: but Sludge seems too little for such grace:

Thank you, sir! So you think, so does not Sludge!

When you and good men gape at Providence,

Go into history and bid us mark

Not merely powder-plots prevented, crowns

Kept on kings' heads by miracle enough,

But private mercies--oh, you 've told me, sir,

Of such interpositions! How yourself

Once, missing on a memorable day

Your handkerchief--just setting out, you know,--

You must return to fetch it, lost the train,

And saved your precious self from what befell

The thirty-three whom Providence forgot.

You tell, and ask me what I think of this?

Well, sir, I think then, since you needs must know,

What matter had you and Boston city to boot

Sailed skyward, like burnt onion-peelings? Much

To you, no doubt: for me--undoubtedly

The cutting of my hair concerns me more,

Because, however sad the truth may seem,

Sludge is of all-importance to himself.

You set apart that day in every year

For special thanksgiving, were a heathen else:

Well, I who cannot boast the like escape,

Suppose I said, "I don't thank Providence

For my part, owing it no gratitude"?

"Nay, but you owe as much,"--you 'd tutor me,

"You, every man alive, for blessings gained

In every hour o' the day, could you but know!

I saw my crowning mercy: all have such,

Could they but see!" Well, sir, why don't they see?

"Because they won't look,--or perhaps, they can't."

Then, sir, suppose I can, and will, and do

Look, microscopically as is right,

Into each hour with its infinitude

Of influences at work to profit Sludge?

For that 's the case: I 've sharpened up my sight

To spy a providence in the fire's going out,

The kettle's boiling, the dime's sticking fast

Despite the hole i' the pocket. Call such facts

Fancies, too petty a work for Providence,

And those same thanks which you exact from me

Prove too prodigious payment: thanks for what,

If nothing guards and guides us little men?

No, no, sir! You must put away your pride,

Resolve to let Sludge into partnership!

I live by signs and omens: looked at the roof

Where the pigeons settle--"If the further bird,

The white, takes wing first, I 'll confess when thrashed;

Not, if the blue does,"--so I said to myself

Last week, lest you should take me by surprise:

Off flapped the white,--and I 'm confessing, sir!

Perhaps 't is Providence's whim and way

With only me, i' the world: how can you tell?

"Because unlikely!" Was it likelier, now,

That this our one out of all worlds beside,

The what-d'-you-call-'em millions, should be just

Precisely chosen to make Adam for,

And the rest o' the tale? Yet the tale 's true, you know:

Such undeserving clod was graced so once;

Why not graced likewise undeserving Sludge?

Are we merit-mongers, flaunt we filthy rags?

All you can bring against my privilege

Is, that another way was taken with you,--

Which I don't question. It 's pure grace, my luck:

I 'm broken to the way of nods and winks,

And need no formal summoning. You 've a help;

Holloa his name or whistle, clap your hands,

Stamp with your foot or pull the bell: all 's one,

He understands you want him, here he comes.

Just so, I come at the knocking: you, sir, wait

The tongue o' the bell, nor stir before you catch

Reason's clear tingle, nature's clapper brisk,

Or that traditional peal was wont to cheer

Your mother's face turned heavenward: short of these

There 's no authentic intimation, eh?

Well, when you hear, you 'll answer them, start up

And stride into the presence, top of toe,

And there find Sludge beforehand, Sludge that sprang

At noise o' the knuckle on the partition-wall!

I think myself the more religious man.

Religion 's all or nothing; it 's no mere smile

O' contentment, sigh of aspiration, sir--

No quality o' the finelier-tempered clay

Like its whiteness or its lightness; rather, stuff

O' the very stuff, life of life, and self of self.

I tell you, men won't notice; when they do,

They 'll understand. I notice nothing else:

I 'm eyes, ears, mouth of me, one gaze and gape,

Nothing eludes me, everything 's a hint,

Handle and help. It 's all absurd, and yet

There 's something in it all, I know: how much?

No answer! What does that prove? Man 's still man,

Still meant for a poor blundering piece of work

When all 's done; but, if somewhat 's done, like this,

Or not done, is the case the same? Suppose

I blunder in my guess at the true sense

O' the knuckle-summons, nine times out of ten,--

What if the tenth guess happen to be right?

If the tenth shovel-load of powdered quartz

Yield me the nugget? I gather, crush, sift all,

Pass o'er the failure, pounce on the success.

To give you a notion, now--(let who wins, laugh!)

When first I see a man, what do I first?

Why, count the letters which make up his name,

And as their number chances, even or odd,

Arrive at my conclusion, trim my course:

Hiram H. Horsefall is your honored name,

And have n't I found a patron, sir, in you?

"Shall I cheat this stranger?" I take apple-pips,

Stick one in either _canthus_ of my eye,

And if the left drops first--(your left, sir, stuck)

I 'm warned, I let the trick alone this time.

You, sir, who smile, superior to such trash,

You judge of character by other rules:

Don't your rules sometimes fail you? Pray, what rule

Have you judged Sludge by hitherto?

Oh, be sure,

You, everybody blunders, just as I,

In simpler things than these by far! For see:

I knew two farmers,--one, a wiseacre

Who studied seasons, rummaged almanacs,

Quoted the dew-point, registered the frost,

And then declared, for outcome of his pains,

Next summer must be dampish: 't was a drought.

His neighbor prophesied such drought would fall,

Saved hay and corn, made cent. per cent. thereby,

And proved a sage indeed: how came his lore?

Because one brindled heifer, late in March,

Stiffened her tail of evenings, and somehow

He got into his head that drought was meant!

I don't expect all men can do as much:

Such kissing goes by favor. You must take

A certain turn of mind for this,--a twist

I' the flesh, as well. Be lazily alive,

Open-mouthed, like my friend the ant-eater,

Letting all nature's loosely-guarded motes

Settle and, slick, be swallowed! Think yourself

The one i' the world, the one for whom the world

Was made, expect it, tickling at your mouth!

Then will the swarm of busy buzzing flies,

Clouds of coincidence, break egg-shell, thrive,

Breed, multiply, and bring you food enough.

I can't pretend to mind your smiling, sir!

Oh, what you mean is this! Such intimate way,

Close converse, frank exchange of offices,

Strict sympathy of the immeasurably great

With the infinitely small, betokened here

By a course of signs and omens, raps and sparks,--

How does it suit the dread traditional text

O' the "Great and Terrible Name"? Shall the Heaven of Heavens

Stoop to such child's play?

Please, sir, go with me

A moment, and I 'll try to answer you.

The "_Magnum et terribile_" (is that right?)

Well, folk began with this in the early day;

And all the acts they recognized in proof

Were thunders, lightnings, earthquakes, whirlwinds, dealt

Indisputably on men whose death they caused,

There, and there only, folk saw Providence

At work,--and seeing it, 't was right enough

All heads should tremble, hands wring hands amain,

And knees knock hard together at the breath

O' the Name's first letter; why, the Jews, I 'm told,

Won't write it down, no, to this very hour,

Nor speak aloud: you know best if 't be so.

Each, ague-fit of fear at end, they crept

(Because somehow people once born must live)

Out of the sound, sight, swing and sway o' the Name,

Into a corner, the dark rest of the world,

And safe space where as yet no fear had reached;

'T was there they looked about them, breathed again,

And felt indeed at home, as we might say.

The current o' common things, the daily life,

This had their due contempt; no Name pursued

Man from the mountain-top where fires abide,

To his particular mouse-hole at its foot

Where he ate, drank, digested, lived in short:

Such was man's vulgar business, far too small

To be worth thunder: "small," folk kept on, "small,"

With much complacency in those great days!

A mote of sand, you know, a blade of grass--

What was so despicable as mere grass,

Except perhaps the life o' the worm or fly

Which fed there? These were "small" and men were great.

Well, sir, the old way 's altered somewhat since,

And the world wears another aspect now:

Somebody turns our spyglass round, or else

Puts a new lens in it: grass, worm, fly grow, big:

We find great things are made of little things,

And little things go lessening till at last

Comes God behind them. Talk of mountains now?

We talk of mould that heaps the mountain, mites

That throng the mould, and God that makes the mites.

The Name comes close behind a stomach-cyst,

The simplest of creations, just a sac

That 's mouth, heart, legs and belly at once, yet lives

And feels, and could do neither, we conclude,

If simplified still further one degree:

The small becomes the dreadful and immense!

Lightning, forsooth? No word more upon that!

A tin-foil bottle, a strip of greasy silk,

With a bit of wire and knob of brass, and there 's

Your dollar's-worth of lightning! But the cyst--

The life of the least of the little things?

No, no!

Preachers and teachers try another tack,

Come near the truth this time: they put aside

Thunder and lightning. "That 's mistake," they cry;

"Thunderbolts fall for neither fright nor sport,

But do appreciable good, like tides,

Changes o' the wind, and other natural facts--

'Good' meaning good to man, his body or soul.

Mediate, immediate, all things minister

To man,--that 's settled: be our future text

'We are His children!'" So, they now harangue

About the intention, the contrivance, all

That keeps up an incessant play of love,--

See the Bridgewater book.

Amen to it!

Well, sir, I put this question: I 'm a child?

I lose no time, but take you at your word:

How shall I act a child's part properly?

Your sainted mother, sir,--used you to live

With such a thought as this a-worrying you?

"She has it in her power to throttle me,

Or stab or poison: she may turn me out,

Or lock me in,--nor stop at this to-day,

But cut me off to-morrow from the estate

I look for"--(long may you enjoy; it, sir!)

"In brief, she may unchild the child I am.

You never had such crotchets? Nor have I!

Who, frank confessing childship from the first,

Cannot both fear and take my ease at once,

So, don't fear,--know what might be, well enough,

But know too, child-like, that it will not be,

At least in my case, mine, the son and heir

O' the kingdom, as yourself proclaim my style.

But do you fancy I stop short at this?

Wonder if suit and service, son and heir

Needs must expect, I dare pretend to find?

If, looking for signs proper to such an one,

I straight perceive them irresistible?

Concede that homage is a son's plain right,

And, never mind the nods and raps and winks,

'T is the pure obvious supernatural

Steps forward, does its duty: why, of course!

I have presentiments; my dreams come true:

I fancy a friend stands whistling all in white

Blithe as a boblink, and he's dead I learn.

I take dislike to a dog my favorite long,

And sell him; he goes mad next week and snaps.

I guess that stranger will turn up to-day

I have not seen these three years; there 's his knock.

I wager "sixty peaches on that tree!"--

That I pick up a dollar in my walk,

That your wife's brother's cousin's name was George--

And win on all points. Oh, you wince at this?

You 'd fain distinguish between gift and gift,

Washington's oracle and Sludge's itch

O' the elbow when at whist he ought to trump?

With Sludge it's too absurd? _Fine, draw the line_

_Somewhere, but, sir, your somewhere is not mine!_

Bless us, I 'm turning poet! It 's time to end.

How you have drawn me out, sir! All I ask

Is--am I heir or not heir? If I 'm he,

Then, sir, remember, that same personage

(To judge by what we read i' the newspaper)

Requires, beside one nobleman in gold

To carry up and down his coronet,

Another servant, probably a duke,

To hold eggnog in readiness: why want

Attendance, sir, when helps in his father's house

Abound, I'd like to know?

Enough of talk!

My fault is that I tell too plain a truth.

Why, which of those-who say they disbelieve,

Your clever people, but has dreamed his dream,

Caught his coincidence, stumbled on his fact

He can't explain, (he'll tell you smilingly,)

Which he 's too much of a philosopher

To count as supernatural, indeed,

So calls a puzzle and problem, proud of it:

Bidding you still be on your guard, you know,

Because one fact don't make a system stand,

Nor prove this an occasional escape

Of spirit beneath the matter: that's the way!

Just so wild Indians picked up, piece by piece,

The fact in California, the fine gold

That underlay the gravel--hoarded these,

But never made a system stand, nor dug!

So wise men hold out in each hollowed palm

A handful of experience, sparkling-fact

They can't explain; and since their rest of life

Is all explainable, what proof in this?

Whereas I take the fact, the grain of gold,

And fling away the dirty rest of life,

And add this grain to the grain each fool has found

O' the million other such philosophers,--

Till I see gold, all gold and only gold,

Truth questionless though unexplainable,

And the miraculous proved the commonplace!

The other fools believed in mud, no doubt--

Failed to know gold they saw: was that so strange?

Are all men born to play Bach's fiddle-fugues,

"Time" with the foil in carte, jump their own height,

Cut the mutton with the broadsword, skate a five,

Make the red hazard with the cue, clip nails

While swimming, in five minutes row a mile,

Pull themselves three feet up with the left arm,

Do sums of fifty figures in their head,

And so on, by the scores of instances?

The Sludge with luck, who sees the spiritual facts,

His fellows strive and fail to see, may rank

With these, and share the advantage.

Ay, but share

The drawback! Think it over by yourself;

I have not heart, sir, and the fire 's gone gray.

Defect somewhere compensates for success,

Every one knows that. Oh, we 're equals, sir!

The big-legged fellow has a little arm

And a less brain, though big legs win the race:

Do you suppose I 'scape the common lot?

Say, _I_ was born with flesh so sensitive,

Soul so alert, that, practice helping both,

I guess what 's going on outside the veil,

Just as a prisoned crane feels pairing-time

In the islands where his kind are, so must fall

To capering by himself some shiny night,

As if your back-yard were a plot of spice--

Thus am I 'ware o' the spirit-world: while you,

Blind as a beetle that way,--for amends,

Why, you can double fist and floor me, sir!

Ride that hot hardmouthed horrid horse of yours,

Laugh while it lightens, play with the great dog,

Speak your mind though it vex some friend to hear,

Never brag, never bluster, never blush,--

In short, you 've pluck, when I 'm a coward--there!

I know it, I can't help it,--folly or no.

I 'm paralyzed, my hand 's no more a hand,

Nor my head a head, in danger: you can smile

And change the pipe in your cheek. Your gift 's not mine.

Would you swap for mine? No! but you 'd add my gift

To yours: I dare say! I too sigh at times,

Wish I were stouter, could tell truth nor flinch,

Kept cool when threatened, did not mind so much

Being dressed gayly, making strangers stare,

Eating nice things; when I 'd amuse myself,

I shut my eyes and fancy in my brain,

I 'm--now the President, now Jenny Lind,

Now Emerson, now the Benicia Boy--

With all the civilized world a-wondering

And worshipping. I know it 's folly and worse;

I feel such tricks sap, honeycomb the soul,

But I can't cure myself,--despond, despair,

And then, hey, presto, there 's a turn o' the wheel,

Under comes uppermost, fate makes full amends;

Sludge knows and sees and hears a hundred things

You all are blind to,--I 've my taste of truth,

Likewise my touch of falsehood,--vice no doubt,

But you 've your vices also: I'm content.

What, sir? You won't shake hands? "Because I cheat!"

"You 've found me out in cheating!" That 's enough

To make an apostle swear! Why, when I cheat,

_Mean to cheat, do cheat, and am caught in the act,_

_Are you, or rather, am I sure o' the fact?_

(There 's verse again, but I 'm inspired somehow.)

Well then I 'm not sure! I may be, perhaps,

Free as a babe from cheating: how it began,

My gift,--no matter; what 't is got to be

In the end now, that 's the question; answer that!

Had I seen, perhaps, what hand was holding mine,

Leading me whither, I had died of fright:

So, I was made believe I led myself.

If I should lay a six-inch plank from roof

To roof, you would not cross the street, one step,

Even at your mother's summons: but, being shrewd,

If I paste paper on each side the plank

And swear 't is solid pavement, why, you 'll cross

Humming a tune the while, in ignorance

Beacon Street stretches a hundred feet below:

I walked thus, took the paper-cheat for stone.

Some impulse made me set a thing o' the move

Which, started once, ran really by itself;

Beer flows thus, suck the siphon; toss the kite,

It takes the wind and floats of its own force.

Don't let truth's lump rot stagnant for the lack

Of a timely helpful lie to leaven it!

Put a chalk-egg beneath the clucking hen,

She 'll lay a real one, laudably deceived,

Daily for weeks to come. I 've told my lie,

And seen truth follow, marvels none of mine;

All was not cheating, sir, I 'm positive!

I don't know if I move your hand sometimes

When the spontaneous writing spreads so far,

If my knee lifts the table all that height,

Why the inkstand don't fall off the desk a-tilt,

Why the accordion plays a prettier waltz

Than I can pick out on the pianoforte,

Why I speak so much more than I intend,

Describe so many things I never saw.

I tell you, sir, in one sense, I believe

Nothing at all,--that everybody can,

Will, and does cheat: but in another sense

I'm ready to believe my very self--

That every cheat 's inspired, and every lie

Quick with a germ of truth.

You ask perhaps

Why I should condescend to trick at all

If I know a way without it? This is why!

There 's a strange secret sweet self-sacrifice

In any desecration of one's soul

To a worthy end,--is n't it Herodotus

(I wish I could read Latin!) who describes

The single gift o' the land's virginity,

Demanded in those old Egyptian rites,

(I 've but a hazy notion--help me, sir!)

For one purpose in the world, one day in a life,

One hour in a day--thereafter, purity,

And a veil thrown o'er the past forevermore!

Well now, they understood a many things

Down by Nile city, or wherever it was!

I 've always vowed, after the minute's lie,

And the end's gain,--truth should be mine henceforth.

This goes to the root o' the matter, sir,--this plain

Plump fact: accept it and unlock with it

The wards of many a puzzle!

Or, finally,

Why should I set so fine a gloss on things?

What need I care? I cheat in self-defence,

And there 's my answer to a world of cheats!

Cheat? To be sure, sir! What's the world worth else?

Who takes it as he finds, and thanks his stars?

Don't it want trimming, turning, furbishing up

And polishing over? Your so-styled great men,

Do they accept one truth as truth is found,

Or try their skill at tinkering? What 's your world?

Here are you born, who are, I 'll say at once,

Of the luckiest kind, whether in head and heart,

Body and soul, or all that helps them both.

Well, now, look back: what faculty of yours

Came to its full, had ample justice done

By growing when rain fell, tiding its time,

Solidifying growth when earth was dead,

Spiring up, broadening wide, in seasons due?

Never! You shot up and frost nipped you off,

Settled to sleep when sunshine bade you sprout;

One faculty thwarted its fellow: at the end,

All you boast is, "I had proved a topping tree

In other climes,"--yet this was the right clime

Had you foreknown the seasons. Young, you 've force

Wasted like well-streams: old,--oh, then indeed,

Behold a labyrinth of hydraulic pipes

Through which you 'd play off wondrous water-work;

Only, no water 's left to feed their play.

Young,--you 've a hope, an aim, a love; it 's tossed

And crossed and lost: you struggle on, some spark

Shut in your heart against the puffs around,

Through cold and pain; these in due time subside,

Now then for age's triumph, the hoarded light

You mean to loose on the altered face of things,--

Up with it on the tripod! It 's extinct.

Spend your life's remnant asking, which was best,

Light smothered up that never peeped forth, once,

Or the cold cresset with full leave to shine?

Well, accept this too,--seek the fruit of it

Not in enjoyment, proved a dream on earth,

But knowledge, useful for a second chance,

Another life,--you 've lost this world--you 've gained

Its knowledge for the next.--What knowledge, sir,

Except that you know nothing? Nay, you doubt

Whether 't were better have made you man or brute,

If aught be true, if good and evil clash.

No foal, no fair, no inside, no outside,

There 's your world!

Give it me! I slap it brisk

With harlequin's pasteboard sceptre: what 's it now?

Changed like a rock-flat, rough with rusty weed,

At first wash-over o' the returning wave!

All the dry dead impracticable stuff

Starts into life and light again; this world

Pervaded by the influx from the next.

I cheat, and what 's the happy consequence?

You find full justice straightway dealt you out,

Each want supplied, each ignorance set at ease,

Each folly fooled. No life-long labor now

As the price of worse than nothing! No mere film

Holding you chained in iron, as it seems,

Against the outstretch of your very arms

And legs i' the sunshine moralists forbid!

What would you have? Just speak and, there, you see!

You 're supplemented, made a whole at last,

Bacon advises, Shakespeare writes you songs,

And Mary Queen of Scots embraces you.

Thus it goes on, not quite like life perhaps,

But so near, that the very difference piques,

Shows that e'en better than this best will be--

This passing entertainment in a hut

Whose bare walls take your taste since, one stage more,

And you arrive at the palace: all half real,

And you, to suit it, less than real beside,

In a dream, lethargic kind of death in life,

That helps the interchange of natures, flesh

Transfused by souls, and such souls! Oh, 't is choice!

And if at whiles the bubble, blown too thin,

Seem nigh on bursting,--if you nearly see

The real world through the false,--what _do_ you see?

Is the old so ruined? You find you 're in a flock

O' the youthful, earnest, passionate--genius, beauty,

Rank and wealth also, if you care for these:

And all depose their natural rights, hail you

(That's me, sir) as their mate and yoke-fellow,

Participate in Sludgehood--nay, grow mine,

I veritably possess them--banish doubt,

And reticence and modesty alike!

Why, here 's the Golden Age, old Paradise

Or new Utopia! Here 's true life indeed,

And the world well won now, mine for the first time!

And all this might be, may be, and with good help

Of a little lying shall be: so, Sludge lies!

Why, he 's at worst your poet who sings how Greeks

That never were, in Troy which never was,

Did this or the other impossible great thing!

He 's Lowell--it 's a world (you smile applause)

Of his own invention--wondrous Longfellow,

Surprising Hawthorne! Sludge does more than they,

And acts the books they write: the more his praise!

But why do I mount to poets? Take plain prose--

Dealers in common sense, set these at work,

What can they do without their helpful lies?

Each states the law and fact and face o' the thing

Just as he 'd have them, finds what he thinks fit,

Is blind to what missuits him, just records

What makes his case out, quite ignores the rest.

It 's a History of the World, the Lizard Age,

The Early Indians, the Old Country War,

Jerome Napoleon, whatsoever you please,

All as the author wants it. Such a scribe

You pay and praise for putting life in stones,

Fire into fog, making the past your world.

There 's plenty of "How did you contrive to grasp

The thread which led you through this labyrinth?

How build such solid fabric out of air?

How on so slight foundation found this tale,

Biography, narrative?" or, in other words,

"How many lies did it require to make

The portly truth you here present us with?"

"Oh," quoth the penman, purring at your praise,

"'T is fancy all; no particle of fact:

I was poor and threadbare when I wrote that book

'Bliss in the Golden City.' I, at Thebes?

We writers paint out of our heads, you see!"

"--Ah, the more wonderful the gift in you,

The more creativeness and godlike craft!"

But I, do I present you with my piece,

It 's "What, Sludge? When my sainted mother spoke

The verses Lady Jane Grey last composed

About the rosy bower in the seventh heaven

Where she and Queen Elizabeth keep house,--

You made the raps? 'T was your invention that?

Cur, slave, and devil!"--eight fingers and two thumbs

Stuck in my throat!

Well, if the marks seem gone,

'T is because stiffish cocktail, taken in time,

Is better for a bruise than arnica.

There, sir! I bear no malice: 't is n't in me.

I know I acted wrongly: still, I 've tried

What I could say in my excuse,--to show

The devil 's not all devil ... I don't pretend

He 's angel, much less such a gentleman

As you, sir! And I 've lost you, lost myself,

Lost all-l-l-l- ...

No--are you in earnest, sir?

Oh, yours, sir, is an angel's part! I know

What prejudice prompts, and what 's the common course

Men take to soothe their ruffled self-conceit:

Only you rise superior to it all!

No, sir, it don't hurt much; it 's speaking long

That makes me choke a little: the marks will go!

What? Twenty V-notes more, and outfit too,

And not a word to Greeley? One--one kiss

O' the hand that saves me! You 'll not let me speak,

I well know, and I 've lost the right, too true!

But I must say, sir, if She hears (she does)

Your sainted ... Well, sir,--be it so! That 's, I think,

My bedroom candle. Good-night! Bl-l-less you, sir!

* * * * *

R-r-r, you brute-beast and blackguard! Cowardly scamp!

I only wish I dared burn down the house

And spoil your sniggering! Oh, what, you 're the man?

You 're satisfied at last? You 've found out Sludge?

We 'll see that presently: my turn, sir, next!

I too can tell my story: brute,--do you hear?--

You throttled your sainted mother, that old hag,

In just such a fit of passion: no, it was ...

To get this house of hers, and many a note

Like these ... I 'll pocket them, however ... five,

Ten, fifteen ... ay, you gave her throat the twist,

Or else you poisoned her! Confound the cuss!

Where was my head? I ought to have prophesied

He 'll die in a year and join her: that 's the way.

I don't know where my head is: what had I done?

How did it all go? I said he poisoned her,

And hoped he 'd have grace given him to repent,

Whereon he picked this quarrel, bullied me

And called me cheat: I thrashed him,--who could help?

He howled for mercy, prayed me on his knees

To cut and run and save him from disgrace:

I do so, and once off, he slanders me.

An end of him! Begin elsewhere anew!

Boston 's a hole, the herring-pond is wide,

V-notes are something, liberty still more.

Beside, is he the only fool in the world?

APPARENT FAILURE

"We shall soon lose a celebrated building."

_Paris Newspaper_

No, for I 'll save it! Seven years since,

I passed through Paris, stopped a day

To see the baptism of your Prince;

Saw, made my bow, and went my way:

Walking the heat and headache off,

I took the Seine-side, you surmise,

Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,

Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies,

So sauntered till--what met my eyes?

Only the Doric little Morgue!

The dead-house where you show your drowned:

Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,

Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.

One pays one's debt in such a case;

I plucked up heart and entered,--stalked,

Keeping a tolerable face

Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:

Let them! No Briton 's to be balked!

First came the silent gazers; next,

A screen of glass, we 're thankful for;

Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,

The three men who did most abhor

Their life in Paris yesterday,

So killed themselves: and now, enthroned

Each on his copper couch, they lay

Fronting me, waiting to be owned.

I thought, and think, their sin 's atoned.

Poor men, God made, and all for that!

The reverence struck me; o'er each head

Religiously was hung its hat,

Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,

Sacred from touch: each had his berth,

His bounds, his proper place of rest,

Who last night tenanted on earth

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,--

Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.

How did it happen, my poor boy?

You wanted to be Buonaparte

And have the Tuileries for toy,

And could not, so it broke your heart?

You, old one by his side, I judge,

Were, red as blood, a socialist,

A leveller! Does the Empire grudge

You 've gained what no Republic missed?

Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

And this--why, he was red in vain,

Or black,--poor fellow that is blue!

What fancy was it, turned your brain?

Oh, women were the prize for you!

Money gets women, cards and dice

Get money, and ill-luck gets just

The copper couch and one clear nice

Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,

The right thing to extinguish lust!

It 's wiser being good than bad;

It 's safer being meek than fierce:

It 's fitter being sane than mad.

My own hope is, a sun will pierce

The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;

That, after Last, returns the First,

Though a wide compass round be fetched;

That what began best, can't end worst,

Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

EPILOGUE

FIRST SPEAKER, _as David_

On the first of the Feast of Feasts,

The Dedication Day,

When the Levites joined the Priests

At the Altar in robed array,

Gave signal to sound and say,--

When the thousands, rear and van,

Swarming with one accord,

Became as a single man

(Look, gesture, thought and word)

In praising and thanking the Lord,--

When the singers lift up their voice,

And the trumpets made endeavor,

Sounding, "In God rejoice!"

Saying, "In Him rejoice

Whose mercy endureth forever!"--

Then the Temple filled with a cloud,

Even the House of the Lord;

Porch bent and pillar bowed:

For the presence of the Lord,

In the glory of his cloud,

Had filled the House of the Lord.

SECOND SPEAKER, _as Renan_

Gone now! All gone across the dark so far,

Sharpening fast, shuddering ever, shutting still,

Dwindling into the distance, dies that star

Which came, stood, opened once! We gazed our fill

With upturned faces on as real a Face

That, stooping from grave music and mild fire,

Took in our homage, made a visible place

Through many a depth of glory, gyre on gyre,

For the dim human tribute. Was this true?

Could man indeed avail, mere praise of his,

To help by rapture God's own rapture too,

Thrill with a heart's red tinge that pure pale bliss?

Why did it end? Who failed to beat the breast,

And shriek, and throw the arms protesting wide,

When a first shadow showed the star addressed

Itself to motion, and on either side

The rims contracted as the rays retired;

The music, like a fountain's sickening pulse,

Subsided on itself; awhile transpired

Some vestige of a Face no pangs convulse,

No prayers retard; then even this was gone,

Lost in the night at last. We, lone and left

Silent through centuries, ever and anon

Venture to probe again the vault bereft

Of all now save the lesser lights, a mist

Of multitudinous points, yet suns, men say--

And this leaps ruby, this lurks amethyst,

But where may hide what came and loved our clay?

How shall the sage detect in yon expanse

The star which chose to stoop and stay for us?

Unroll the records! Hailed ye such advance

Indeed, and did your hope evanish thus?

Watchers of twilight, is the worst averred?

We shall not look up, know ourselves are seen,

Speak, and be sure that we again are heard,

Acting or suffering, have the disk's serene

Reflect our life, absorb an earthly flame,

Nor doubt that, were mankind inert and numb,

Its core had never crimsoned all the same,

Nor, missing ours, its music fallen dumb?

Oh, dread succession to a dizzy post,

Sad sway of sceptre whose mere touch appalls,

Ghastly dethronement, cursed by those the most

On whose repugnant brow the crown next falls!

THIRD SPEAKER

Witless alike of will and way divine,

How heaven's high with earth's low should intertwine!

Friends, I have seen through your eyes: now use mine!

Take the least man of all mankind, as I;

Look at his head and heart, find how and why

He differs from his fellows utterly:

Then, like me, watch when nature by degrees

Grows alive round him, as in Arctic seas

(They said of old) the instinctive water flees

Toward some elected point of central rock,

As though, for its sake only, roamed the flock

Of waves about the waste: awhile they mock

With radiance caught for the occasion,--hues

Of blackest hell now, now such reds and blues

As only heaven could fitly interfuse,--

The mimic monarch of the whirlpool, king

O' the current for a minute: then they wring

Up by the roots and oversweep the thing,

And hasten off, to play again elsewhere

The same part, choose another peak as bare,

They find and flatter, feast and finish there.

When you see what I tell you,--nature dance

About each man of us, retire, advance,

As though the pageant's end were to enhance

His worth, and--once the life, his product, gained--

Roll away elsewhere, keep the strife sustained,

And show thus real, a thing the North but feigned--

When you acknowledge that one world could do

All the diverse work, old yet ever new,

Divide us, each from other, me from you,--

Why, where 's the need of Temple, when the walls

O' the world are that? What use of swells and falls

From Levites' choir, Priests' cries, and trumpet-calls?

That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows,

Or decomposes but to recompose,

Become my universe that feels and knows!

THE RING AND THE BOOK

This, the most long sustained of Browning's writings, was published

originally in four volumes, successively in November, December, 1868,

January, February, 1869. Mrs. Orr has given so circumstantial an

account of the inception of the work, that the main facts are here

reproduced from her _Hand-Book_.

"Mr. Browning was strolling one day through a square in Florence, the

Piazza San Lorenzo, which is a standing market for old clothes, old

furniture, and old curiosities of every kind, when a parchment-covered

book attracted his eye, from amidst the artistic or nondescript rubbish

of one of the stalls. It was the record of a murder which had taken

place in Rome, and bore inside it an inscription [in Latin] which Mr.

Browning transcribes [on p. 415].

"The book proved, on examination, to contain the whole history of

the case, as carried on in writing, after the fashion of those days:

pleadings and counter-pleadings, the depositions of defendants and

witnesses; manuscript letters announcing the execution of the murderer,

and the 'instrument of the Definitive Sentence' which established the

perfect innocence of the murdered wife: these various documents having

been collected and bound together by some person interested in the

trial, possibly the very Cencini, friend of the Franceschini family,

to whom the manuscript letters are addressed. Mr. Browning bought the

whole for the value of eightpence, and it became the raw material of

what appeared four years later as _The Ring and the Book_."

In another place Mrs. Orr states that the subject was conceived about

four years before the poet took it actually in hand, and that, before

he wrote it himself, he offered the theme for prose treatment to Miss

Ogle, the author of _A Lost Love_.

I

THE RING AND THE BOOK

Do you see this Ring?

'T is Rome-work, made to match

(By Castellani's imitative craft)

Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,

After a dropping April; found alive

Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots

That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,

Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There 's one trick,

(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device

And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold

As this was,--such mere oozings from the mine,

Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear

At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,--

To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:

Since hammer needs must widen out the round,

And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,

Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.

That trick is, the artificer melts up wax

With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold

With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,

Effects a manageable mass, then works:

But his work ended, once the thing a ring,

Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt

O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,

And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;

While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,

The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,

Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:

Prime nature with an added artistry--

No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.

What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;

A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss

I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about

By the crumpled vellum covers,--pure crude fact

Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,

And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?

Examine it yourselves! I found this book,

Gave a _lira_ for it, eightpence English just,

(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,

Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,

One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,

Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,

Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,

Toward Baccio's marble,--ay, the basement-ledge

O' the pedestal where sits and menaces

John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,

'Twixt palace and church,--Riccardi where they lived,

His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

This book,--precisely on that palace-step

Which, meant for lounging knaves o' the Medici,

Now serves re-venders to display their ware,--

'Mongst odds and ends of ravage, picture-frames

White through the worn gilt, mirror-sconces chipped,

Bronze angel-heads once knobs attached to chests

(Handled when ancient dames chose forth brocade),

Modern chalk drawings, studies from the nude,

Samples of stone, jet, breccia, porphyry

Polished and rough, sundry amazing busts

In baked earth (broken, Providence be praised!)

A wreck of tapestry, proudly-purposed web

When reds and blues were indeed red and blue,

Now offered as a mat to save bare feet

(Since carpets constitute a cruel cost)

Treading the chill scagliola bedward; then

A pile of brown-etched prints, two _crazie_ each,

Stopped by a conch a-top from fluttering forth

--Sowing the Square with works of one and the same

Master, the imaginative Sienese

Great in the scenic backgrounds--(name and fame

None of you know, nor does he fare the worse:)

From these ... Oh, with a Lionard going cheap

If it should prove, as promised, that Joconde

Whereof a copy contents the Louvre!--these

I picked this book from. Five compeers in flank

Stood left and right of it as tempting more--

A dogs-eared Spicilegium, the fond tale

O' the Frail One of the Flower, by young Dumas,

Vulgarized Horace for the use of schools,

The Life, Death, Miracles of Saint Somebody,

Saint Somebody Else, his Miracles, Death and Life,--

With this, one glance at the lettered back of which,

And "Stall!" cried I: a _lira_ made it mine.

Here it is, this I toss and take again;

Small-quarto size, part print, part manuscript:

A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact

Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,

And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since.

Give it me back! The thing 's restorative

I' the touch and sight.

That memorable day,

(June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square),

I leaned a little and overlooked my prize

By the low railing round the fountain-source

Close to the statue, where a step descends:

While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose

Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place

For marketmen glad to pitch basket down,

Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet,

And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read

Presently, though my path grew perilous

Between the outspread straw-work, piles of plait

Soon to be flapping, each o'er two black eyes

And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine:

Through fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves,

Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape,

Rows of tall slim brass lamps with dangling gear,--

And worse, cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun:

None of them took my eye from off my prize.

Still read I on, from written title-page

To written index, on, through street and street,

At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge;

Till, by the time I stood at home again

In Casa Guidi by Felice Church,

Under the doorway where the black begins

With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold,

I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth

Gathered together, bound up in this book,

Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest.

"_Romana Homicidiorum_"--nay,

Better translate--"A Roman murder-case:

Position of the entire criminal cause

Of Guido Franceschini, nobleman,

With certain Four the cutthroats in his pay,

Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death

By heading or hanging as befitted ranks,

At Rome on February Twenty Two,

Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight:

Wherein it is disputed if, and when,

Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape

The customary forfeit."

Word for word,

So ran the title-page: murder, or else

Legitimate punishment of the other crime,

Accounted murder by mistake,--just that

And no more, in a Latin cramp enough

When the law had her eloquence to launch,

But interfilleted with Italian streaks

When testimony stooped to mother-tongue,--

That, was this old square yellow book about.

Now, as the ingot, ere the ring was forged,

Lay gold, (beseech you, hold that figure fast!)

So, in this book lay absolutely truth,

Fanciless fact, the documents indeed,

Primary lawyer-pleadings for, against,

The aforesaid Five; real summed-up circumstance

Adduced in proof of these on either side,

Put forth and printed, as the practice was,

At Rome, in the Apostolic Chamber's type,

And so submitted to the eye o' the Court

Presided over by His Reverence

Rome's Governor and Criminal Judge,--the trial

Itself, to all intents, being then as now

Here in the book and nowise out of it;

Seeing, there properly was no judgment-bar,

No bringing of accuser and accused,

And whoso judged both parties, face to face

Before some court, as we conceive of courts.

There was a Hall of Justice; that came last:

For Justice had a chamber by the hall

Where she took evidence first, summed up the same,

Then sent accuser and accused alike,

In person of the advocate of each,

To weigh its worth, thereby arrange, array

The battle. 'T was the so-styled Fisc began,

Pleaded (and since he only spoke in print

The printed voice of him lives now as then)

The public Prosecutor--"Murder 's proved;

With five ... what we call qualities of bad,

Worse, worst, and yet worse still, and still worse yet;

Crest over crest crowning the cockatrice,

That beggar hell's regalia to enrich

Count Guido Franceschini: punish him!"

Thus was the paper put before the court

In the next stage, (no noisy work at all,)

To study at ease. In due time like reply

Came from the so-styled Patron of the Poor,

Official mouthpiece of the five accused

Too poor to fee a better,--Guido's luck

Or else his fellows',--which, I hardly know,--

An outbreak as of wonder at the world,

A fury-fit of outraged innocence,

A passion of betrayed simplicity:

"Punish Count Guido? For what crime, what hint

O' the color of a crime, inform us first!

Reward him rather! Recognize, we say,

In the deed done, a righteous judgment dealt!

All conscience and all courage,--there 's our Count

Charactered in a word; and, what 's more strange,

He had companionship in privilege,

Found four courageous conscientious friends:

Absolve, applaud all five, as props of law,

Sustainers of society!--perchance

A trifle over-hasty with the hand

To hold her tottering ark, had tumbled else;

But that 's a splendid fault whereat we wink,

Wishing your cold correctness sparkled so!"

Thus paper second followed paper first,

Thus did the two join issue--nay, the four,

Each pleader having an adjunct. "True, he killed

--So to speak--in a certain sort--his wife,

But laudably, since thus it happed!" quoth one:

Whereat, more witness and the case postponed.

"Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed,

And proved himself thereby portentousest

Of cutthroats and a prodigy of crime,

As the woman that he slaughtered was a saint,

Martyr and miracle!" quoted the other to match:

Again, more witness, and the case postponed.

"A miracle, ay--of lust and impudence;

Hear my new reasons!" interposed the first:

"--Coupled with more of mine!" pursued his peer.

"Beside, the precedents, the authorities!"

From both at once a cry with an echo, that!

That was a firebrand at each fox's tail

Unleashed in a cornfield: soon spread flare enough,

As hurtled thither and there heaped themselves

From earth's four corners, all authority

And precedent for putting wives to death,

Or letting wives live, sinful as they seem.

How legislated, now, in this respect,

Solon and his Athenians? Quote the code

Of Romulus and Rome! Justinian speak!

Nor modern Baldo, Bartolo be dumb!

The Roman voice was potent, plentiful;

_Cornelia de Sicariis_ hurried to help

_Pompeia de Parricidiis;_ _Julia de_

Something-or-other jostled _Lex_ this-and-that;

King Solomon confirmed Apostle Paul:

That nice decision of Dolabella, eh?

That pregnant instance of Theodoric, oh!

Down to that choice example Ælian gives

(An instance I find much insisted on)

Of the elephant who, brute-beast though he were,

Yet understood and punished on the spot

His master's naughty spouse and faithless friend;

A true tale which has edified each child,

Much more shall flourish favored by our court!

Pages of proof this way, and that way proof,

And always--once again the case postponed.

Thus wrangled, brangled, jangled they a month,

--Only on paper, pleadings all in print,

Nor ever was, except i' the brains of men,

More noise by word of mouth than you hear now--

Till the court cut all short with "Judged, your cause.

Receive our sentence! Praise God! We pronounce

Count Guido devilish and damnable:

His wife Pompilia in thought, word and deed,

Was perfect pure, he murdered her for that:

As for the Four who helped the One, all Five--

Why, let employer and hirelings share alike

In guilt and guilt's reward, the death their due!"

So was the trial at end, do you suppose?

"Guilty you find him, death you doom him to?

Ay, were not Guido, more than needs, a priest,

Priest and to spare!"--this was a shot reserved;

I learn this from epistles which begin

Here where the print ends,--see the pen and ink

Of the advocate, the ready at a pinch!--

"My client boasts the clerkly privilege,

Has taken minor orders many enough,

Shows still sufficient chrism upon his pate

To neutralize a blood-stain: _presbyter_,

_Primæ tonsuræ, subdiaconus,_

_Sacerdos_, so he slips from underneath

Your power, the temporal, slides inside the robe

Of mother Church: to her we make appeal

By the Pope, the Church's head!"

A parlous plea,

Put in with noticeable effect, it seems;

"Since straight,"--resumes the zealous orator,

Making a friend acquainted with the facts,--

"Once the word 'clericality' let fall,

Procedure stopped and freer breath was drawn

By all considerate and responsible Rome."

Quality took the decent part, of course;

Held by the husband, who was noble too:

Or, for the matter of that, a churl would side

With too-refined susceptibility,

And honor which, tender in the extreme,

Stung to the quick, must roughly right itself

At all risks, not sit still and whine for law

As a Jew would, if you squeezed him to the wall,

Brisk-trotting through the Ghetto. Nay, it seems,

Even the Emperor's Envoy had his say

To say on the subject; might not see, unmoved,

Civility menaced throughout Christendom

By too harsh measure dealt her champion here.

Lastly, what made all safe, the Pope was kind,

From his youth up, reluctant to take life,

If mercy might be just and yet show grace;

Much more unlikely then, in extreme age,

To take a life the general sense bade spare.

'T was plain that Guido would go scatheless yet.