_Klu._ Men, citizens, Argeians here, my worships!

I shall not shame me, consort-loving manners

To tell before you: for in time there dies off

The diffidence from people. Not from others

Learning, I of myself will tell the hard life

I bore so long as this man was 'neath Ilion.

First: for a woman, from the male divided,

To sit at home alone, is monstrous evil--

Hearing the many rumors back-revenging:

And for now This to come, now That bring after

Woe, and still worse woe, bawling in the household!

And truly, if so many wounds had chanced on

My husband here, as homeward used to dribble

Report, he's pierced more than a net to speak of!

While, were he dying (as the words abounded)

A triple-bodied Geruon the Second,

Plenty above--for loads below I count not--

Of earth a three-share cloak he'd boast of taking,

Once only dying in each several figure!

Because of such-like rumors back-revenging,

Many the halters from my neck, above head,

Others than _I_ loosed--loosed from neck by main force!

From this cause, sure, the boy stands not beside me--

Possessor of our troth-plights, thine and mine too--

As ought Orestes: be not thou astonished!

For, him brings up our well-disposed guest-captive

Strophios the Phokian--ills that told on both sides

To me predicting--both of thee 'neath Ilion

The danger, and if anarchy's mob-uproar

Should overthrow thy council; since 'tis born with

Mortals,--whoe'er has fallen, the more to kick him.

Such an excuse, I think, no cunning carries!

As for myself--why, of my wails the rushing

Fountains are dried up: not in them a drop more!

And in my late-to-bed eyes I have damage

Bewailing what concerned thee, those torch-holdings

Forever unattended to. In dreams--why,

Beneath the light wing-beats o' the gnat, I woke up

As he went buzzing--sorrows that concerned thee

Seeing, that filled more than their fellow-sleep-time.

Now, all this having suffered, from soul grief-free

I would style this man here the dog o' the stables,

The savior forestay of the ship, the high roof's

Ground-prop, son sole-begotten to his father,

--Ay, land appearing to the sailors past hope,

Loveliest day to see after a tempest,

To the wayfaring-one athirst a well-spring,

--The joy, in short, of 'scaping all that's--fatal!

I judge him worth addresses such as these are

--Envy stand off!--for many those old evils

We underwent. And now, to me--dear headship!--

Dismount thou from this car, not earthward setting

The foot of thine, O king, that's Ilion's spoiler!

Slave-maids, why tarry?--whose the task allotted

To strew the soil o' the road with carpet-spreadings.

Immediately be purple-strewn the pathway,

So that to home unhoped may lead him--Justice!

As for the rest, care shall--by no sleep conquered--

Dispose things--justly (gods to aid!) appointed.

_Aga._ Offspring of Leda, of my household warder,

Suitably to my absence hast thou spoken,

For long the speech thou didst outstretch! But aptly

To praise--from others ought to go this favor.

And for the rest,--not me, in woman's fashion,

Mollify, nor--as mode of barbarous man is--

To me gape forth a groundward-failing clamor!

Nor, strewing it with garments, make my passage

Envied! Gods, sure, with these behooves we honor:

But, for a mortal on these varied beauties

To walk--to me, indeed, is nowise fear-free.

I say--as man, not god, to me do homage!

Apart from foot-mats both and varied vestures

Renown is loud, and--not to lose one's senses,

God's greatest gift. Behooves we him call happy

Who has brought life to end in loved wellbeing.

If all things I might manage thus--brave man, I!

_Klu._ Come now, this say, nor feign a feeling to me!

_Aga._ With feeling, know indeed, I do not tamper!

_Klu._ Vowed'st thou to the gods, in fear, to act thus?

_Aga._ If any, _I_ well knew resolve I outspoke.

_Klu._ What think'st thou Priamos had done, thus victor?

_Aga._ On varied vests--I do think--he had passaged.

_Klu._ Then, do not, struck with awe at human censure....

_Aga._ Well, popular mob-outcry much avails too!

_Klu._ Ay, but the unenvied is not the much valued.

_Aga._ Sure, 't is no woman's part to long for battle!

_Klu._ Why, to the prosperous, even suits a beating!

_Aga._ What? thou this beating us in war dost prize too?

_Klu._ Persuade thee! power, for once, grant _me_--and willing!

_Aga._ But if this seem so to thee--shoes, let some one

Loose under, quick--foot's serviceable carriage!

And me, on these sea-products walking, may no

Grudge from a distance, from the god's eye, strike at!

For great shame were my strewment-spoiling--riches!

Spoiling with feet, and silver-purchased textures!

Of these things, thus then. But this female-stranger

Tenderly take inside! Who conquers mildly

God, from afar, benignantly regardeth.

For, willing, no one wears a yoke that's servile:

And she, of many valuables, outpicked

The flower, the army's gift, myself has followed.

So--since to hear thee, I am brought about thus,--

I go into the palace--purples treading.

_Klu._ There is the sea--and what man shall exhaust it?--

Feeding much purple's worth-its-weight-in-silver

Dye, ever fresh and fresh, our garments' tincture;

At home, such wealth, king, we begin--by gods' help--

With having, and to lack, the household knows not.

Of many garments had I vowed a treading

(In oracles if fore-enjoined the household)

Of this dear soul the safe-return-price scheming!

For, root existing, foliage goes up houses,

O'erspreading shadow against Seirios dog-star;

And, thou returning to the hearth domestic,

Warmth, yea, in winter dost thou show returning.

And when, too, Zeus works, from the green-grape acrid,

Wine--then, already, cool in houses cometh--

The perfect man his home perambulating!

Zeus, Zeus Perfecter, these my prayers perfect thou!

--Thy care be--yea--of things thou mayst make perfect!

_Cho._ Wherefore to me, this fear--

Groundedly stationed here

Fronting my heart, the portent-watcher--flits she?

Wherefore should prophet-play

The uncalled and unpaid lay,

Nor--having spat forth fear, like bad dreams--sits she

On the mind's throne beloved--well-suasive Boldness?

For time, since, by a throw of all the hands,

The boat's stern-cables touched the sands,

Has passed from youth to oldness,--

When under Ilion rushed the ship-borne bands.

And from my eyes I learn--

Being myself my witness--their return.

Yet, all the same, without a lyre, my soul,

Itself its teacher too, chants from within

Erinus' dirge, not having now the whole

Of Hope's dear boldness: nor my inwards sin--

The heart that's rolled in whirls against the mind

Justly presageful of a fate behind.

But I pray--things false, from my hope, may fall

Into the fate that's not-fulfilled-at-all!

Especially at least, of health that's great

The term's insatiable: for, its weight

--A neighbor, with a common wall between--

Ever will sickness lean;

And destiny, her course pursuing straight,

Has struck man's ship against a reef unseen.

Now, when a portion, rather than the treasure,

Fear casts from sling, with peril in right measure,

It has not sunk--the universal freight,

(With misery freighted over-full,)

Nor has fear whelmed the hull.

Then too the gift of Zeus,

Two-handedly profuse,

Even from the furrows' yield for yearly use

Has done away with famine, the disease;

But blood of man to earth once falling,--deadly, black,--

In times ere these,--

Who may, by singing spells, call back?

Zeus had not else stopped one who rightly knew

The way to bring the dead again.

But, did not an appointed Fate constrain

The Fate from gods, to bear no more than due,

My heart, outstripping what tongue utters,

Would have all out: which now, in darkness, mutters

Moodily grieved, nor ever hopes to find

How she a word in season may unwind

From out the enkindling mind.

_Klu._ Take thyself in, thou too--I say, Kassandra!

Since Zeus--not angrily--in household placed thee

Partaker of hand-sprinklings, with the many

Slaves stationed, his the Owner's altar close to.

Descend from out this car, nor be high-minded!

And truly they do say Alkmene's child once

Bore being sold, slaves' barley-bread his living.

If, then, necessity of this lot o'erbalance,

Much is the favor of old-wealthy masters:

For those who, never hoping, made fine harvest

Are harsh to slaves in all things, beyond measure,

Thou hast--with us--such usage as law warrants.

_Cho._ To thee it was, she paused plain speech from speaking.

Being inside the fatal nets--obeying,

Thou mayst obey: but thou mayst disobey too!

_Klu._ Why, if she is not, in the swallow's fashion,

Possessed of voice that 's unknown and barbaric,

I, with speech--speaking in mind's scope--persuade her.

_Cho._ Follow! The best--as things now stand--she speaks of.

Obey thou, leaving this thy car-enthronement!

_Klu._ Well, with this thing at door, for me no leisure

To waste time: as concerns the hearth mid-navelled,

Already stand the sheep for fireside slaying

By those who never hoped to have such favor.

If thou, then, aught of this wilt do, delay not!

But if thou, being witless, tak'st no word in,

Speak thou, instead of voice, with hand as Kars do!

_Cho._ She seems a plain interpreter in need of,

The stranger! and her way--a beast's new-captured!

_Klu._ Why, she is mad, sure,--hears her own bad senses,--

Who, while she comes, leaving a town new-captured,

Yet knows not how to bear the bit o' the bridle

Before she has out-frothed her bloody fierceness.

Not I--throwing away more words--will shamed be!

_Cho._ But I,--for I compassionate,--will chafe not.

Come, O unhappy one, this car vacating,

Yielding to this necessity, prove yoke's use!

_Kassandra._ Otototoi, Gods, Earth--Apollon, Apollon!

_Cho._ Why didst thou "ototoi" concerning Loxias?

Since he is none such as to suit a mourner.

_Kas._ Otototoi, Gods, Earth,

--Apollon, Apollon!

_Cho._ Ill-boding here again the god invokes she

--Nowise empowered in woes to stand by helpful.

_Kas._ Apollon, Apollon,

Guard of the ways, my destroyer!

For thou hast quite, this second time, destroyed me.

_Cho._ To prophesy she seems of her own evils:

Remains the god-gift to the slave-soul present.

_Kas._ Apollon, Apollon,

Guard of the ways, my destroyer!

Ha, whither hast thou led me? to what roof now?

_Cho._ To the Atreidai's roof: if this thou know'st not,

I tell it thee, nor this wilt thou call falsehood.

_Kas._ How! how!

God-hated, then! Of many a crime it knew--

Self-slaying evils, halters too:

Man's-shambles, blood-besprinkler of the ground!

_Cho._ She seems to be good-nosed, the stranger: dog-like,

She snuffs indeed the victims she will find there.

_Kas._ How! how!

By the witnesses here I am certain now!

These children bewailing their slaughters--flesh dressed in the fire

And devoured by their sire!

_Cho._ Ay, we have heard of thy soothsaying glory,

Doubtless: but prophets none are we in scent of!

_Kas._ Ah, gods, what ever does she meditate?

What this new anguish great?

Great in the house here she meditates ill

Such as friends cannot bear, cannot cure it: and still

Off stands all Resistance

Afar in the distance!

_Cho._ Of these I witless am--these prophesyings.

But those I knew: for the whole city bruits them.

_Kas._ Ah, unhappy one, this thou consummatest?

Thy husband, thy bed's common guest,

In the bath having brightened.... How shall I declare

Consummation? It soon will be there:

For hand after hand she outstretches,

At life as she reaches!

_Cho._ Nor yet I 've gone with thee! for--after riddles--

Now, in blind oracles, I feel resourceless.

_Kas._ Eh, eh, papai, papai,

What this, I espy?

Some net of Haides undoubtedly!

Nay, rather, the snare

Is she who has share

In his bed, who takes part in the murder there!

But may a revolt--

Unceasing assault--

On the Race, raise a shout

Sacrificial, about

A victim--by stoning--

For murder atoning!

_Cho._ What this Erinus which i' the house thou callest

To raise her cry? Not me thy word enlightens!

To my heart has run

A drop of the crocus-dye:

Which makes for those

On earth by the spear that lie,

A common close

With life's descending sun.

Swift is the curse begun!

_Kas._ How! how!

See--see quick!

Keep the bull from the cow!

In the vesture she catching him, strikes him now

With the black-horned trick,

And he falls into the watery vase!

Of the craft-killing caldron I tell thee the case!

_Cho._ I would not boast to be a topping critic

Of oracles: but to some sort of evil

I liken these. From oracles, what good speech

To mortals, beside, is sent?

It comes of their evils: these arts word-abounding that sing the

event

Bring the fear 't is their office to teach.

_Kas._ Ah me, ah me--

Of me unhappy, evil-destined fortunes!

For I bewail my proper woe

As, mine with his, all into one I throw.

Why hast thou hither me unhappy brought?

--Unless that I should die with him--for naught!

What else was sought?

_Cho._ Thou art some mind-mazed creature, god-possessed:

And all about thyself dost wail

A lay--no lay!

Like some brown nightingale

Insatiable of noise, who--well away!--

From her unhappy breast

Keeps moaning Itus, Itus, and his life

With evils, flourishing on each side, rife.

_Kas._ Ah me, ah me,

The fate o' the nightingale, the clear resounder!

For a body wing-borne have the gods cast round her,

And sweet existence, from misfortunes free:

But for myself remains a sundering

With spear, the two-edged thing!

_Cho._ Whence hast thou this on-rushing god-involving pain

And spasms in vain?

For, things that terrify,

With changing unintelligible cry

Thou strikest up in tune, yet all the while

After that Orthian style!

Whence hast thou limits to the oracular road,

That evils bode?

_Kas._ Ah me, the nuptials, the nuptials of Paris, the deadly to

friends!

Ah me, of Skamandros the draught

Paternal! There once, to these ends,

On thy banks was I brought,

The unhappy! And now, by Kokutos and Acheron's shore

I shall soon be, it seems, these my oracles singing once more!

_Cho._ Why this word, plain too much,

Hast thou uttered? A babe might learn of such!

I am struck with a bloody bite--here under--

At the fate woe-wreaking

Of thee shrill-shrieking:

To me who hear--a wonder!

_Kas._ Ah me, the toils--the toils of the city

The wholly destroyed: ah, pity,

Of the sacrificings my father made

In the ramparts' aid--

Much slaughter of grass-fed flocks--that afforded no cure

That the city should not, as it does now, the burthen endure!

But I, with the soul on fire,

Soon to the earth shall cast me and expire!

_Cho._ To things, on the former consequent,

Again hast thou given vent:

And 't is some evil-meaning fiend doth move thee,

Heavily falling from above thee,

To melodize thy sorrows--else, in singing,

Calamitous, death-bringing!

And of all this the end

I am without resource to apprehend.

_Kas._ Well then, the oracle from veils no longer

Shall be outlooking, like a bride new-married:

But bright it seems, against the sun's uprisings

Breathing, to penetrate thee: so as, wave-like,

To wash against the rays a woe much greater

Than this. I will no longer teach by riddles.

And witness, running with me, that of evils

Done long ago, I nosing track the footstep!

For, this same roof here--never quits a Choros

One-voiced, not well-tuned since no "well" it utters:

And truly having drunk, to get more courage,

Man's blood--the Komos keeps within the household

--Hard to be sent outside--of sister Furies:

They hymn their hymn--within the house close sitting--

The first beginning curse: in turn spit forth at

The Brother's bed, to him who spurned it hostile.

Have I missed aught, or hit I like a bowman?

False prophet am I,--knock at doors, a babbler?

Henceforward witness, swearing now, I know not

By other's word the old sins of this household!

_Cho._ And how should oath, bond honorably binding,

Become thy cure? No less I wonder at thee

--That thou, beyond sea reared, a strange-tongued city

Shouldst hit in speaking, just as if thou stood'st by!

_Kas._ Prophet Apollon put me in this office.

_Cho._ What, even though a god, with longing smitten?

_Kas._ At first, indeed, shame was to me to say this.

_Cho._ For, more relaxed grows every one who fares well.

_Kas._ But he was athlete to me--huge grace breathing!

_Cho._ Well, to the work of children, went ya law's way?

_Kas._ Having consented, I played false to Loxias.

_Cho._ Already when the wits inspired possessed of?

_Kas._ Already townsmen all their woes I foretold.

_Cho._ How wast thou then unhurt by Loxias' anger?

_Kas._ I no one aught persuaded, when I sinned thus.

_Cho._ To us, at least, now sooth to say thou seemest.

_Kas._ Halloo, halloo, ah, evils!

Again, straightforward foresight's fearful labor

Whirls me, distracting with prelusive last-lays!

Behold ye those there, in the household seated,--

Young ones,--of dreams approaching to the figures?

Children, as if they died by their beloveds--

Hands they have rilled with flesh, the meal domestic--

Entrails and vitals both, most piteous burthen,

Plain they are holding!--which their father tasted!

For this, I say, plans punishment a certain

Lion ignoble, on the bed that wallows,

House-guard (ah, me!) to the returning master

--Mine, since to bear the slavish yoke behooves me!

The ships' commander, Ilion's desolator,

Knows not what things the tongue of the lewd she-dog

Speaking, outspreading, shiny-souled, in fashion

Of Até hid, will reach to, by ill fortune!

Such things she dares--the female, the male's slayer!

She is ... how calling her the hateful bite-beast

May I hit the mark? Some amphisbaina--Skulla

Housing in rocks, of mariners the mischief,

Revelling Haides' mother,--curse, no truce with,

Breathing at friends! How piously she shouted,

The all-courageous, as at turn of battle!

She seems to joy at the back-bringing safety!

Of this, too, if I naught persuade, all 's one! Why?

What is to be will come! And soon thou, present,

"True prophet all too much" wilt pitying style me!

_Cho._ Thuestes' feast, indeed, on flesh of children,

I went with, and I shuddered. Fear too holds me

Listing what 's true as life, nowise out-imaged!

_Kas._ I say, thou Agamemnon's fate shalt look on!

_Cho._ Speak good words, O unhappy! Set mouth sleeping!

_Kas._ But Paian stands in no stead to the speech here.

_Cho._ Nay, if the thing be near: but never be it!

_Kas._ Thou, indeed, prayest: they to kill are busy!

_Cho._ Of what man is it ministered, this sorrow?

_Kas._ There again, wide thou look'st of my foretellings.

_Cho._ For, the fulfiller's scheme I have not gone with.

_Kas._ And yet too well I know the speech Hellenic.

_Cho._ For Puthian oracles, thy speech, and hard too!

_Kas._ Papai: what fire this! and it comes upon me!

Ototoi, Lukeion Apollon, ah me--me!

She, the two-footed lioness that sleeps with

The wolf, in absence of the generous lion,

Kills me the unhappy one: and as a poison

Brewing, to put my price too in the anger,

She vows, against her mate this weapon whetting

To pay him back the bringing me, with slaughter.

Why keep I then these things to make me laughed at,

Both wands and, round my neck, oracular fillets?

Thee, at least, ere my own fate will I ruin:

Go, to perdition falling! Boons exchange we--

Some other Até in my stead make wealthy!

See there--himself, Apollon stripping from me

The oracular garment! having looked upon me

--Even in these adornments, laughed by friends at,

As good as foes, i' the balance weighed: and vainly--

For, called crazed stroller,--as I had been gypsy,

Beggar, unhappy, starved to death,--I bore it.

And now the Prophet--prophet me undoing,

Has led away to these so deadly fortunes!

Instead of my sire's altar, waits the hack-block

She struck with first warm bloody sacrificing!

Yet nowise unavenged of gods will death be:

For there shall come another, our avenger,

The mother-slaying scion, father's doomsman:

Fugitive, wanderer, from this land an exile,

Back shall he come,--for friends, copestone these curses!

For there is sworn a great oath from the gods that

Him shall bring hither his fallen sire's prostration.

Why make I then, like an indweller, moaning?

Since at the first I foresaw Ilion's city

Suffering as it has suffered: and who took it,

Thus by the judgment of the gods are faring.

I go, will suffer, will submit to dying!

But, Haides' gates--these same I call, I speak to,

And pray that on an opportune blow chancing,

Without a struggle,--blood the calm death bringing

In easy outflow,--I this eye may close up!

_Cho._ O much unhappy, but, again, much learned

Woman, long hast thou outstretched! But if truly

Thou knowest thine own fate, how comes that, like to

A god-led steer, to altar bold thou treadest?

_Kas._ There 's no avoidance,--strangers, no! Some time more!

_Cho._. He last is, anyhow, by time advantaged.

_Kas._ It comes, the day: I shall by flight gain little.

_Cho._ But know thou patient art from thy brave spirit!

_Kas._ Such things hears no one of the happy-fortuned.

_Cho._ But gloriously to die--for man is grace, sure!

_Kas._ Ah, sire, for thee and for thy noble children!

_Cho._ But what thing is it? What fear turns thee backwards?

_Kas._ Alas, alas!

_Cho._ Why this "alas"? if 't is no spirit's loathing ...

_Kas._ Slaughter blood-dripping does the household smell of!

_Cho._ How else? This scent is of hearth-sacrifices.

_Kas._ Such kind of steam as from a tomb is proper!

_Cho._ No Surian honor to the House thou speak'st of!

_Kas._ But I will go,--even in the household wailing

My fate and Agamemnon's. Life suffice me!

Ah, strangers!

I cry not "ah"--as bird at bush--through terror

Idly! to me, the dead thus much bear witness:

When, for me--woman, there shall die a woman,

And, for a man ill-wived, a man shall perish!

This hospitality I ask as dying.

_Cho._ O sufferer, thee--thy foretold fate I pity.

_Kas._ Yet once for all, to speak a speech, I fain am:

No dirge, mine for myself! The sun I pray to,

Fronting his last light!--to my own avengers--

That from my hateful slayers they exact too

Pay for the dead slave--easy-managed hand's work!

_Cho._ Alas for mortal matters! Happy-fortuned,--

Why, any shade would turn them: if unhappy,

By throws the wetting sponge has spoiled the picture!

And more by much in mortals this I pity.

The being well-to-do--

Insatiate a desire of this

Born with all mortals is,

Nor any is there who

Well-being forces off, aroints

From roofs whereat a finger points,

"No more come in!" exclaiming. This man, too,

To take the city of Priamos did the celestials give,

And, honored by the god, he homeward comes;

But now if, of the former, he shall pay

The blood back, and, for those who ceased to live,

Dying, for deaths in turn new punishment he dooms--

Who, being mortal, would not pray

With an unmischievous

Daimon to have been born---who would not, hearing thus?

_Aga._ Ah me! I am struck--a right-aimed stroke within me!

_Cho._ Silence! Who is it shouts "stroke"--"right-aimedly," a

wounded one?

_Aga._ Ah me! indeed again,--a second, struck by!

_Cho._ This work seems to me completed by this "Ah me" of the

king's;

But we somehow may together share in solid counsellings.

_Cho. 1._ I, in the first place, my opinion tell you:

--To cite the townsmen, by help-cry, to house here.

_Cho. 2._ To me, it seems we ought to fall upon them

At quickest--prove the fact by sword fresh-flowing!

_Cho. 3._ And I, of such opinion the partaker,

Vote--to do something: not to wait--the main point!

_Cho. 4._ 'T is plain to see: for they prelude as though of

A tyranny the signs they gave the city.

_Cho. 5._ For we waste time; while they,--this waiting's glory

Treading to ground,--allow the hand no slumber.

_Cho. 6._ I know not--chancing on some plan --to tell it:

'T is for the doer to plan of the deed also.

_Cho. 7._ And I am such another: since I 'm schemeless

How to raise up again by words--a dead man!

_Cho. 8._ What, and, protracting life, shall we give way thus

To the disgracers of our home, these rulers?

_Cho. 9._ Why, 't is unbearable: but to die is better:

For death than tyranny is the riper finish!

_Cho. 10._ What, by the testifying "Ah me" of him,

Shall we prognosticate the man as perished?

_Cho. 11._ We must quite know ere speak these things concerning:

For to conjecture and "quite know" are two things.

_Cho. 12._ This same to praise I from all sides abound in--

Clearly to know, Atreides, what he 's doing!

_Klu._ Much having been before to purpose spoken,

The opposite to say I shall not shamed be:

For how should one, to enemies,--in semblance,

Friends,--enmity proposing,--sorrow's net-frame

Enclose, a height superior to outleaping?

To me, indeed, this struggle of old--not mindless

Of an old victory--came: with time, I grant you!

I stand where I have struck, things once accomplished:

And so have done,--and this deny I shall not,--

As that his fate was nor to fly nor ward off.

A wrap-round with no outlet, as for fishes,

I fence about him--the rich woe of the garment:

I strike him twice, and in a double "Ah-me!"

He let his limbs go-- _there!_ And to him, fallen,

The third blow add I, giving--of Below-ground

Zeus, guardian of the dead--the votive favor

Thus in the mind of him he rages, falling,

And blowing forth a brisk blood-spatter, strikes me

With the dark drop of slaughterous dew,--rejoicing

No less than, at the god-given dewy-comfort,

The sown-stuff in its birth-throes from the calyx.

Since so these things are,--Argives, my revered here,--

Ye may rejoice--if ye rejoice: but I--boast!

If it were fit on corpse to pour libation,

That would be right--right over and above, too!

The cup of evils in the house he, having

Filled with such curses, himself coming drinks of.

_Cho._ We wonder at thy tongue: since bold-mouthed truly

Is she who in such speech boasts o'er her husband!

_Klu._ Ye test me as I were a witless woman:

But I--with heart intrepid--to you knowers

Say (and thou--if thou wilt or praise or blame me,

Comes to the same)--this man is Agamemnon,

My husband, dead, the work of the right hand here,

Ay, of a just artificer: so things are.

_Cho._ What evil, O woman, food or drink, earth-bred

Or sent from the flowing sea,

Of such having fee

Didst thou set on thee

This sacrifice

And popular cries

Of a curse on thy head?

Off thou hast thrown him, off hast cut

The man from the city: but

Off from the city thyself shalt be

Cut--to the citizens

A hate immense!

_Klu._ Now, indeed, thou adjudgest exile to me,

And citizens' hate, and to have popular curses:

Nothing of this against the man here bringing,

Who, no more awe-checked than as 't were a beast's fate,--

With sheep abundant in the well-fleeced graze-flocks,--

Sacrificed _his_ child,--dearest fruit of travail

To me,--as song-spell against Threkian blowings.

Not _him_ did it behoove thee hence to banish

--Pollution's penalty? But hearing _my_ deeds

Justicer rough thou art! Now, this I tell thee:

To threaten thus--me, one prepared to have thee

(On like conditions, thy hand conquering) o'er me

Rule: but if God the opposite ordain us,

Thou shalt learn--late taught, certes--to be modest.

_Cho._ Greatly-intending thou art:

Much-mindful, too, hast thou cried

(Since thy mind, with its slaughter-outpouring part,

Is frantic) that over the eyes, a patch

Of blood--with blood to match

Is plain for a pride!

Yet still, bereft of friends, thy fate

Is--blow with blow to expiate!

_Klu._ And this thou hearest--of my oaths, just warrant!

By who fulfilled things for my daughter, Justice,

Até, Erinus,--by whose help I slew him,--

Not mine the fancy--Fear will tread my palace

So long as on my hearth there burns a fire,

Aigisthos as before well-caring for me;

Since he to me is shield, no small, of boldness.

Here does he lie--outrager of this female,

Dainty of all the Chruseids under Ilion;

And she--the captive, the soothsayer also

And couchmate of this man, oracle-speaker,

Faithful bedfellow,--ay, the sailors' benches

They wore in common, nor unpunished did so,

Since he is--thus! While, as for her,--swan-fashion,

Her latest having chanted,--dying wailing

She lies,--to him, a sweetheart: me she brought to

My bed's by-nicety, the whet of dalliance.

_Cho._ Alas, that some

Fate would come

Upon us in quickness--

Neither much sickness

Neither bed-keeping--

And bear unended sleeping,

Now that subdued

Is our keeper, the kindest of mood!

Having borne, for a woman's sake, much strife--

By a woman he withered from life!

Ah me!

Law-breaking Helena who, one,

Hast many, so many souls undone

'Neath Troia! and now the consummated

Much-memorable curse

Hast thou made flower-forth, red

With the blood no rains disperse,

That which was then in the House--

Strife all-subduing, the woe of a spouse.

_Klu._ Nowise, of death the fate--

Burdened by these things--supplicate!

Nor on Helena turn thy wrath

As the man-destroyer, as "she who hath,

Being but one,

Many and many a soul undone

Of the men, the Danaoi"--

And wrought immense annoy!

_Cho._ Daimon, who fallest

Upon this household and the double-raced

Tantalidai, a rule, minded like theirs displaced,

Thou rulest me with, now,

Whose heart thou gallest!

And on the body, like a hateful crow,

Stationed, all out of tune, his chant to chant

Doth Something vaunt!

_Klu._ Now, of a truth, hast thou set upright

Thy mouth's opinion,--

Naming the Sprite,

The triply-gross,

O'er the race that has dominion:

For through him it is that Eros

The carnage-licker

In the belly is bred: ere ended quite

Is the elder throe--new ichor!

_Cho._ Certainly, great of might

And heavy of wrath, the Sprite

Thou tellest of, in the palace

(Woe, woe!)

--An evil tale of a fate

By Até's malice

Rendered insatiate!

Oh, oh,--

King, king, how shall I beweep thee?

From friendly soul what ever say?

Thou liest where webs of the spider o'ersweep thee

In impious death, life breathing away.

O me--me!

This couch, not free!

By a slavish death subdued thou art,

From the hand, by the two-edged dart.

_Klu._ Thou boastest this deed to be mine:

But leave off styling me

"The Agamemnonian wife!"

For, showing himself in sign

Of the spouse of the corpse thou dost see,

Did the ancient bitter avenging-ghost

Of Atreus, savage host,

Pay the man here as price--

A full-grown for the young one's sacrifice.

_Cho._ That no cause, indeed, of this killing art thou,

Who shall be witness-bearer?

How shall he bear it--how?

But the sire's avenging-ghost might be in the deed a sharer.

He is forced on and on

By the kin-born flowing of blood,

--Black Ares: to where, having gone,

He shall leave off, flowing done,

At the frozen-child's-flesh food.

King, king, how shall I beweep thee!

From friendly soul what ever say?

Thou liest where webs of the spider o'ersweep thee,

In impious death, life breathing away.

Oh, me--me!

This couch not free!

By a slavish death subdued thou art,

From the hand, by the two-edged dart.

_Klu._ No death "unfit for the free"

Do I think this man's to be:

For did not himself a slavish curse

To his household decree?

But the scion of him, myself did nurse--

That much-bewailed Iphigeneia, he

Having done well by,--and as well, nor worse,

Been done to,--let him not in Haides loudly

Bear himself proudly!

Being by sword-destroying death amerced

For that sword's punishment himself inflicted first.

_Cho._ I at a loss am left--

Of a feasible scheme of mind bereft--

Where I may turn: for the house is falling:

I fear the bloody crash of the rain

That ruins the roof as it bursts amain:

The warning-drop

Has come to a stop.

Destiny doth Justice whet

For other deed of hurt, on other whetstones yet.

Woe, earth, earth--would thou hadst taken _me_

Ere I saw the man I see,

On the pallet-bed

Of the silver-sided bath-vase, dead'

Who is it shall bury him, who

Sing his dirge? Can it be true

That _thou_ wilt dare this same to do---

Having slain thy husband, thine own,

To make his funeral moan:

And for the soul of him, in place

Of his mighty deeds, a graceless grace

To wickedly institute? By whom

Shall the tale of praise o'er the tomb

At the god-like man be sent--

From the truth of his mind as he toils intent?

_Klu._ It belongs not to thee to declare

This object of care!

By us did he fall--down there!

Did he die--down there! and down, no less,

We will bury him there, and not beneath

The wails of the household over his death:

But Iphigeneia,--with kindliness,--

His daughter,--as the case requires,

Facing him full, at the rapid-flowing

Passage of Groans shall--both hands throwing

Around him--kiss that kindest of sires!

_Cho._ This blame comes in the place of blame:

Hard battle it is to judge each claim.

"He is borne away who bears away:

And the killer has all to pay."

And this remains while Zeus is remaining,

"The doer shall suffer in time"--for, such his ordaining.

Who may cast out of the House its cursed brood?

The race is to Até glued!

_Klu._ Thou hast gone into this oracle

With a true result. For me, then,--I will

--To the Daimon of the Pleisthenidai

Making an oath--with all these things comply

Hard as they are to bear. For the rest--

Going from out this House, a guest,

May he wear some other family

To naught, with the deaths of kin by kin!

And--keeping a little part of my goods--

Wholly am I contented in

Having expelled from the royal House

These frenzied moods

The mutually-murderous.

_Aigisthos._ O light propitious of day justice-bringing!

I may say truly, now, that men's avengers,

The gods from high, of earth behold the sorrows--

Seeing, as I have, i' the spun robes of the Erinues,

This man here lying,--sight to me how pleasant!--

His father's hands' contrivances repaying.

For Atreus, this land's lord, of this man father,

Thuestes, my own father--to speak clearly--

His brother too,--being i' the rule contested,--

Drove forth to exile from both town and household:

And, coming back, to the hearth turned, a suppliant,

Wretched Thuestes found the fate assured him

--Not to die, bloodying his paternal threshold

Just there: but host-wise this man's impious father

Atreus, soul-keenly more than kindly,--seeming

To joyous hold a flesh-day,--to my father

Served up a meal, the flesh of his own children.

The feet indeed and the hands' top divisions

He hid, high up and isolated sitting:

But, their unshowing parts in ignorance taking,

He forthwith eats food--as thou seest--perdition

To the race: and then, 'ware of the deed ill-omened,

He shrieked O!--falls back, vomiting, from the carnage,

And fate on the Pelopidai past hearing

He prays down--putting in his curse together

The kicking down o' the feast--that so might perish

The race of Pleisthenes entire: and thence is

That it is given thee to see this man prostrate.

And I was rightly of this slaughter stitch-man:

Since me,--being third from ten,--with my poor father

He drives out--being then a babe in swathe-bands:

But, grown up, back again has justice brought me:

And of this man I got hold--being without-doors--

Fitting together the whole scheme of ill-will.

So, sweet, in fine, even to die were to me,

Seeing as I have, this man i' the toils of justice!

_Cho._ Aigisthos, arrogance in ills I love not.

Dost thou say--willing, thou didst kill the man here,

And, alone, plot this lamentable slaughter?

I say--thy head in justice will escape not

The people's throwing--know that!--stones and curses!

_Aig._ Thou such things soundest--seated at the lower

Oarage to those who rule at the ship's mid-bench?

Thou shalt know, being old, how heavy is teaching

To one of the like age--bidden be modest!

But chains and old age and the pangs of fasting

Stand out before all else in teaching,--prophets

At souls'-cure! Dost not, seeing aught, see this too?

Against goads kick not, lest tript-up thou suffer!

_Cho._ Woman, thou,--of him coming new from battle

Houseguard--thy husband's bed the while disgracing,--

For the Army-leader didst thou plan this fate too?

_Aig._ These words too are of groans the prime-begetters!

Truly a tongue opposed to Orpheus hast thou:

For he led all things by his voice's grace-charm,

But thou, upstirring them by these wild yelpings,

Wilt lead them! Forced, thou wilt appear the tamer!

_Cho._ So--thou shalt be my king then of the Argeians--

Who, not when for this man his fate thou plannedst,

Daredst to do this deed--thyself the slayer!

_Aig._ For, to deceive him was the wife's part, certes:

_I_ was looked after--foe, ay, old-begotten!

But out of this man's wealth will I endeavor

To rule the citizens: and the no-man-minder

--Him will I heavily yoke--by no means trace-horse,

A corned-up colt! but that bad friend in darkness,

Famine its housemate, shall behold him gentle.

_Cho._ Why then, this man here, from a coward spirit,

Didst not thou slay thyself? But,--helped,--a woman,

The country's pest, and that of gods o' the country,

Killed him! Orestes, where may he see light now?

That coming hither back, with gracious fortune,

Of both these he may be the all-conquering slayer?

_Aig._ But since this to do thou thinkest--and not talk--thou soon

shalt know!

Up then, comrades dear! the proper thing to do--not distant this!

_Cho._ Up then! hilt in hold, his sword let every one aright

dispose!

_Aig._ Ay, but I myself too, hilt in hold, do not refuse to die!

_Cho._ Thou wilt die, thou say'st, to who accept it. We the chance

demand!

_Klu._ Nowise, O belovedest of men, may we do other ills!

To have reaped away these, even, is a harvest much to me!

Go, both thou and these the old men, to the homes appointed each,

Ere ye suffer! It behooved one do these things just as we did:

And if of these troubles, there should be enough--we may assent

--By the Daimon's heavy heel unfortunately stricken ones!

So a woman's counsel hath it--if one judge it learning-worth.

_Aig._ But to think that these at me the idle tongue should thus

o'erbloom,

And throw out such words--the Daimon's power experimenting on--

And, of modest knowledge missing,--me, the ruler,...

_Cho._ Ne'er may this befall Argeians--wicked man to fawn before!

_Aig._ Anyhow, in after-days, will I, yes, I, be at thee yet!

_Cho._ Not if hither should the Daimon make Orestes straightway

come!

_Aig._ Oh, I know, myself, that fugitives on hopes are

pasture-fed!

_Cho._ Do thy deed, get fat, defiling justice, since the power is

thine!

_Aig._ Know that thou shalt give me satisfaction for this folly's

sake!

_Cho._ Boast on, bearing thee audacious, like a cock his females

by!

_Klu._ Have not thou respect for these same idle yelpings! I and

thou

Will arrange it, o'er this household ruling excellently well.

LA SAISIAZ

DEDICATED TO MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR

Miss A. Egerton-Smith was, at the time of her death, one of Browning's

oldest women friends. "He first met her," says Mrs. Sutherland Orr, "as

a young woman in Florence when she was visiting there; and the love for

and proficiency in music soon asserted itself as a bond of sympathy

between them. They did not, however, see much of each other till he

had finally left Italy, and she also had made her home in London....

Mr. Browning was one of the very few persons whose society she cared

to cultivate: and for many years the common musical interest took the

practical, and for both of them convenient, form, of their going to

concerts together." Browning was at La Saisiaz, under the Salève, when

Miss Egerton-Smith, who was also domiciled there, died suddenly in the

autumn of 1877, and it was after the shock of her loss that he composed

the poem to which he gave the title of their summer resort. The poem is

dated November 9, 1877.

Good, to forgive;

Best, to forget!

Living, we fret;

Dying, we live.

Fretless and free,

Soul, clap thy pinion!

Earth have dominion,

Body, o'er thee!

Wander at will,

Day after day,--

Wander away,

Wandering still--

Soul that canst soar!

Body may slumber:

Body shall cumber

Soul-flight no more.

Waft of soul's wing!

What lies above?

Sunshine and Love,

Skyblue and Spring!

Body hides--where?

Ferns of all feather,

Mosses and heather,

Yours be the care!

LA SAISIAZ

A. E. S. SEPTEMBER 14, 1877.

Dared and done: at last I stand upon the summit, Dear and True!

Singly dared and done; the climbing both of us were bound to do.

Petty feat and yet prodigious: every side my glance was bent

O'er the grandeur and the beauty lavished through the whole ascent.

Ledge by ledge, out broke new marvels, now minute and now immense:

Earth's most exquisite disclosure, heaven's own God in evidence!

And no berry in its hiding, no blue space in its outspread,

Pleaded to escape my footstep, challenged my emerging head,

(As I climbed or paused from climbing, now o'erbranched by shrub and

tree,

Now built round by rock and boulder, now at just a turn set free,

Stationed face to face with--Nature? rather with Infinitude,)

--No revealment of them all, as singly I my path pursued,

But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought stung "Even so

Both of us had loved and wondered just the same, five days ago!"

Five short days, sufficient hardly to entice, from out its den

Splintered in the slab, this pink perfection of the cyclamen;

Scarce enough to heal and coat with amber gum the sloe-tree's gash,

Bronze the clustered wilding apple, redden ripe the mountain-ash:

Yet of might to place between us--Oh the barrier! Yon Profound

Shrinks beside it, proves a pin-point: barrier this, without a

bound!

Boundless though it be, I reach you: somehow seem to have you here

--Who are there. Yes, there you dwell now, plain the four low walls

appear;

Those are vineyards, they enclose from; and the little spire which

points

--That's Collonge, henceforth your dwelling. All the same, howe'er

disjoints

Past from present, no less certain you are here, not there: have

dared,

Done the feat of mountain-climbing;,--five days since, we both

prepared

Daring, doing, arm in arm, if other help should haply fail.

For you asked, as forth we sallied to see sunset from the vale,

"Why not try for once the mountain,--take a foretaste, snatch by

stealth

Sight and sound, some unconsidered fragment of the hoarded wealth?

Six weeks at its base, yet never once have we together won

Sight or sound by honest climbing: let us two have dared and done

Just so much of twilight journey as may prove to-morrow's jaunt

Not the only mode of wayfare--wheeled to reach the eagle's haunt!"

So, we turned from the low grass-path you were pleased to call "your

own,"

Set our faces to the rose-bloom o'er the summit's front of stone

Where Salève obtains, from Jura and the sunken sun she hides,

Due return of blushing "Good Night," rosy as a borne-off bride's,

For his masculine "Good Morrow" when, with sunrise still in hold,

Gay he hails her, and, magnific, thrilled her black length burns to

gold.

Up and up we went, how careless--nay, how joyous! All was new,

All was strange. "Call progress toilsome? that were just insulting

you!

How the trees must temper noontide! Ah, the thicket's sudden break!

What will be the morning glory, when at dusk thus gleams the lake?

Light by light puts forth Geneva: what a land--and, of the land,

Can there be a lovelier station than this spot where now we stand?

Is it late, and wrong to linger? True, to-morrow makes amends.

Toilsome progress? child's play, call it--specially when one

descends!

There, the dread descent is over--hardly our adventure, though!

Take the vale where late we left it, pace the grass-path, 'mine,'

you know!

Proud completion of achievement!" And we paced it, praising still

That soft tread on velvet verdure as it wound through hill and hill;

And at very end there met us, coming from Collonge, the pair

--All our people of the Chalet--two, enough and none to spare.

So, we made for home together, and we reached it as the stars

One by one came lamping--chiefly that prepotency of Mars--

And your last word was "I owe you this enjoyment!"--met with "Nay:

With yourself it rests to have a month of morrows like to-day!"

Then the meal, with talk and laughter, and the news of that rare

nook

Yet untroubled by the tourist, touched on by no travel-book,

All the same--though latent--patent, hybrid birth of land and sea,

And (our travelled friend assured you)--if such miracle might be--

Comparable for completeness of both blessings--all around

Nature, and, inside her circle, safety from world's sight and

sound--

Comparable to our Saisiaz. "Hold it fast and guard it well!

Go and see and vouch for certain, then come back and never tell

Living soul but us; and haply, prove our sky from cloud as clear,

There may we four meet, praise fortune just as now, another year!"

Thus you charged him on departure: not without the final charge,

"Mind to-morrow's early meeting! We must leave our journey marge

Ample for the wayside wonders: there 's the stoppage at the inn

Three-parts up the mountain, where the hardships of the track begin;

There 's the convent worth a visit; but, the triumph crowning all--

There 's Saleve's own platform facing glory which strikes greatness

small,

--Blanc, supreme above his earth-brood, needles red and white and

green,

Horns of silver, fangs of crystal set on edge in his demesne.

So, some three weeks since, we saw them: so, to-morrow we intend

You shall see them likewise; therefore Good Night till to-morrow,

friend!"

Last, the nothings that extinguish embers of a vivid day:

"What might be the Marshal's next move, what Gambetta's

counter-play?"

Till the landing on the staircase saw escape the latest spark:

"Sleep you well!" "Sleep but as well, you!"--lazy love quenched, all

was dark.

Nothing dark next day at sundawn! Up I rose and forth I fared:

Took my plunge within the bath-pool, pacified the watch-dog scared,

Saw proceed the transmutation--Jura's black to one gold glow,

Trod your level path that let me drink the morning deep and slow,

Reached the little quarry--ravage recompensed by shrub and fern--

Till the overflowing ardors told me time was for return.

So, return I did, and gayly. But, for once, from no far mound

Waved salute a tall white figure. "Has her sleep been so profound?

Foresight, rather, prudent saving strength for day's expenditure!

Ay, the chamber-window 's open: out and on the terrace, sure!"

No, the terrace showed no figure, tall, white, leaning through the

wreaths,

Tangle-twine of leaf and bloom that intercept the air one breathes,

Interpose between one's love and Nature's loving, hill and dale

Down to where the blue lake's wrinkle marks the river's inrush pale

--Mazy Arve: whereon no vessel but goes sliding white and plain,

Not a steamboat pants from harbor but one hears pulsate amain,

Past the city's congregated peace of homes and pomp of spires

--Man's mild protest that there 's something more than Nature, man

requires,

And that, useful as is Nature to attract the tourist's foot,

Quiet slow sure money-making proves the matter's very root,--

Need for body,--while the spirit also needs a comfort reached

By no help of lake or mountain, but the texts whence Calvin

preached.

"Here 's the veil withdrawn from landscape: up to Jura and beyond,

All awaits us ranged and ready; yet she violates the bond,

Neither leans nor looks nor listens: why is this?" A turn of eye

Took the whole sole answer, gave the undisputed reason "why"!

This dread way you had your summons! No premonitory touch,

As you talked and laughed ('t is told me) scarce a minute ere the

clutch

Captured you in cold forever. Cold? nay, warm you were as life

When I raised you, while the others used, in passionate poor strife,

All the means that seemed to promise any aid, and all in vain.

Gone you were, and I shall never see that earnest face again

Grow transparent, grow transfigured with the sudden light that leapt

At the first word's provocation, from the heart-deeps where it

slept.

Therefore, paying piteous duty, what seemed You have we consigned

Peacefully to--what I think were, of all earth-beds, to your mind

Most the choice for quiet, yonder: low walls stop the vines'

approach,

Lovingly Salève protects you; village-sports will ne'er encroach

On the stranger lady's silence, whom friends bore so kind and well

Thither "just for love's sake,"--such their own word was: and who

can tell?

You supposed that few or none had known and loved you in the world:

Maybe! flower that 's full-blown tempts the butterfly, not flower

that 's furled.

But more learned sense unlocked you, loosed the sheath and let

expand

Bud to bell and outspread flower-shape at the least warm touch of

hand

--Maybe, throb of heart, beneath which--quickening farther than it

knew--

Treasure oft was disembosomed, scent all strange and unguessed hue.

Disembosomed, re-embosomed,--must one memory suffice,

Prove I knew an Alpine-rose which all beside named Edelweiss?

Rare thing, red or white, you rest now: two days slumbered through;

and since

One day more will see me rid of this same scene whereat I wince,

Tetchy at all sights and sounds and pettish at each idle charm

Proffered me who pace now singly where we two went arm in arm,--

I have turned upon my weakness: asked, "And what, forsooth, prevents

That, this latest day allowed me, I fulfil of her intents

One she had the most at heart--that we should thus again survey

From Salève Mont Blanc together?" Therefore,--dared and done to-day

Climbing,--here I stand: but you--where?

If a spirit of the place

Broke the silence, bade me question, promised answer,--what disgrace

Did I stipulate "Provided answer suit my hopes, not fears!"

Would I shrink to learn my lifetime's limit--days, weeks, months or

years?

Would I shirk assurance on each point whereat I can but guess--

"Does the soul survive the body? Is there God's self, no or yes?"

If I know my mood, 't were constant--come in whatsoe'er uncouth

Shape it should, nay, formidable--so the answer were but truth.

Well, and wherefore shall it daunt me, when 't is I myself am

tasked,

When, by weakness weakness questioned, weakly answers--weakly asked?

Weakness never needs be falseness: truth is truth in each degree

--Thunder-pealed by God to Nature, whispered by my soul to me.

Nay, the weakness turns to strength and triumphs in a truth beyond:

"Mine is but man's truest answer--how were it did God respond?"

I shall no more dare to mimic such response in futile speech,

Pass off human lisp as echo of the sphere-song out of reach,

Than,--because it well may happen yonder, where the far snows blanch

Mute Mont Blanc, that who stands near them sees and hears an

avalanche,--

I shall pick a clod and throw,--cry, "Such the sight and such the

sound!

What though I nor see nor hear them? Others do, the proofs abound!"

Can I make my eye an eagle's, sharpen ear to recognize

Sound o'er league and league of silence? Can I know, who but

surmise?

If I dared no self-deception when, a week since, I and you

Walked and talked along the grass-path, passing lightly in review

What seemed hits and what seemed misses in a certain

fence-play,--strife

Sundry minds of mark engaged in "On the Soul and Future Life,"--

If I ventured estimating what was come of parried thrust,

Subtle stroke, and, rightly, wrongly, estimating could be just

--Just, though life so seemed abundant in the form which moved by

mine,

I might well have played at feigning, fooling,--laughed "What need

opine

Pleasure must succeed to pleasure, else past pleasure turns to pain,

And this first life claims a second, else I count its good no

gain?"--

Much less have I heart to palter when the matter to decide

Now becomes "Was ending ending once and always, when you died?"

Did the face, the form I lifted as it lay, reveal the loss

Not alone of life but soul? A tribute to yon flowers and moss,

What of you remains beside? A memory! Easy to attest

"Certainly from out the world that one believes who knew her best

Such was good in her, such fair, which fair and good were great

perchance

Had but fortune favored, bidden each shy faculty advance;

After all--who knows another? Only as I know, I speak."

So much of you lives within me while I live my year or week.

Then my fellow takes the tale up, not unwilling to aver

Duly in his turn, "I knew him best of all, as he knew her:

Such he was, and such he was not, and such other might have been

But that somehow every actor, somewhere in this earthly scene,

Fails." And so both memories dwindle, yours and mine together

linked,

Till there is but left for comfort, when the last spark proves

extinct,

This--that somewhere new existence led by men and women new

Possibly attains perfection coveted by me and you;

While ourselves, the only witness to what work our life evolved,

Only to ourselves proposing problems proper to be solved

By ourselves alone,--who working ne'er shall know if work bear fruit

Others reap and garner, heedless how produced by stalk and root,--

We who, darkling, timed the day's birth,--struggling, testified to

peace,--

Earned, by dint of failure, triumph,--we, creative thought, must

cease

In created word, thought's echo, due to impulse long since sped!

Why repine? There 's ever some one lives although ourselves be dead!

Well, what signifies repugnance? Truth is truth howe'er it strike.

Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike.

Stalwart body idly yoked to stunted spirit, powers, that fain

Else would soar, condemned to grovel, groundlings through the

fleshly chain,--

Help that hinders, hindrance proved but help disguised when all too

late,--

Hindrance is the fact acknowledged, howsoe'er explained as Fate,

Fortune, Providence: we bear, own life a burden more or less.

Life thus owned unhappy, is there supplemental happiness

Possible and probable in life to come? or must we count

Life a curse and not a blessing, summed-up in its whole amount,

Help and hindrance, joy and sorrow?

Why should I want courage here?

I will ask and have an answer,--with no favor, with no fear,--

From myself. How much, how little, do I inwardly believe

True that controverted doctrine? Is it fact to which I cleave,

Is it fancy I but cherish, when I take upon my lips

Phrase the solemn Tuscan fashioned, and declare the soul's eclipse

Not the soul's extinction? take his "I believe and I declare--

Certain am I--from this life I pass into a better, there

Where that lady lives of whom enamored was my soul"--where this

Other lady, my companion dear and true, she also is?

I have questioned and am answered. Question, answer presuppose

Two points: that the thing itself which questions, answers,--_is_,

it knows;

As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself,--a force

Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its course,

Unaffected by its end,--that this thing likewise needs must be;

Call this--God, then, call that--soul, and both--the only facts for

me.

Prove them facts? that they o'erpass my power of proving, proves

them such:

Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact as much.

What before caused all the causes, what effect of all effects

Haply follows,--these are fancy. Ask the rush if it suspects

Whence and how the stream which floats it had a rise, and where and

how

Falls or flows on still! What answer makes the rush except that now

Certainly it floats and is, and, no less certain than itself,

_Is_ the everyway external stream that now through shoal and shelf

Floats it onward, leaves it--maybe--wrecked at last, or lands on

shore

There to root again and grow and flourish stable evermore.

--Maybe! mere surmise not knowledge: much conjecture styled belief,

What the rush conceives the stream means through the voyage blind

and brief.

Why, because I doubtless am, shall I as doubtless be? "Because

God seems good and wise." Yet under this our life's apparent laws

Reigns a wrong which, righted once, would give quite other laws to

life.

"He seems potent." Potent here, then: why are right and wrong at

strife?

Has in life the wrong the better? Happily life ends so soon!

Right predominates in life? Then why two lives and double boon?

"Anyhow, we want it: wherefore want?" Because, without the want,

Life, now human, would be brutish: just that hope, however scant,

Makes the actual life worth leading; take the hope therein away,

All we have to do is surely not endure another day.

This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that promise joy: life

done--

Out of all the hopes, how many had complete fulfilment? None.

"But the soul is not the body:" and the breath is not the flute;

Both together make the music: either marred and all is mute.

Truce to such old sad contention whence, according as we shape

Most of hope or most of fear, we issue in a half-escape:

"We believe" is sighed. I take the cup of comfort proffered thus,

Taste and try each soft ingredient, sweet infusion, and discuss

What their blending may accomplish for the cure of doubt,

till--slow,

Sorrowful, but how decided! needs must I o'erturn it--so!

Cause before, effect behind me--blanks! The midway point I am,

Caused, itself--itself efficient: in that narrow space must cram

All experience--out of which there crowds conjecture manifold,

But, as knowledge, this comes only--things may be as I behold,

Or may not be, but, without me and above me, things there are;

I myself am what I know not--ignorance which proves no bar

To the knowledge that I am, and, since I am, can recognize

What to me is pain and pleasure: this is sure, the rest--surmise.

If my fellows are or are not, what may please them and what pain,--

Mere surmise: my own experience--that is knowledge, once again!

I have lived, then, done and suffered, loved and hated, learnt and

taught

This--there is no reconciling wisdom with a world distraught,

Goodness with triumphant evil, power with failure in the aim,

If--(to my own sense, remember! though none other feel the same!)

If you bar me from assuming earth to be a pupil's place,

And life, time--with all their chances, changes--just

probation-space,

Mine, for me. But those apparent other mortals--theirs, for them?

Knowledge stands on my experience: all outside its narrow hem,

Free surmise may sport and welcome! Pleasures, pains affect mankind

Just as they affect myself? Why, here 's my neighbor color-blind,

Eyes like mine to all appearance: "green as grass" do I affirm?

"Red as grass" he contradicts me;--which employs the proper term?

Were we two the earth's sole tenants, with no third for referee,

How should I distinguish? Just so, God must judge 'twixt man and me.

To each mortal peradventure earth becomes a new machine,

Pain and pleasure no more tally in our sense than red and green;

Still, without what seems such mortal's pleasure, pain, my life were

lost

--Life, my whole sole chance to prove--although at man's apparent

cost--

What is beauteous and what ugly, right to strive for, right to shun,

Fit to help and fit to hinder,--prove my forces every one,

Good and evil,--learn life's lesson, hate of evil, love of good,

As 't is set me, understand so much as may be understood--

Solve the problem: "From thine apprehended scheme of things, deduce

Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or profuse

In each good or evil issue! nor miscalculate alike

Counting one the other in the final balance, which to strike,

Soul was born and life allotted: ay, the show of things unfurled

For thy summing-up and judgment,--thine, no other mortal's world!"

What though fancy scarce may grapple with the complex and immense

--"His own world for every mortal?" Postulate omnipotence!

Limit power, and simple grows the complex: shrunk to atom size,

That which loomed immense to fancy low before my reason lies,--

I survey it and pronounce it work like other work: success

Here and there, the workman's glory,--here and there, his shame no

less,

Failure as conspicuous. Taunt not "Human work ape work divine?"

As the power, expect performance! God's be God's as mine is mine!

God whose power made man and made man's wants, and made, to meet

those wants,

Heaven and earth which, through the body, prove the spirit's

ministrants,

Excellently all,--did he lack power or was the will in fault

When he let blue heaven be shrouded o'er by vapors of the vault,

Gay earth drop her garlands shrivelled at the first infecting breath

Of the serpent pains which herald, swarming in, the dragon death?

What, no way but this that man may learn and lay to heart how rife

Life were with delights would only death allow their taste to life?

Must the rose sigh "Pluck--I perish!" must the eve weep "Gaze--I

fade!"

--Every sweet warn "'Ware my bitter!" every shine bid "Wait my

shade"?

Can we love but on condition, that the thing we love must die?

Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy--

Multitudinously wretched that we, wretched too, may guess

What a preferable state were universal happiness?

Hardly do I so conceive the outcome of that power which went

To the making of the worm there in yon clod its tenement,

Any more than I distinguish aught of that which, wise and good,

Framed the leaf, its plain of pasture, dropped the dew, its fineless

food.

Nay, were fancy fact, were earth and all it holds illusion mere,

Only a machine for teaching love and hate and hope and fear

To myself, the sole existence, single truth 'mid falsehood,--well!

If the harsh throes of the prelude die not off into the swell

Of that perfect piece they sting me to become a-strain for,--if

Roughness of the long rock-clamber lead not to the last of cliff,

First of level country where is sward my pilgrim-foot can prize,--

Plainlier! if this life's conception new life fail to realize,--

Though earth burst and proved a bubble glassing hues of hell, one

huge

Reflex of the devil's doings--God's work by no subterfuge--

(So death's kindly touch informed me as it broke the glamour, gave

Soul and body both release from life's long nightmare in the

grave)--

Still,--with no more Nature, no more Man as riddle to be read,

Only my own joys and sorrows now to reckon real instead,--

I must say--or choke in silence--"Howsoever came my fate,

Sorrow did and joy did nowise--life well weighed--preponderate."

By necessity ordained thus? I shall bear as best I can;

By a cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent? No, as I am man!

Such were God: and was it goodness that the good within my range

Or had evil in admixture or grew evil's self by change?

Wisdom--that becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance

From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance?

Power! 't is just the main assumption reason most revolts at! power

Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour,

Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reaching aim,

So much passion,--no defect there, no excess, but still the same,--

As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright as brief

For yon worm, man's fellow-creature, on yon happier world--its leaf!

No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute:

Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human attribute!

But, O world outspread beneath me! only for myself I speak,

Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers strong and weak,

Full and empty, wise and foolish, good and bad, in every age,

Every clime, I turn my eyes from, as in one or other stage

Of a torture writhe they, Job-like couched on dung and crazed with

blains

--Wherefore? whereto? ask the whirlwind what the dread voice thence

explains!

I shall "vindicate no way of God's to man," nor stand apart,

"Laugh, be candid," while I watch it traversing the human heart!

Traversed heart must tell its story uncommented on: no less

Mine results in, "Only grant a second life; I acquiesce

In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst assaults

Triumph, not defeat, assured that loss so much the more exalts

Gain about to be. For at what moment did I so advance

Near to knowledge as when frustrate of escape from ignorance?

Did not beauty prove most precious when its opposite obtained

Rule, and truth seem more than ever potent because falsehood

reigned?

While for love--Oh how but, losing love, does whoso loves succeed

By the death-pang to the birth-throe--learning what is love indeed?

Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled,

Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss drop by drop

distilled,

I shall boast it mine--the balsam, bless each kindly wrench that

wrung

From life's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root whence pleasure

sprung,

Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the berry, left

all grace

Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place!"

Witness, Dear and True, how little I was 'ware of--not your worth

--That I knew, my heart assures me--but of what a shade on earth

Would the passage from my presence of the tall white figure throw

O'er the ways we walked together! Somewhat narrow, somewhat slow,

Used to seem the ways, the walking: narrow ways are well to tread

When there 's moss beneath the footstep, honeysuckle overhead:

Walking slow to beating bosom surest solace soonest gives,

Liberates the brain o'erloaded--best of all restoratives.

Nay, do I forget the open vast where soon or late converged

Ways though winding?--world-wide heaven-high sea where music slept

or surged

As the angel had ascendant, and Beethoven's Titan mace

Smote the immense to storm, Mozart would by a finger's lifting

chase?

Yes, I knew--but not with knowledge such as thrills me while I view

Yonder precinct which henceforward holds and hides the Dear and

True.

Grant me (once again) assurance we shall each meet each some day,

Walk--but with how bold a footstep! on a way--but what a way!

--Worst were best, defeat were triumph, utter loss were utmost gain.

Can it be, and must, and will it?

Silence! Out of fact's domain,

Just surmise prepared to mutter hope, and also fear--dispute

Fact's inexorable ruling, "Outside fact, surmise be mute!"

Well!

Ay, well and best, if fact's self I may force the answer from!

'T is surmise I stop the mouth of! Not above in yonder dome

All a rapture with its rose-glow,--not around, where pile and peak

Strainingly await the sun's fall,--not beneath, where crickets

creak,

Birds assemble for their bedtime, soft the treetop swell subsides,--

No, nor yet within my deepest sentient self the knowledge hides.

Aspiration, reminiscence, plausibilities of trust

--Now the ready "Man were wronged else," now the rash "and God

unjust"--

None of these I need. Take thou, my soul, thy solitary stand,

Umpire to the champions Fancy, Reason, as on either hand

Amicable war they wage and play the foe in thy behoof!

Fancy thrust and Reason parry! Thine the prize who stand aloof!

FANCY

I concede the thing refused: henceforth no certainty more plain

Than this mere surmise that after body dies soul lives again.

Two, the only facts acknowledged late, are now increased to three--

God is, and the soul is, and, as certain, after death shall be.

Put this third to use in life, the time for using fact!

REASON

I do:

Find it promises advantage, coupled with the other two.

Life to come will be improvement on the life that 's now; destroy

Body's thwartings, there 's no longer screen betwixt soul and soul's

joy.

Why should we expect new hindrance, novel tether? In this first

Life, I see the good of evil, why our world began at worst:

Since time means amelioration, tardily enough displayed,

Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retrograde.

We know more though we know little, we grow stronger though still

weak,

Partly see though all too purblind, stammer though we cannot speak.

There is no such grudge in God as scared the ancient Greek, no fresh

Substitute of trap for drag-net, once a breakage in the mesh.

Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will be: ne'er

emerged

Any new-created python for man's plague since earth was purged.

Failing proof, then, of invented trouble to replace the old,

O'er this life the next presents advantage much and manifold:

Which advantage--in the absence of a fourth and farther fact

Now conceivably surmised, of harm to follow from the act--

I pronounce for man's obtaining at this moment. Why delay?

Is he happy? happiness will change: anticipate the day!

Is he sad? there 's ready refuge: of all sadness death 's prompt

cure!

Is he both, in mingled measure? cease a burden to endure!

Pains with sorry compensations, pleasures stinted in the dole,

Power that sinks and pettiness that soars, all halved and nothing

whole,

Idle hopes that lure man onward, forced back by as idle fears--

What a load he stumbles under through his glad sad seventy years,

When a touch sets right the turmoil, lifts his spirit where,

flesh-freed,

Knowledge shall be rightly named so, all that seems be truth indeed!

Grant his forces no accession, nay, no faculty's increase,

Only let what now exists continue, let him prove in peace

Power whereof the interrupted unperfected play enticed

Man through darkness, which to lighten any spark of hope sufficed,--

What shall then deter his dying out of darkness into light?

Death itself perchance, brief pain that 's pang, condensed and

infinite?

But at worst, he needs must brave it one day, while, at best, he

laughs--

Drops a drop within his chalice, sleep not death his science quaffs!

Any moment claims more courage, when, by crossing cold and gloom,

Manfully man quits discomfort, makes for the provided room

Where the old friends want their fellow, where the new acquaintance

wait,

Probably for talk assembled, possibly to sup in state!

I affirm and reaffirm it therefore: only make as plain

As that man now lives, that, after dying, man will live again,--

Make as plain the absence, also, of a law to contravene

Voluntary passage from this life to that by change of scene,--

And I bid him--at suspicion of first cloud athwart his sky,

Flower's departure, frost's arrival--never hesitate, but die!

FANCY

Then I double my concession: grant, along with new life sure

This same law found lacking now: ordain that, whether rich or poor

Present life is judged in aught man counts advantage--be it hope,

Be it fear that brightens, blackens most or least his horoscope,--

He, by absolute compulsion such as made him live at all,

Go on living to the fated end of life whate'er befall.

What though, as on earth he darkling grovels, man descry the sphere,

Next life's--call it, heaven of freedom, close above and

crystal-clear?

He shall find--say, hell to punish who in aught curtails the term,

Fain would act the butterfly before he has played out the worm!

God, soul, earth, heaven, hell,--five facts now: what is to

desiderate?

REASON

Nothing! Henceforth man's existence bows to the monition "Wait!

Take the joys and bear the sorrows--neither with extreme concern!

Living here means nescience simply: 't is next life that helps to

learn.

Shut those eyes, next life will open,--stop those ears, next life

will teach

Hearing's office,--close those lips, next life will give the power

of speech!

Or, if action more amuse thee than the passive attitude,

Bravely bustle through thy being, busy thee for ill or good,

Reap this life's success or failure! Soon shall things be

unperplexed

And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravelled in the next."

FANCY

Not so fast! Still more concession! not alone do I declare

Life must needs be borne,--I also will that man become aware

Life has worth incalculable, every moment that he spends

So much gain or loss for that next life which on this life depends.

Good, done here, be there rewarded,--evil, worked here, there

amerced!

Six facts now, and all established, plain to man the last as first.

REASON

There was good and evil, then, defined to man by this decree?

_Was_--for at its promulgation both alike have ceased to be.

Prior to this last announcement, "Certainly as God exists,

As He made man's soul, as soul is quenchless by the deathly mists,

Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature escape from time

To eternity's provided purer air and brighter clime,--

Just so certainly depends it on the use to which man turns

Earth, the good or evil done there, whether after death he earns

Life eternal,--heaven, the phrase be, or eternal death,--say, hell.

As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill or doing well!"

--Prior to this last announcement, earth was man's probation-place:

Liberty of doing evil gave his doing good a grace;

Once lay down the law, with Nature's simple "Such effects succeed

Causes such, and heaven or hell depends upon man's earthly deed

Just as surely as depends the straight or else the crooked line

On his making point meet point or with or else without incline,"--

Thenceforth neither good nor evil does man, doing what he must.

Lay but down that law as stringent "Wouldst thou live again, be

just!"

As this other "Wouldst thou live now, regularly draw thy breath!

For, suspend the operation, straight law's breach results in

death"--

And (provided always, man, addressed this mode, be sound and sane)

Prompt and absolute obedience, never doubt, will law obtain!

Tell not me "Look round us! nothing each side but acknowledged law,

Now styled God's--now, Nature's edict!" Where's obedience without

flaw

Paid to either? What 's the adage rife in man's mouth? Why, "The

best

I both see and praise, the worst I follow "--which, despite

professed

Seeing, praising, all the same he follows, since he disbelieves

In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head receives.

There 's evading and persuading and much making law amends

Somehow, there 's the nice distinction 'twixt fast foes and faulty

friends,

--Any consequence except inevitable death when, "Die,

Whoso breaks our law!" they publish, God and Nature equally.

Law that 's kept or broken--subject to man's will and pleasure!

Whence?

How comes law to bear eluding? Not because of impotence:

Certain laws exist already which to hear means to obey;

Therefore not without a purpose these man must, while those man may

Keep and, for the keeping, haply gain approval and reward.

Break through this last superstructure, all is empty air--no sward

Firm like my first fact to stand on, "God there is, and soul there

is,"

And soul's earthly life-allotment: wherein, by hypothesis,

Soul is bound to pass probation, prove its powers, and exercise

Sense and thought on fact, and then, from fact educing fit surmise,

Ask itself, and of itself have solely answer, "Does the scope

Earth affords of fact to judge by warrant future fear or hope?"

Thus have we come back full circle: fancy's footsteps one by one

Go their round conducting reason to the point where they begun,

Left where we were left so lately, Dear and True! When, half a week

Since, we walked and talked and thus I told you, how suffused a

cheek

You had turned me had I sudden brought the blush into the smile

By some word like "Idly argued! you know better all the while!"

Now, from me--Oh not a blush, but, how much more, a joyous glow,

Laugh triumphant, would it strike did your "Yes, better I do know"

Break, my warrant for assurance! which assurance may not be

If, supplanting hope, assurance needs must change this life to me.

So, I hope--no more than hope, but hope--no less than hope, because

I can fathom, by no plumb-line sunk in life's apparent laws,

How I may in any instance fix where change should meetly fall

Nor involve, by one revisal, abrogation of them all:

--Which again involves as utter change in life thus law-released,

Whence the good of goodness vanished when the ill of evil ceased.

Whereas, life and laws apparent reinstated,--all we know,

All we know not,--o'er our heaven again cloud closes, until, lo,--

Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom,

compelled

By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else beheld,

I behold in life, so--hope!

Sad summing-up of all to say!

_Athanasius contra mundum_, why should he hope more than they?

So are men made notwithstanding, such magnetic virtue darts

From each head their fancy haloes to their unresisting hearts!

Here I stand, methinks a stone's throw from yon village I this morn

Traversed for the sake of looking one last look at its forlorn

Tenement's ignoble fortune: through a crevice, plain its floor

Piled with provender for cattle, while a dungheap blocked the door.

In that squalid Bossex, under that obscene red roof, arose,

Like a fiery flying serpent from its egg, a soul--Rousseau's.

Turn thence! Is it Diodati joins the glimmer of the lake?

There I plucked a leaf, one week since,--ivy, plucked for Byron's

sake.

Famed unfortunates! And yet, because of that phosphoric fame

Swathing blackness' self with brightness till putridity looked

flame,

All the world was witched: and wherefore? what could lie beneath,

allure

Heart of man to let corruption serve man's head as cynosure?

Was the magic in the dictum "All that 's good is gone and past;

Bad and worse still grows the present, and the worst of all comes

last:

Which believe--for I believe it"? So preached one his gospel-news;

While melodious moaned the other, "dying day with dolphin-hues!

Storm, for loveliness and darkness like a woman's eye! Ye mounts

Where I climb to 'scape my fellow, and thou sea wherein he counts

Not one inch of vile dominion! What were your especial-worth

Failed ye to enforce the maxim 'Of all objects found on earth

Man is meanest, much too honored when compared with--what by odds

Beats him--any dog: so, let him go a-howling to his gods!'

Which believe--for I believe it!" Such the comfort man received

Sadly since perforce he must: for why? the famous bard believed!

Fame! Then, give me fame, a moment! As I gather at a glance

Human glory after glory vivifying yon expanse,

Let me grasp them altogether, hold on high and brandish well

Beacon-like above the rapt world ready, whether heaven or hell

Send the dazzling summons earthward, to submit itself the same,

Take on trust the hope or else despair flashed full on face

by--Fame!

Thanks, thou pine-tree of Makistos, wide thy giant torch I wave!

Know ye whence I plucked the pillar, late with sky for architrave?

This the trunk, the central solid Knowledge, kindled core, began

Tugging earth-deeps, trying heaven-heights, rooted yonder at

Lausanne.

This which flits and spits, the aspic,--sparkles in and out the

boughs

Now, and now condensed, the python, coiling round and round allows

Scarce the bole its due effulgence, dulled by flake on flake of

Wit--

Laughter so bejewels Learning,--what but Ferney nourished it?

Nay, nor fear--since every resin feeds the flame--that I dispense

With yon Bossex terebinth-tree's all-explosive Eloquence:

No, be sure! nor, any more than thy resplendency, Jean-Jacques,

Dare I want thine, Diodati! What though monkeys and macaques

Gibber "Byron"? Byron's ivy rears a branch beyond the crew,

Green forever, no deciduous trash macaques and monkeys chew!

As Rousseau, then, eloquent, as Byron prime in poet's power,--

Detonations, fulgurations, smiles--the rainbow, tears--the shower,--

Lo, I lift the coruscating marvel--Fame! and, famed, declare

--Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit's self Voltaire ...

Oh, the sorriest of conclusions to whatever man of sense

'Mid the millions stands the unit, takes no flare for evidence!

Yet the millions have their portion, live their calm or troublous

day,

Find significance in fireworks: so, by help of mine, they may

Confidently lay to heart and lock in head their life long--this:

"He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o'er night's forlorn

abyss,

Crowned by prose and verse; and wielding, with Wit's bauble,

Learning's rod" ...

Well? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God!

* * * * *

So the poor smile played, that evening: pallid smile long since

extinct

Here in London's mid-November! Not so loosely thoughts were linked,

Six weeks since as I, descending in the sunset from Salève,

Found the chain I seemed to forge there, flawless till it reached

your grave,--

Not so filmy was the texture, but I bore it in my breast

Safe thus far. And since I found a something in me would not rest

Till I, link by link, unravelled any tangle of the chain,

--Here it lies, for much or little! I have lived all o'er again

That last pregnant hour: I saved it, just as I could save a root

Disinterred for reinterment when the time best helps to shoot.

Life is stocked with germs of torpid life; but may I never wake

Those of mine whose resurrection could not be without earthquake!

Rest all such, unraised forever! Be this, sad yet sweet, the sole

Memory evoked from slumber! Least part this: then what the whole?

THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC

Written immediately after _La Saisiaz_, being dated January 15, 1878.

Such a starved bank of moss

Till, that May-morn,

Blue ran the flash across:

Violets were born!

Sky--what a scowl of cloud

Till, near and far,

Ray on ray split the shroud:

Splendid, a star!

World--how it walled about

Life with disgrace

Till God's own smile came out:

That was thy face!

I

"Fame!" Yes, I said it and you read it. First,

Praise the good log-fire! Winter howls without.

Crowd closer, let us! Ha, the secret nursed

Inside yon hollow, crusted roundabout

With copper where the clamp was,--how the burst

Vindicates flame the stealthy feeder! Spout

Thy splendidest--a minute and no more?

So soon again all sobered as before?

II

Nay, for I need to see your face! One stroke

Adroitly dealt, and lo, the pomp revealed!

Fire in his pandemonium, heart of oak

Palatial, where he wrought the works concealed

Beneath the solid-seeming roof I broke,

As redly up and out and off they reeled

Like disconcerted imps, those thousand sparks

From fire's slow tunnelling of vaults and arcs!

III

Up, out, and off, see! Were you never used,--

You now, in childish days or rather nights,--

As I was, to watch sparks fly? not amused

By that old nurse-taught game which gave the sprites

Each one his title and career,--confused

Belief 't was all long over with the flights

From earth to heaven of hero, sage, and bard,

And bade them once more strive for Fame's award?

IV

New long bright life! and happy chance befell--

That I know--when some prematurely lost

Child of disaster bore away the bell

From some too-pampered son of fortune, crossed

Never before my chimney broke the spell!

Octogenarian Keats gave up the ghost,

While--never mind Who was it cumbered earth--

Sank stifled, span-long brightness, in the birth.

V

Well, try a variation of the game!

Our log is old ship-timber, broken bulk.

There 's sea-brine spirits up the brimstone flame,

That crimson-curly spiral proves the hulk

Was saturate with--ask the chloride's name

From somebody who knows! I shall not sulk

If yonder greenish tonguelet licked from brass

Its life, I thought was fed on copperas.

VI

Anyhow, there they flutter! What may be

The style and prowess of that purple one?

Who is the hero other eyes shall see

Than yours and mine? That yellow, deep to dun--

Conjecture how the sage glows, whom not we

But those unborn are to get warmth by! Son

O' the coal,--as Job and Hebrew name a spark,--

What bard, in thy red soaring, scares the dark?

VII

Oh and the lesser lights, the dearer still

That they elude a vulgar eye, give ours

The glimpse repaying astronomic skill

Which searched sky deeper, passed those patent powers

Constellate proudly,--swords, scrolls, harps, that fill

The vulgar eye to surfeit,--found best flowers

Hid deepest in the dark,--named unplucked grace

Of soul, ungathered beauty, form or face!

VIII

Up with thee, mouldering ash men never knew,

But I know! flash thou forth, and figure bold,

Calm and columnar as yon flame I view!

Oh and I bid thee,--to whom fortune doled

Scantly all other gifts out--bicker blue,

Beauty for all to see, zinc's uncontrolled

Flake-brilliance! Not my fault if these were shown,

Grandeur and beauty both, to me alone.

IX

No! as the first was boy's play, this proves mere

Stripling's amusement: manhood's sport be grave!

Choose rather sparkles quenched in mid career,

Their boldness and their brightness could not save

(In some old night of time on some lone drear

Sea-coast, monopolized by crag or cave)

--Save from ignoble exit into smoke,

Silence, oblivion, all death-damps that choke!

X

Launched by our ship-wood, float we, once adrift

In fancy to that land-strip waters wash,

We both know well! Where uncouth tribes made shift

Long since to just keep life in, billows dash

Nigh over folk who shudder at each lift

Of the old tyrant tempest's whirlwind-lash

Though they have built the serviceable town

Tempests but tease now, billows drench, not drown.

XI

Croisic, the spit of sandy rock which juts

Spitefully northward, bears nor tree nor shrub

To tempt the ocean, show what Guérande shuts

Behind her, past wild Batz whose Saxons grub

The ground for crystals grown where ocean gluts

Their promontory's breadth with salt: all stub

Of rock and stretch of sand, the land's last strife

To rescue a poor remnant for dear life.

XII

And what life! Here was, from the world to choose,

The Druids' chosen chief of homes: they reared

--Only their women,--'mid the slush and ooze

Of yon low islet,--to their sun, revered

In strange stone guise,--a temple. May-dawn dews

Saw the old structure levelled; when there peered

May's earliest eve-star, high and wide once more

Up towered the new pile perfect as before:

XIII

Seeing that priestesses--and all were such--

Unbuilt and then rebuilt it every May,

Each alike helping--well, if not too much!

For, 'mid their eagerness to outstrip day

And get work done, if any loosed her clutch

And let a single stone drop, straight a prey

Herself fell, torn to pieces, limb from limb,

By sisters in full chorus glad and grim.

XIV

And still so much remains of that gray cult,

That even now, of nights, do women steal

To the sole Menhir standing, and insult

The antagonistic church-spire by appeal

To power discrowned in vain, since each adult

Believes the gruesome thing she clasps may heal

Whatever plague no priestly help can cure:

Kiss but the cold stone, the event is sure!

XV

Nay more: on May-morns, that primeval rite

Of temple-building, with its punishment

For rash precipitation, lingers, spite

Of all remonstrance; vainly are they shent,

Those girls who form a ring and, dressed in white,

Dance round it, till some sister's strength be spent:

Touch but the Menhir, straight the rest turn roughs

From gentles, fall on her with fisticuffs.

XVI

Oh and, for their part, boys from door to door

Sing unintelligible words to tunes

As obsolete: "scraps of Druidic lore,"

Sigh scholars, as each pale man importunes

Vainly the mumbling to speak plain once more.

Enough of this old worship, rounds and runes!

They serve my purpose, which is but to show

Croisic to-day and Croisic long ago.

XVII

What have we sailed to see, then, wafted there

By fancy from the log that ends its days

Of much adventure 'neath skies foul or fair,

On waters rough or smooth, in this good blaze

We two crouch round so closely, bidding care

Keep outside with the snow-storm? Something says

"Fit time for story-telling!" I begin--

Why not at Croisic, port we first put in?

XVIII

Anywhere serves: for point me out the place

Wherever man has made himself a home,

And there I find the story of our race

In little, just at Croisic as at Rome.

What matters the degree? the kind I trace.

Druids their temple, Christians have their dome:

So with mankind; and Croisic, I 'll engage,

With Rome yields sort for sort, in age for age.

XIX

No doubt, men vastly differ: and we need

Some strange exceptional benevolence

Of nature's sunshine to develop seed

So well, in the less-favored clime, that thence

We may discern how shrub means tree indeed

Though dwarfed till scarcely shrub in evidence.

Man in the ice-house or the hot-house ranks

With beasts or gods: stove-forced, give warmth the thanks!

XX

While, is there any ice-checked? Such shall learn

I am thankworthy, who propose to slake

His thirst for tasting how it feels to turn

Cedar from hyssop-on-the-wall. I wake

No memories of what is harsh and stern

In ancient Croisic-nature, much less rake

The ashes of her last warmth till out leaps

Live Hervé Riel, the single spark she keeps.

XXI

Take these two, see, each outbreak,--spirt and spirt

Of fire from our brave billet's either edge

Which--call maternal Croisic ocean-girt!

These two shall thoroughly redeem my pledge.

One flames fierce gules, its feebler rival--vert,

Heralds would tell you: heroes, I allege,

They both were: soldiers, sailors, statesmen, priests,

Lawyers, physicians--guess what gods or beasts!

XXII

None of them all, but--poets, if you please!

"What, even there, endowed with knack of rhyme,

Did two among the aborigines

Of that rough region pass the ungracious time

Suiting, to rumble-tumble of the sea's,

The songs forbidden a serener clime?

Or had they universal audience--that's

To say, the folk of Croisic, ay, and Batz?"

XXIII

Open your ears! Each poet in his day

Had such a mighty moment of success

As pinnacled him straight, in full display,

For the whole world to worship--nothing less!

Was not the whole polite world Paris, pray?

And did not Paris, for one moment--yes,

Worship these poet-flames, our red and green,

One at a time, a century between?

XXIV

And yet you never heard their names! Assist,

Clio, Historic Muse, while I record

Great deeds! Let fact, not fancy, break the mist

And bid each sun emerge, in turn play lord

Of day, one moment! Hear the annalist

Tell a strange story, true to the least word!

At Croisic, sixteen hundred years and ten

Since Christ, forth flamed yon liquid ruby, then.

XXV

Know him henceforth as René Gentilhomme

--Appropriate appellation! noble birth

And knightly blazon, the device wherefrom

Was "Better do than say"! In Croisic's dearth

Why prison his career while Christendom

Lay open to reward acknowledged worth?

He therefore left it at the proper age

And got to be the Prince of Condé's page.

XXVI

Which Prince of Condé, whom men called "The Duke,"

--Failing the king, his cousin, of an heir,

(As one might hold hap, would, without rebuke,

Since Anne of Austria, all the world was ware,

Twenty-three years long sterile, scarce could look

For issue)--failing Louis of so rare

A godsend, it was natural the Prince

Should hear men call him "Next King" too, nor wince.

XXVII

Now, as this reasonable hope, by growth

Of years, nay, tens of years, looked plump almost

To bursting,--would the brothers, childless both,

Louis and Gaston, give but up the ghost--

Condé, called "Duke" and "Next King," nothing loth

Awaited his appointment to the post,

And wiled away the time, as best he might,

Till Providence should settle things aright.

XXVIII

So, at a certain pleasure-house, withdrawn

From cities where a whisper breeds offence,

He sat him down to watch the streak of dawn

Testify to first stir of Providence;

And, since dull country life makes courtiers yawn,

There wanted not a poet to dispense

Song's remedy for spleen-fits all and some,

Which poet was Page René Gentilhomme.

XXIX

A poet born and bred, his very sire

A poet also, author of a piece

Printed and published, "Ladies--their attire:"

Therefore the son, just born at his decease,

Was bound to keep alive the sacred fire,

And kept it, yielding moderate increase

Of songs and sonnets, madrigals, and much

Rhyming thought poetry and praised as such.

XXX

Rubbish unutterable (bear in mind!)

Rubbish not wholly without value, though,

Being to compliment the Duke designed

And bring the complimenter credit so,--

Pleasure with profit happily combined.

Thus René Gentilhomme rhymed, rhymed till--lo,

This happened, as he sat in an alcove

Elaborating rhyme for "love"--_not_ "dove."

XXXI

He was alone: silence and solitude

Befit the votary of the Muse. Around,

Nature--not our new picturesque and rude,

But trim tree-cinctured stately garden-ground--

Breathed polish and politeness. All-imbued

With these, he sat absorbed in one profound

Excogitation, "Were it best to hint

Or boldly boast 'She loves me--Araminte'?"

XXXII

When suddenly flashed lightning, searing sight

Almost, so close to eyes; then, quick on flash,

Followed the thunder, splitting earth downright

Where René sat a-rhyming: with huge crash

Of marble into atoms infinite--

Marble which, stately, dared the world to dash

The stone-thing proud, high-pillared, from its place:

One flash, and dust was all that lay at base.

XXXIII

So, when the horrible confusion loosed

Its wrappage round his senses, and, with breath,

Seeing and hearing by degrees induced

Conviction what he felt was life, not death--

His fluttered faculties came back to roost

One after one, as fowls do: ay, beneath,

About his very feet there, lay in dust

Earthly presumption paid by heaven's disgust.

XXXIV

For, what might be the thunder-smitten thing

But, pillared high and proud, in marble guise,

A ducal crown--which meant "Now Duke: Next, King"?

Since such the Prince was, not in his own eyes

Alone, but all the world's. Pebble from sling

Prostrates a giant; so can pulverize

Marble pretension--how much more, make moult

A peacock-prince his plume--God's thunderbolt!

XXXV

That was enough, for René, that first fact

Thus flashed into him. Up he looked: all blue

And bright the sky above; earth firm, compact

Beneath his footing, lay apparent too;

Opposite stood the pillar: nothing lacked

There, but the Duke's crown: see, its fragments strew

The earth,--about his feet lie atoms fine

Where he sat nursing late his fourteenth line!

XXXVI

So, for the moment, all the universe

Being abolished, all 'twist God and him,--

Earth's praise or blame, its blessing or its curse.

Of one and the same value,--to the brim

Flooded with truth, for better or for worse,--

He pounces on the writing-paper, prim

Keeping its place on table: not a dint

Nor speck had damaged "Ode to Araminte."

XXXVII

And over the neat crowquill calligraph

His pen goes blotting, blurring, as an ox

Tramples a flower-bed in a garden,--laugh

You may!--so does not he, whose quick heart knocks

Audibly at his breast: an epitaph

On earth's break-up, amid the falling rocks,

He might be penning in a wild dismay,

Caught with his work half-done on Judgment Day.

XXXVIII

And what is it so terribly he pens,

Ruining "Cupid, Venus, wile and smile,

Hearts, darts," and all his day's _divinior mens_

Judged necessary to a perfect style?

Little recks René, with a breast to cleanse,

Of Rhadamanthine law that reigned erewhile:

Brimful of truth, truth's outburst will convince

(Style or no style) who bears truth's brunt--the Prince.

XXXIX

"Condé, called 'Duke,' be called just 'Duke,' not more,

To life's end! 'Next King' thou forsooth wilt be?

Ay, when this bauble, as it decked before

Thy pillar, shall again, for France to see,

Take its proud station there! Let France adore

No longer an illusive mock-sun--thee--

But keep her homage for Sol's self, about

To rise and put pretenders to the rout!

XL

"What? France so God-abandoned that her root

Regal, though many a Spring it gave no sign,

Lacks power to make the bole, now branchless, shoot

Greenly as ever? Nature, though benign,

Thwarts ever the ambitious and astute.

In store for such is punishment condign:

Sure as thy Duke's crown to the earth was hurled,

So sure, next year, a Dauphin glads the world!"

XLI

Which penned--some forty lines to this effect--

Our René folds his paper, marches brave

Back to the mansion, luminous, erect,

Triumphant, an emancipated slave.

There stands the Prince. "How now? My Duke's-crown wrecked?

What may this mean?" The answer René gave

Was--handing him the verses, with the due

Incline of body: "Sir, God's word to you!"

XLII

The Prince read, paled, was silent; all around,

The courtier-company, to whom he passed

The paper, read, in equal silence bound.

René grew also by degrees aghast

At his own fit of courage--palely found

Way of retreat from that pale presence: classed

Once more among the cony-kind. "Oh, son,

It is a feeble folk!" saith Solomon.

XLIII

Vainly he apprehended evil: since,

When, at the year's end, even as foretold,

Forth came the Dauphin who discrowned the Prince

Of that long-craved mere visionary gold,

'T was no fit time for envy to evince

Malice, be sure! The timidest grew bold:

Of all that courtier-company not one

But left the semblance for the actual sun.

XLIV

And all sorts and conditions that stood by

At René's burning moment, bright escape

Of soul, bore witness to the prophecy.

Which witness took the customary shape

Of verse; a score of poets in full cry

Hailed the inspired one. Nantes and Tours agape,

Soon Paris caught the infection; gaining strength,

How could it fail to reach the Court at length?

XLV

"O poet!" smiled King Louis, "and besides,

O prophet! Sure, by miracle announced,

My babe will prove a prodigy. Who chides

Henceforth the unchilded monarch shall be trounced

For irreligion: since the fool derides

Plain miracle by which this prophet pounced

Exactly on the moment I should lift

Like Simeon, in my arms, a babe, 'God's gift!'

XLVI

"So call the boy! and call this bard and seer

By a new title! him I raise to rank

Of 'Royal Poet:' poet without peer!

Whose fellows only have themselves to thank

If humbly they must follow in the rear

My René. He 's the master: they must clank

Their chains of song, confessed his slaves; for why?

They poetize, while he can prophesy!"

XLVII

So said, so done; our René rose august,

"The Royal Poet;" straightway put in type

His poem-prophecy, and (fair and just

Procedure) added,--now that time was ripe

For proving friends did well his word to trust,--

Those attestations, tuned to lyre or pipe,

Which friends broke out with when he dared foretell

The Dauphin's birth: friends trusted, and did well.

XLVIII

Moreover he got painted by Du Pré,

Engraved by Daret also; and prefixed

The portrait to his book: a crown of bay

Circled his brows, with rose and myrtle mixed;

And Latin verses, lovely in their way,

Described him as "the biforked hill betwixt:

Since he hath scaled Parnassus at one jump,

Joining the Delphic quill and Getic trump."

XLIX

Whereof came ... What, it lasts, our spirt, thus long

--The red fire? That 's the reason must excuse

My letting flicker René's prophet-song

No longer; for its pertinacious hues

Must fade before its fellow joins the throng

Of sparks departed up the chimney, dues

To dark oblivion. At the word, it winks,

Rallies, relapses, dwindles, deathward sinks.

L

So does our poet. All this burst of fame,

Fury of favor, Royal Poetship,

Prophetship, book, verse, picture--thereof came

--Nothing! That 's why I would not let outstrip

Red his green rival flamelet: just the same

Ending in smoke waits both! In vain we rip

The past, no further faintest trace remains

Of René to reward our pious pains.

LI

Somebody saw a portrait framed and glazed

At Croisic. "Who may be this glorified

Mortal unheard-of hitherto?" amazed

That person asked the owner by his side,

Who proved as ignorant. The question raised

Provoked inquiry; key by key was tried

On Croisic's portrait-puzzle, till back flew

The wards at one key's touch, which key was--Who?

LII

The other famous poet! Wait thy turn,

Thou green, our red's competitor! Enough

Just now to note 't was he that itched to learn

(A hundred years ago) how fate could puff

Heaven-high (a hundred years before), then spurn

To suds so big a bubble in some huff:

Since green too found red's portrait,--having heard

Hitherto of red's rare self not one word.

LIII

And he with zeal addressed him to the task

Of hunting out, by all and any means,

--Who might the brilliant bard be, born to bask

Butterfly-like in shine which kings and queens

And baby-dauphins shed? Much need to ask!

Is fame so fickle that what perks and preens

The eyed wing, one imperial minute, dips

Next sudden moment into blind eclipse?

LIV

After a vast expenditure of pains,

Our second poet found the prize he sought:

Urged in his search by something that restrains

From undue triumph famed ones who have fought,

Or simply, poetizing, taxed their brains:

Something that tells such--dear is triumph bought

If it means only basking in the midst

Of fame's brief sunshine, as thou, René, didst.

LV

For, what did searching find at last but this?

Quoth somebody, "I somehow somewhere seem

To think I heard one old De Chevaye is

Or was possessed of René's works!" which gleam

Of light from out the dark proved not amiss

To track, by correspondence on the theme;

And soon the twilight broadened into day,

For thus to question answered De Chevaye.

LVI

"True it is, I did once possess the works

You want account of--works--to call them so,--

Comprised in one small book: the volume lurks

(Some fifty leaves _in duodecimo_)

'Neath certain ashes which my soul it irks

Still to remember, because long ago

That and my other rare shelf-occupants

Perished by burning of my house at Nantes.

LVII

"Yet of that book one strange particular

Still stays in mind with me"--and thereupon

Followed the story. "Few the poems are;

The book was two-thirds filled up with this one,

And sundry witnesses from near and far

That here at least was prophesying done

By prophet, so as to preclude all doubt,

Before the thing he prophesied about."

LVIII

That 's all he knew, and all the poet learned,

And all that you and I are like to hear

Of René; since not only book is burned

But memory extinguished,--nay, I fear,

Portrait is gone too: nowhere I discerned

A trace of it at Croisic. "Must a tear

Needs fall for that?" you smile. "How fortune fares

With such a mediocrity, who cares?"

LIX

Well, I care--intimately care to have

Experience how a human creature felt

In after-life, who bore the burden grave

Of certainly believing God had dealt

For once directly with him: did not rave

--A maniac, did not find his reason melt

--An idiot, but went on, in peace or strife,

The world's way, lived an ordinary life.

LX

How many problems that one fact would solve!

An ordinary soul, no more, no less,

About whose life earth's common sights revolve,

On whom is brought to bear, by thunder-stress,

This fact--God tasks him, and will not absolve

Task's negligent performer! Can you guess

How such a soul--the task performed to point--

Goes back to life nor finds things out of joint?

LXI

Does he stand stock-like henceforth? or proceed

Dizzily, yet with course straightforward still,

Down-trampling vulgar hindrance?--as the reed

Is crushed beneath its tramp when that blind will

Hatched in some old-world beast's brain bids it speed

Where the sun wants brute-presence to fulfil

Life's purpose in a new far zone, ere ice

Enwomb the pasture-tract its fortalice.

LXII

I think no such direct plain truth consists

With actual sense and thought and what they take

To be the solid walls of life: mere mists--

How such would, at that truth's first piercing, break

Into the nullity they are!--slight lists

Wherein the puppet-champions wage, for sake

Of some mock-mistress, mimic war: laid low

At trumpet-blast, there 's shown the world, one foe!

LXIII

No, we must play the pageant out, observe

The tourney-regulations, and regard

Success--to meet the blunted spear nor swerve,

Failure--to break no bones yet fall on sward;

Must prove we have--not courage? well then--nerve!

And, at the day's end, boast the crown's award--

Be warranted as promising to wield

Weapons, no sham, in a true battlefield.

LXIV

Meantime, our simulated thunderclaps

Which tell us counterfeited truths--these same

Are--sound, when music storms the soul, perhaps?

--Sight, beauty, every dart of every aim

That touches just, then seems, by strange relapse,

To fall effectless from the soul it came

As if to fix its own, but simply smote

And startled to vague beauty more remote?

LXV

So do we gain enough--yet not too much--

Acquaintance with that outer element

Wherein there 's operation (call it such!)

Quite of another kind than we the pent

On earth are proper to receive. Our hutch

Lights up at the least chink: let roof be rent--

How inmates huddle, blinded at first spasm,

Cognizant of the sun's self through the chasm!

LXVI

Therefore, who knows if this our René's quick

Subsidence from as sudden noise and glare

Into oblivion was impolitic?

No doubt his soul became at once aware

That, after prophecy, the rhyming-trick

Is poor employment: human praises scare

Rather than soothe ears all a-tingle yet

With tones few hear and live, but none forget.

LXVII

There 's our first famous poet! Step thou forth

Second consummate songster! See, the tongue

Of fire that typifies thee, owns thy worth

In yellow, purple mixed its green among,

No pure and simple resin from the North,

But composite with virtues that belong

To Southern culture! Love not more than hate

Helped to a blaze ... But I anticipate.

LXVIII

Prepare to witness a combustion rich

And riotously splendid, far beyond

Poor René's lambent little streamer which

Only played candle to a Court grown fond

By baby-birth: this soared to such a pitch,

Alternately such colors doffed and donned,

That when I say it dazzled Paris--please

Know that it brought Voltaire upon his knees!

LXIX

Who did it, was a dapper gentleman,

Paul Desforges Maillard, Croisickese by birth,

Whose birth that century ended which began

By similar bestowment on our earth

Of the aforesaid René. Cease to scan

The ways of Providence! See Croisic's dearth--

Not Paris in its plenitude--suffice

To furnish France with her best poet twice!

LXX

Till he was thirty years of age, the vein

Poetic yielded rhyme by drops and spirts:

In verses of society had lain

His talent chiefly; but the Muse asserts

Privilege most by treating with disdain

Epics the bard mouths out, or odes he blurts

Spasmodically forth. Have people time

And patience nowadays for thought in rhyme?

LXXI

So, his achievements were the quatrain's inch

Of homage, or at most the sonnet's ell

Of admiration: welded lines with clinch

Of ending word and word, to every belle

In Croisic's bounds; these, brisk as any finch,

He twittered till his fame had reached as well

Guérande as Batz; but there fame stopped, for--curse

On fortune--outside lay the universe!

LXXII

That 's Paris. Well,--why not break bounds, and send

Song onward till it echo at the gates

Of Paris whither all ambitions tend,

And end too, seeing that success there sates

The soul which hungers most for fame? Why spend

A minute in deciding, while, by Fate's

Decree, there happens to be just the prize

Proposed there, suiting souls that poetize?

LXXIII

A prize indeed, the Academy's own self

Proposes to what bard shall best indite

A piece describing how, through shoal and shelf,

The Art of Navigation; steered aright,

Has, in our last king's reign,--the lucky elf,--

Reached, one may say, Perfection's haven quite,

And there cast anchor. At a glance one sees

The subject's crowd of capabilities!

LXXIV

Neptune and Amphitrité! Thetis, who

Is either Tethys or as good--both tag!

Triton can shove along a vessel too:

It 's Virgil! Then the winds that blow or lag,--

De Maille, Vendôme, Vermandois! Toulouse blew

Longest, we reckon: he must puff the flag

To fullest outflare; while our lacking nymph

Be Anne of Austria, Regent o'er the lymph!

LXXV

Promised, performed! Since _irritabilis gens_

Holds of the feverish impotence that strives

To stay an itch by prompt resource to pen's

Scratching itself on paper; placid lives,

Leisurely works mark the _divinior mens:_

Bees brood above the honey in their hives;

Gnats are the busy bustlers. Splash and scrawl,--

Completed lay thy piece, swift penman Paul!

LXXVI

To Paris with the product! This dispatched,

One had to wait the Forty's slow and sure

Verdict, as best one might. Our penman scratched

Away perforce the itch that knows no cure

But daily paper-friction: more than matched

His first feat by a second--tribute pure

And heartfelt to the Forty when their voice

Should peal with one accord "Be Paul our choice!"

LXXVII

Scratch, scratch went much laudation of that sane

And sound Tribunal, delegates august

Of Phœbus and the Muses' sacred train--

Whom every poetaster tries to thrust

From where, high-throned, they dominate the Seine:

Fruitless endeavor,--fail it shall and must!

Whereof in witness have not one and all

The Forty voices pealed "Our choice be Paul"?

LXXVIII

Thus Paul discounted his applause. Alack

For human expectation! Scarcely ink

Was dry when, lo, the perfect piece came back

Rejected, shamed! Some other poet's clink

"Thetis and Tethys" had seduced the pack

Of pedants to declare perfection's pink

A singularly poor production. "Whew!

The Forty are stark fools, I always knew!"

LXXIX

First fury over (for Paul's race--to wit,

Brain-vibrios--wriggle clear of protoplasm

Into minute life that 's one fury-fit),

"These fools shall find a bard's enthusiasm

Comports with what should counterbalance it--

Some knowledge of the world! No doubt, orgasm

Effects the birth of verse which, born, demands

Prosaic ministration, swaddling-bands!

LXXX

"Verse must be cared for at this early stage,

Handled, nay dandled even. I should play

Their game indeed if, till it grew of age,

I meekly let these dotards frown away

My bantling from the rightful heritage

Of smiles and kisses! Let the public say

If it be worthy praises or rebukes,

My poem, from these Forty old perukes!"

LXXXI

So, by a friend, who boasts himself in grace

With no less than the Chevalier La Roque,--

Eminent in those days for pride of place,

Seeing he had it in his power to block

The way or smooth the road to all the race

Of literators trudging up to knock

At Fame's exalted temple-door--for why?

He edited the Paris "Mercury:"--

LXXXII

By this friend's help the Chevalier receives

Paul's poem, prefaced by the due appeal

To Cæsar from the Jews. As duly heaves

A sigh the Chevalier, about to deal

With case so customary--turns the leaves,

Finds nothing there to borrow, beg, or steal--

Then brightens up the critic's brow deep-lined.

"The thing may be so cleverly declined!"

LXXXIII

Down to desk, out with paper, up with quill,

Dip and indite! "Sir, gratitude immense

For this true draught from the Pierian rill!

Our Academic clodpoles must be dense

Indeed to stand unirrigated still.

No less, we critics dare not give offence

To grandees like the Forty: while we mock,

We grin and bear. So, here 's your piece! La Roque."

LXXXIV

"There now!" cries Paul: "the fellow can't avoid

Confessing that my piece deserves the palm;

And yet he dares not grant me space enjoyed

By every scribbler he permits embalm

His crambo in the Journal's corner! Cloyed

With stuff like theirs, no wonder if a qualm

Be caused by verse like mine: though that 's no cause

For his defrauding me of just applause.

LXXXV

"Aha, he fears the Forty, this poltroon?

First let him fear _me!_ Change smooth speech to rough!

I 'll speak my mind out, show the fellow soon

Who is the foe to dread: insist enough

On my own merits till, as clear as noon,

He sees I am no man to take rebuff

As patiently as scribblers may and must!

Quick to the onslaught, out sword, cut and thrust!"

LXXXVI

And thereupon a fierce epistle flings

Its challenge in the critic's face. Alack!

Our bard mistakes his man! The gauntlet rings

On brazen visor proof against attack.

Prompt from his editorial throne up springs

The insulted magnate, and his mace falls, thwack,

On Paul's devoted brainpan,--quite away

From common courtesies of fencing-play!

LXXXVII

"Sir, will you have the truth? This piece of yours

Is simply execrable past belief.

I shrank from saying so; but, since naught cures

Conceit but truth, truth 's at your service! Brief,

Just so long as 'The Mercury' endures,

So long are you excluded by its Chief

From corner, nay, from cranny! Play the cock

O' the roost, henceforth, at Croisic!" wrote La Roque.

LXXXVIII

Paul yellowed, whitened, as his wrath from red

Waxed incandescent. Now, this man of rhyme

Was merely foolish, faulty in the head

Not heart of him: conceit 's a venial crime.

"Oh by no means malicious!" cousins said:

Fussily feeble,--harmless all the time,

Piddling at so-called satire--well-advised,

He held in most awe whom he satirized.

LXXXIX

Accordingly his kith and kin--removed

From emulation of the poet's gift

By power and will--these rather liked, nay, loved

The man who gave his family a lift

Out of the Croisic level; disapproved

Satire so trenchant." Thus our poet sniffed

Home-incense, though too churlish to unlock

"The Mercury's" box of ointment was La Roque.

XC

But when Paul's visage grew from red to white,

And from his lips a sort of mumbling fell

Of who was to be kicked,--"And serve him right!"

A gay voice interposed, "Did kicking well

Answer the purpose! Only--if I might

Suggest as much--a far more potent spell

Lies in another kind of treatment. Oh,

Women are ready at resource, you know!

XCI

"Talent should minister to genius! good:

The proper and superior smile returns.

Hear me with patience! Have you understood

The only method whereby genius earns

Fit guerdon nowadays? In knightly mood

You entered lists with visor up; one learns

Too late that, had you mounted Roland's crest,

'Room!' they had roared--La Roque with all the rest!

XCII

"Why did you first of all transmit your piece

To those same priggish Forty unprepared

Whether to rank you with the swans or geese

By friendly intervention? If they dared

Count you a cackler,--wonders never cease!

I think it still more wondrous that you bared

Your brow (my earlier image) as if praise

Were gained by simple fighting nowadays!

XCIII

"Your next step showed a touch of the true means

Whereby desert is crowned: not force but wile

Came to the rescue. 'Get behind the scenes!'

Your friend advised: he writes, sets forth your style

And title, to such purpose intervenes

That you get velvet-compliment three-pile;

And, though 'The Mercury' said 'nay,' nor stock

Nor stone did his refusal prove La Roque.

XCIV

"Why must you needs revert to the high hand,

Imperative procedure--what you call

'Taking on merit your exclusive stand'?

_Stand_, with a vengeance! Soon you went to wall.

You and your merit! Only fools command

When folks are free to disobey them, Paul!

You 've learnt your lesson, found out what 's o'clock,

By this uncivil answer of La Roque.

XCV

"Now let me counsel! Lay this piece on shelf

--Masterpiece though it be! From out your desk

Hand me some lighter sample, verse the elf

Cupid inspired you with, no god grotesque

Presiding o'er the Navy! I myself

Hand-write what 's legible yet picturesque;

I 'll copy fair and femininely frock

Your poem masculine that courts La Roque!

XCVI

"Deidamia he--Achilles thou!

Ha, ha, these ancient stories come so apt!

My sex, my youth, my rank I next avow

In a neat prayer for kind perusal. Sapped

I see the walls which stand so stoutly now!

I see the toils about the game entrapped

By honest cunning! Chains of lady's-smock,

Not thorn and thistle, tether fast La Roque!"

XCVII

Now, who might be the speaker sweet and arch

That laughed above Paul's shoulder as it heaved

With the indignant heart?--bade steal a march

And not continue charging? Who conceived

This plan which set our Paul, like pea you parch

On fire-shovel, skipping, of a load relieved,

From arm-chair moodiness to escritoire

Sacred to Phœbus and the tuneful choir?

XCVIII