Peter grinned and bore it, such disgraceful usage:

Somehow, cuffs and kicks and curses seem ordained his like to

suffer:

Prophet's pay with Christians, now as in the Jews' age,

Still is--stoning: so, he meekly took his wage and went,

--Safe again was found ensconced in those old quarters,

Padua's blackest blindest by-street,--none the worse, nay, somewhat

tougher:

"Calculating," quoth he, "soon I join the martyrs,

Since, who magnify my lore on burning me are bent."[10]

Therefore, on a certain evening, to his alley

Peter slunk, all bruised and broken, sore in body, sick in spirit,

Just escaped from Cairo where he launched a galley

Needing neither sails nor oars nor help of wind or tide,

--Needing but the fume of fire to set a-flying

Wheels like mad which whirled you quick--North, South, where'er you

pleased require it,--

That is--would have done so had not priests come prying,

Broke his engine up and bastinadoed him beside.

As he reached his lodging, stopped there unmolested,

(Neighbors feared him, urchins fled him, few were bold enough to

follow)

While his fumbling fingers tried the lock and tested

Once again the queer key's virtue, oped the sullen door,--

Some one plucked his sleeve, cried, "Master, pray your pardon!

Grant a word to me who patient wait you in your archway's hollow!

Hard on you men's hearts are: be not your heart hard on

Me who kiss your garment's hem, O Lord of magic lore!

"Mage--say I, who no less, scorning tittle-tattle,

To the vulgar give no credence when they prate of Peter's magic,

Deem his art brews tempest, hurts the crops and cattle,

Hinders fowls from laying eggs and worms from spinning silk,

Rides upon a he-goat, mounts at need a broomstick:

While the price he pays for this (so turns to comic what was tragic)

Is--he may not drink--dreads like the Day of Doom's tick--

One poor drop of sustenance ordained mere men--that 's milk!

"Tell such tales to Padua! Think me no such dullard!

Not from these benighted parts did I derive my breath and being!

I am from a land whose cloudless skies are colored

Livelier, suns orb largelier, airs seem incense,--while, on earth--

What, instead of grass, our fingers and our thumbs cull,

Proves true moly! sounds and sights there help the body's hearing,

seeing,

Till the soul grows godlike: brief,--you front no numskull

Shaming by ineptitude the Greece that gave him birth!

"Mark within my eye its iris mystic-lettered--

That 's my name! and note my ear--its swan-shaped cavity, my emblem!

Mine 's the swan-like nature born to fly unfettered

Over land and sea in search of knowledge--food for song.

Art denied the vulgar! Geese grow fat on barley,

Swans require ethereal provend, undesirous to resemble 'em--

Soar to seek Apollo--favored with a parley

Such as, Master, you grant me--who will not hold you long.

"Leave to learn to sing--for that your swan petitions:

Master, who possess the secret, say not nay to such a suitor!

All I ask is--bless mine, purest of ambitions!

Grant me leave to make my kind wise, free, and happy! How?

Just by making me--as you are mine--their model!

Geese have goose-thoughts: make a swan their teacher first, then

coadjutor,--

Let him introduce swan-notions to each noddle,--

Geese will soon grow swans, and men become what I am now!

"That 's the only magic--had but fools discernment,

Could they probe and pass into the solid through the soft and

seeming!

Teach me such true magic--now, and no adjournment!

Teach your art of making fools subserve the man of mind!

Magic is the power we men of mind should practice,

Draw fools to become our drudges--docile henceforth, never

dreaming--

While they do our hests for fancied gain--the fact is

What they toil and moil to get proves falsehood: truth 's behind!

"See now! you conceive some fabric--say, a mansion

Meet for monarch's pride and pleasure: this is truth--a thought has

fired you,

Made you fain to give some cramped concept expansion,

Put your faculty to proof, fulfil your nature's task.

First you fascinate the monarch's self: he fancies

He it was devised the scheme you execute as he inspired you:

He in turn sets slaving insignificances

Toiling, moiling till your structure stands there--all you ask!

"Soon the monarch 's known for what he was--a ninny:

Soon the rabble-rout leave labor, take their work-day wage and

vanish:

Soon the late puffed bladder, pricked, shows lank and skinny--

'Who was its inflator?' ask we, 'whose the giant lungs'

_Petri en pulmones!_ What though men prove ingrates?

Let them--so they stop at crucifixion--buffet, ban and banish!

Peter's power's apparent: human praise--its din grates

Harsh as blame on ear unused to aught save angels' tongues.

"Ay, there have been always, since our world existed,

Mages who possessed the secret--needed but to stand still, fix eye

On the foolish mortal: straight was he enlisted

Soldier, scholar, servant, slave--no matter for the style!

Only through illusion; ever what seemed profit--

Love or lucre--justified obedience to the _Ipse dixi:_

Work done--palace reared from pavement up to soffit--

Was it strange if builders smelt out cheating all the while?

"Let them pelt and pound, bruise, bray you in a mortar!

What 's the odds to you who seek reward of quite another nature?

You 've enrolled your name where sages of your sort are,

--Michael of Constantinople, Hans of Halberstadt!

Nay and were you nameless, still you 've your conviction

You it was and only you--what signifies the nomenclature?--

Ruled the world in fact, though how you ruled be fiction

Fit for fools: true wisdom's magic you--if e'er man--had 't!

"But perhaps you ask me, 'Since each ignoramus

While he profits by such magic persecutes the benefactor,

What should I expect but--once I render famous

You as Michael, Hans, and Peter--just one ingrate more?

If the vulgar prove thus, whatsoe'er the pelf be,

Pouched through my beneficence--and doom me dungeoned, chained, or

racked, or

Fairly burned outright--how grateful will yourself be

When, his secret gained, you match your--master just before?'

"That 's where I await you! Please, revert a little!

What do folk report about you if not this--which, though chimeric,

Still, as figurative, suits you to a tittle--

That,--although the elements obey your nod and wink,

Fades or flowers the herb you chance to smile or sigh at,

While your frown bids earth quake palled by obscuration

atmospheric,--

Brief, although through nature naught resists your _fiat_,

There 's yet one poor substance mocks you--milk you may not drink!

"Figurative language! Take my explanation!

Fame with fear, and hate with homage, these your art procures in

plenty.

All 's but daily dry bread: what makes moist the ration?

Love, the milk that sweetens man his meal--alas, you lack:

I am he who, since he fears you not, can love you.

Love is born of heart not mind, _de corde natus haud de mente;_

Touch my heart and love 's yours, sure as shines above you

Sun by day and star by night though earth should go to wrack!

"Stage by stage you lift me--kiss by kiss I hallow

Whose but your dear hand my helper, punctual as at each new impulse

I approach my aim? Shell chipped, the eaglet callow

Needs a parent's pinion-push to quit the eyrie's edge:

But once fairly launched forth, denizen of ether,

While each effort sunward bids the blood more freely through each

limb pulse,

Sure the parent feels, as gay they soar together,

Fully are all pains repaid when love redeems its pledge!"

Then did Peter's tristful visage lighten somewhat,

Vent a watery smile as though inveterate mistrust were thawing.

"Well, who knows?" he slow broke silence. "Mortals--come what

Come there may--are still the dupes of hope there 's luck in store.

Many scholars seek me, promise mounts and marvels:

Here stand I to witness how they step 'twixt me and clapper-clawing!

Dry bread,--that I 've gained me: truly I should starve else:

But of milk, no drop was mine! Well, shuffle cards once more!"

At the word of promise thus implied, our stranger--

What can he but cast his arms, in rapture of embrace, round Peter?

"Hold! I choke!" the mage grunts. "Shall I in the manger

Any longer play the dog? Approach, my calf, and feed!

_Bene_ ... won't you wait for grace?" But sudden incense

Wool-white, serpent-solid, curled up--perfume growing sweet and

sweeter

Till it reached the young man's nose and seemed to win sense

Soul and all from out his brain through nostril: yes, indeed!

Presently the young man rubbed his eyes. "Where am I?

Too much bother over books! Some reverie has proved amusing.

What did Peter prate of? 'Faith, my brow is clammy!

How my head throbs, how my heart thumps! Can it be I swooned?

Oh, I spoke my speech out--cribbed from Plato's tractate,

Dosed him with 'the Fair and Good,' swore--Dog of Egypt--I was

choosing

Plato's way to serve men! What 's the hour? Exact eight!

Home now, and to-morrow never mind how Plato mooned!

"Peter has the secret! Fair and Good are products

(So he said) of Foul and Evil: one must bring to pass the other.

Just as poisons grow drugs, steal through sundry odd ducts

Doctors name, and ultimately issue safe and changed.

You 'd abolish poisons, treat disease with dainties

Such as suit the sound and sane? With all such kickshaws vain you

pother!

Arsenic 's the stuff puts force into the faint eyes,

Opium sets the brain to rights--by cark and care deranged.

"What, he 's safe within door?--would escape--no question--

Thanks, since thanks and more I owe, and mean to pay in time

befitting.

What most presses now is--after night's digestion,

Peter, of thy precepts!--promptest practice of the same.

Let me see! The wise man, first of all, scorns riches:

But to scorn them must obtain them: none believes in his permitting

Gold to lie ungathered: who picks up, then pitches

Gold away--philosophizes: none disputes his claim.

"So with worldly honors: 't is by abdicating,

Incontestably he proves he could have kept the crown discarded.

Sulla cuts a figure, leaving off dictating:

Simpletons laud private life? 'The grapes are sour,' laugh we.

So, again--but why continue? All 's tumultuous

Here: my head 's a-whirl with knowledge. Speedily shall be rewarded

He who taught me! Greeks prove ingrates? So insult you us?

When your teaching bears its first-fruits, Peter--wait and see!"

As the word, the deed proved; ere a brief year's passage,

Fop--that fool he made the jokes on--now he made the jokes for,

_gratis:_

Hunks--that hoarder, long left lonely in his crass age--

Found now one appreciative deferential friend:

Powder-paint-and-patch, Hag Jezebel--recovered,

Strange to say, the power to please, got courtship till she cried

_Jam satis!_

Fop be-flattered. Hunks be-friended, Hag be-lovered--

Nobody o'erlooked, save God--he soon attained his end.

As he lounged at ease one morning in his villa,

(Hag's the dowry) estimated (Hunks' bequest) his coin in coffer,

Mused on how a fool's good word (Fop's word) could fill a

Social circle with his praise, promote him man of mark,--

All at once--"An old friend fain would see your Highness!"

There stood Peter, skeleton and scarecrow, plain writ

_Phi-lo-so-pher_

In the woe-worn face--for yellowness and dryness,

Parchment--with, a pair of eyes--one hope their feeble spark.

"Did I counsel rightly? Have you, in accordance,

Prospered greatly, dear my pupil? Sure, at just the stage I find

you,

When your hand may draw me forth from the mad war-dance

Savages are leading round your master--down, not dead.

Padua wants to burn me: balk them, let me linger

Life out--rueful though its remnant--hid in some safe hold behind

you!

Prostrate here I lie: quick, help with but a finger

Lest I house in safety's self--a tombstone o'er my head!

"Lodging, bite and sup, with--now and then--a copper

--Alms for any poorer still, if such there be,--is all my asking.

Take me for your bedesman,--nay, if you think proper,

Menial merely,--such my perfect passion for repose!

Yes, from out your plenty Peter craves a pittance

--Leave to thaw his frozen hands before the fire whereat you 're

basking!

Double though your debt were, grant this boon--remittance

He proclaims of obligation: 't is himself that owes!"

"Venerated Master--can it be, such treatment

Learning meets with, magic fails to guard you from, by all

appearance?

Strange! for, as you entered,--what the famous feat meant,

I was full of,--why you reared that fabric, Padua's boast.

Nowise for man's pride, man's pleasure, did you slyly

Raise it, but man's seat of rule whereby the world should soon have

clearance

(Happy world) from such a rout as now so vilely

Handles you--and hampers me, for which I grieve the most.

"Since if it got wind you now were my familiar,

How could I protect you--nay, defend myself against the rabble?

Wait until the mob, now masters, willy-nilly are

Servants as they should be: then has gratitude full play!

Surely this experience shows how unbefitting

'T is that minds like mine should rot in ease and plenty. Geese may

gabble,

Gorge, and keep the ground: but swans are soon for quitting

Earthly fare--as fain would I, your swan, if taught the way.

"Teach me, then, to rule men, have them at my pleasure!

Solely for their good, of course,--impart a secret worth rewarding,

Since the proper life's--prize! Tantalus's treasure

Aught beside proves, vanishes, and leaves no trace at all.

Wait awhile, nor press for payment prematurely!

Over-haste defrauds you. Thanks! since,--even while I

speak,--discarding

Sloth and vain delights, I learn how--swiftly, surely--

Magic sways the sceptre, wears the crown and wields the ball!

"Gone again--what, is he? 'Faith, he 's soon disposed of!

Peter's precepts work already, put within my lump their leaven!

Ay, we needs must don glove would we pluck the rose--doff

Silken garment would we climb the tree and take its fruit.

Why sharp thorn, rough rind? To keep unviolated

Either prize! We garland us, we mount from earth to feast in heaven,

Just because exist what once we estimated

Hindrances which, better taught, as helps we now compute.

"Foolishly I turned disgusted from my fellows!

Pits of ignorance--to fill, and heaps of prejudice--to level--

Multitudes in motley, whites and blacks and yellows--

What a hopeless task it seemed to discipline the host!

Now I see my error. Vices act like virtues

--Not alone because they guard--sharp thorns--the rose we first

dishevel,

Not because they scrape, scratch--rough rind--through the dirt-shoes

Bare feet cling to bole with, while the half-mooned boot we boast.

"No, my aim is nobler, more disinterested!

Man shall keep what seemed to thwart him, since it proves his true

assistance,

Leads to ascertaining which head is the best head,

Would he crown his body, rule its members--lawless else.

Ignorant the horse stares, by deficient vision

Takes a man to be a monster, lets him mount, then, twice the

distance

Horse could trot unridden, gallops--dream Elysian!--

Dreaming that his dwarfish guide's a giant,--jockeys tell 's."

Brief, so worked the spell, he promptly had a riddance:

Heart and brain no longer felt the pricks which passed for

conscience-scruples:

Free henceforth his feet,--_Per Bacco_, how they did dance

Merrily through lets and checks that stopped the way before!

Politics the prize now,--such adroit adviser.

Opportune suggester, with the tact that triples and quadruples

Merit in each measure,--never did the Kaiser

Boast as subject such a statesman, friend, and something more!

As he, up and down, one noonday, paced his closet

--Council o'er, each spark (his hint) blown flame, by colleagues'

breath applauded,

Strokes of statecraft hailed with "_Salomo si nôsset!_"

(His the nostrum)--every throw for luck come double-six,--

As he, pacing, hugged himself in satisfaction,

Thump--the door went. "What, the Kaiser? By none else were I

defrauded

Thus of well-earned solace. Since 't is fate's exaction,--

Enter, Liege my Lord! Ha, Peter, you here? _Teneor vix!_"

"Ah, Sir, none the less, contain you, nor wax irate!

You so lofty, I so lowly,--vast the space which yawns between us!

Still, methinks, you--more than ever--at a high rate

Needs must prize poor Peter's secret since it lifts you thus.

Grant me now the boon whereat before you boggled!

Ten long years your march has moved--one triumph--(though _e_ 's

short)--_hactēnus_,

While I down and down disastrously have joggled

Till I pitch against Death's door, the true _Nec Ultra Plus_.

"Years ago--some ten 't is--since I sought for shelter,

Craved in your whole house a closet, out of all your means a

comfort.

Now you soar above these: as is gold to spelter

So is power--you urged with reason--paramount to wealth.

Power you boast in plenty: let it grant me refuge!

House-room now is out of question: find for me some stronghold--some

fort--

Privacy wherein, immured, shall this blind deaf huge

Monster of a mob let stay the soul I 'd save by stealth!

"Ay, for all too much with magic have I tampered!

--Lost the world, and gained, I fear, a certain place I 'm to

describe loth!

Still, if prayer and fasting tame the pride long pampered,

Mercy may be mine: amendment never comes too late.

How can I amend beset by cursers, kickers?

Pluck this brand from out the burning! Once away, I take my

Bible-oath,

Never more--so long as life's weak lamp-flame flickers--

No, not once I 'll tease you, but in silence bear my fate!"

"Gently, good my Genius, Oracle unerring!

Strange now! can you guess on what--as in you peeped--it was I

pondered?

You and I are both of one mind in preferring

Power to wealth, but--here 's the point--what sort of power, I ask?

Ruling men is vulgar, easy, and ignoble:

Rid yourself of conscience, quick you have at beck and call the fond

herd.

But who wields the crozier, down may fling the crow-bill:

That 's the power I covet now; soul's sway o'er souls--my task!

"'Well but,' you object, 'you have it, who by glamour

Dress up lies to look like truths, mask folly in the garb of reason:

Your soul acts on theirs, sure, when the people clamor,

Hold their peace, now fight now fondle,--earwigged through the

brains.'

Possibly! but still the operation 's mundane,

Grosser than a taste demands which--craving manna--kecks at peason--

Power o'er men by wants material: why should one deign

Rule by sordid hopes and fears--a grunt for all one's pains?

"No, if men must praise me, let them praise to purpose!

Would we move the world, not earth but heaven must be our

fulcrum--_pou sto!_

Thus I seek to move it: Master, why intérpose--

Balk my climbing close on what 's the ladder's topmost round?

Statecraft 't is I step from: when by priestcraft hoisted

Up to where my foot may touch the highest rung which fate allows

toe,

Then indeed ask favor. On you shall be foisted

No excuse: I 'll pay my debt, each penny of the pound!

"Ho, my knaves without there! Lead this worthy downstairs!

No farewell, good Paul--nay, Peter--what 's your name remembered

rightly?

Come, he 's humble: out another would have flounced--airs

Suitors often give themselves when our sort bow them forth.

Did I touch his rags? He surely kept his distance:

Yet, there somehow passed to me from him--where'er the virtue might

lie--

Something that inspires my soul--Oh, by assistance

Doubtlessly of Peter!--still, he 's worth just what he 's worth!

"'T is my own soul soars now: soaring--how? By crawling!

I 'll to Rome, before Rome's feet the temporal-supreme lay

prostrate!

'Hands' (I 'll say) 'proficient once in pulling, hauling

This and that way men as I was minded--feet now clasp!'

Ay, the Kaiser's self has wrung them in his fervor!

Now--they only sue to slave for Rome, nor at one doit the cost rate.

Rome's adopted child--no bone, no muscle, nerve or

Sinew of me but I 'll strain, though out my life I gasp!"

As he stood one evening proudly--(he had traversed

Rome on horseback--peerless pageant!--claimed the Lateran as new

Pope)--

Thinking "All 's attained now! Pontiff! Who could have erst

Dreamed of my advance so far when, some ten years ago,

I embraced devotion, grew from priest to bishop,

Gained the Purple, bribed the Conclave, got the Two-thirds, saw my

coop ope,

Came out--what Rome hails me! O were there a wish-shop,

Not one wish more would I purchase--lord of all below!

"Ha--who dares intrude now--puts aside the arras?

What, old Peter, here again, at such a time, in such a presence?

Satan sends this plague back merely to embarrass

Me who enter on my office--little needing you!

'Faith, I 'm touched myself by age, but you look Tithon!

Were it vain to seek of you the sole prize left--rejuvenescence?

Well, since flesh is grass which time must lay his scythe on,

Say your say and so depart and make no more ado!"

Peter faltered--coughing first by way of prologue--

"Holiness, your help comes late: a death at ninety little matters.

Padua, build poor Peter's pyre now, on log roll log,

Burn away--I 've lived my day! Yet here 's the sting in death--

I 've an author's pride: I want my Book's survival:

See, I 've hid it in my breast to warm me 'mid the rags and tatters!

Save it--tell next age your Master had no rival!

Scholar's debt discharged in full, be 'Thanks' my latest breath!"

"Faugh, the frowsy bundle--scribblings harum-scarum

Scattered o'er a dozen sheepskins! What 's the name of this farrago?

Ha--'_Conciliator Differentiarum_'--

Man and book may burn together, cause the world no loss!

Stop--what else? A tractate--eh, '_De Speciebus_

_Ceremonialis Ma-gi-æ?_' I dream sure! Hence, away, go,

Wizard,--quick avoid me! Vain you clasp my knee, buss

Hand that bears the Fisher's ring or foot that boasts the Cross!

"Help! The old magician clings like an octopus!

Ah, you rise now--fuming, fretting, frowning, if I read your

features!

Frown, who cares? We 're Pope--once Pope, you can't unpope us!

Good--you muster up a smile: that 's better! Still so brisk?

All at once grown youthful? But the case is plain! Ass--

Here I dally with the fiend, yet know the Word--compels all

creatures

Earthly, heavenly, hellish. _Apage, Sathanas_

_Dicam verbum Salomonis_--" "_dicite!_" When--whisk!--

What was changed? The stranger gave his eyes a rubbing:

There smiled Peter's face turned back a moment at him o'er the

shoulder,

As the black-door shut, bang! "So he 'scapes a drubbing!"

(Quoth a boy who, unespied, had stopped to hear the talk.)

"That 's the way to thank these wizards when they bid men

_Benedicite!_ What ails you? You, a man, and yet no bolder?

Foreign Sir, you look but foolish!" "_Idmen, idmen!_"

Groaned the Greek. "O Peter, cheese at last I know from chalk!"

Peter lived his life out, menaced yet no martyr,

Knew himself the mighty man he was--such knowledge all his guerdon,

Left the world a big book--people but in part err

When they style a true _Scientiæ Com-pen-di-um:_

"_Admirationem incutit_" they sourly

Smile, as fast they shut the folio which myself was somehow spurred

on

Once to ope: but love--life's milk which daily, hourly,

Blockheads lap--O Peter, still thy taste of love 's to come!

Greek, was your ambition likewise doomed to failure?

True, I find no record you wore purple, walked with axe and fasces,

Played some antipope's part: still, friend, don't turn tail, you 're

Certain, with but these two gifts, to gain earth's prize in time!

Cleverness uncurbed by conscience--if you ransacked

Peter's book you 'd find no potent spell like these to rule the

masses;

Nor should want example, had I not to transact

Other business. Go your ways, you 'll thrive! So ends my rhyme.

* * * * *

When these parts Tiberius--not yet Cæsar--travelled,

Passing Padua, he consulted Padua's Oracle of Geryon

(God three-headed, thrice wise) just to get unravelled

Certain tangles of his future. "Fling at Abano

Golden dice," it answered: "dropt within the fount there,

Note what sum the pips present!" And still we see each die, the very

one,

Turn up, through the crystal,--read the whole account there

Where 't is told by Suetonius,--each its highest throw.

Scarce the sportive fancy-dice I fling show "Venus:"

Still--for love of that dear land which I so oft in dreams revisit--

I have--oh, not sung! but lilted (as--between us--

Grows my lazy custom) this its legend. What the lilt?

[Music]

DOCTOR ----

A Rabbi told me: On the day allowed

Satan for carping at God's rule, he came,

Fresh from our earth, to brave the angel-crowd.

"What is the fault now?" "This I find to blame:

Many and various are the tongues below,

Yet all agree in one speech, all proclaim

"'Hell has no might to match what earth, can show:

Death is the strongest-born of Hell, and yet

Stronger than Death is a Bad Wife, we know.'

"Is it a wonder if I fume and fret--

Robbed of my rights, since Death am I, and mine

The style of Strongest? Men pay Nature's debt

"Because they must at my demand; decline

To pay it henceforth surely men will please,

Provided husbands with bad wives combine

"To baffle Death. Judge between me and these!"

"Thyself shalt judge. Descend to earth in shape

Of mortal, marry, drain from froth to lees

"The bitter draught, then see if thou escape

Concluding, with men sorrowful and sage,

A Bad Wife's strength Death's self in vain would ape!"

How Satan entered on his pilgrimage,

Conformed himself to earthly ordinance,

Wived and played husband well from youth to age

Intrepidly--I leave untold, advance

Through many a married year until I reach

A day when--of his father's countenance

The very image, like him too in speech

As well as thought and deed,--the union's fruit

Attained maturity. "I needs must teach

"My son a trade: but trade, such son to suit,

Needs seeking after. He a man of war?

Too cowardly! A lawyer wins repute--

"Having to toil and moil, though--both which are

Beyond this sluggard. There 's Divinity:

No, that 's my own bread-winner--that be far

"From my poor offspring! Physic? Ha, we 'll try

If this be practicable. Where 's my wit?

Asleep?--since, now I come to think ... Ay, ay!

"Hither, my son! Exactly have I hit

On a profession for thee. _Medicus_--

Behold, thou art appointed! Yea, I spit

"Upon thine eyes, bestow a virtue thus

That henceforth not this human form I wear

Shalt thou perceive alone, but--one of us

"By privilege--thy fleshly sight shall bear

Me in my spirit-person as I walk

The world and take my prey appointed there.

"Doctor once dubbed--what ignorance shall balk

Thy march triumphant? Diagnose the gout

As colic, and prescribe it cheese for chalk--

"No matter! All 's one: cure shall come about

And win thee wealth--fees paid with such a roar

Of thanks and praise alike from lord and lout

"As never stunned man's ears on earth before.

'How may this be?' Why, that 's my skeptic! Soon

Truth will corrupt thee, soon thou doubt'st no more!

"Why is it I bestow on thee the boon

Of recognizing me the while I go

Invisibly among men, morning, noon,

"And night, from house to house, and--quick or slow--

Take my appointed prey? They summon thee

For help, suppose: obey the summons! so!

"Enter, look round! Where 's Death? Know--I am he,

Satan who work all evil: I who bring

Pain to the patient in whate'er degree.

"I, then, am there: first glance thine eye shall fling

Will find me--whether distant or at hand,

As I am free to do my spiriting.

"At such mere first glance thou shalt understand

Wherefore I reach no higher up the room

Than door or window, when my form is scanned.

"Howe'er friends' faces please to gather gloom,

Bent o'er the sick,--howe'er himself desponds,--

In such case Death is not the sufferer's doom.

"Contrariwise, do friends rejoice my bonds

Are broken, does the captive in his turn

Crow 'Life shall conquer'? Nip these foolish fronds

"Of hope a-sprout, if haply thou discern

Me at the head--my victim's head, be sure!

Forth now! This taught thee, little else to learn!"

And forth he went. Folk heard him ask demure,

"How do you style this ailment? (There he peeps,

My father through the arras!) Sirs, the cure

"Is plain as A B C! Experience steeps

Blossoms of pennyroyal half an hour

In sherris. _Sumat!_--Lo, how sound he sleeps--

"The subject you presumed was past the power

Of Galen to relieve!" Or else, "How 's this?

Why call for help so tardily? Clouds lour

"Portentously indeed, Sirs! (Naught 's amiss:

He 's at the bed-foot merely.) Still, the storm

May pass averted--not by quacks, I wis,

"Like you, my masters! You, forsooth, perform

A miracle? Stand, sciolists, aside!

Blood, ne'er so cold, at ignorance grows warm!"

Which boasting by result was justified,

Big as might words be: whether drugged or left

Drugless, the patient always lived, not died.

Great the heir's gratitude, so nigh bereft

Of all he prized in this world: sweet the smile

Of disconcerted rivals: "Cure?--say, theft

"From Nature in despite of Art--so style

This off-hand kill-or-cure work! You did much,

I had done more: folk cannot wait awhile!"

But did the case change? was it--"Scarcely such

The symptoms as to warrant our recourse

To your skill, Doctor! Yet since just a touch

"Of pulse, a taste of breath, has all the force

With you of long investigation claimed

By others,--tracks an ailment to its source

"Intuitively,--may we ask unblamed

What from this pimple you prognosticate?"

"Death!" was the answer, as he saw and named

The coucher by the sick man's head. "Too late

You send for my assistance. I am bold

Only by Nature's leave, and bow to Fate!

"Besides, you have my rivals: lavish gold!

How comfortably quick shall life depart

Cosseted by attentions manifold!

"One day, one hour ago, perchance my art

Had done some service. Since you have yourselves

Chosen--before the horse--to put the cart,

"Why, Sirs, the sooner that the sexton delves

Your patient's grave the better! How you stare

--Shallow, for all the deep books on your shelves!

"Fare you well, fumblers!" Do I need declare

What name and fame, what riches recompensed

The Doctor's practice? Never anywhere

Such an adept as daily evidenced

Each new vaticination! Oh, not he

Like dolts who dallied with their scruples, fenced

With subterfuge, nor gave out frank and free

Something decisive! If he said "I save

The patient," saved he was: if "Death will be

"His portion," you might count him dead. Thus brave,

Behold our worthy, sans competitor

Throughout the country, on the architrave

Of Glory's temple golden-lettered for

Machaon _redivivus!_ So, it fell

That, of a sudden, when the Emperor

Was smit by sore disease, I need not tell

If any other Doctor's aid was sought

To come and forthwith make the sick Prince well.

"He will reward thee as a monarch ought.

Not much imports the malady; but then,

He clings to life and cries like one distraught

"For thee--who, from a simple citizen,

Mayst look to rise in rank,--nay, haply wear

A medal with his portrait,--always when

"Recovery is quite accomplished. There!

Pass to the presence!" Hardly has he crossed

The chamber's threshold when he halts, aware

Of who stands sentry by the head. All 's lost.

"Sire, naught avails my art: you near the goal,

And end the race by giving up the ghost."

"How?" cried the monarch: "Names upon your roll

Of half my subjects rescued by your skill--

Old and young, rich and poor--crowd cheek by jowl

"And yet no room for mine? Be saved I will!

Why else am I earth's foremost potentate?

Add me to these and take as fee your fill

"Of gold--that point admits of no debate

Between us: save me, as you can and must,--

Gold, till your gown's pouch cracks beneath the weight!"

This touched the Doctor. "Truly a home-thrust,

Parent, you will not parry! Have I dared

Entreat that you forego the meal of dust

"--Man that is snake's meat--when I saw prepared

Your daily portion? Never! Just this once,

Go from his head, then,--let his life be spared!"

Whisper met whisper in the gruff response;

"Fool, I must have my prey: no inch I budge

From where thou see'st me thus myself ensconce."

"Ah," moaned the sufferer, "by thy look I judge

Wealth fails to tempt thee: what if honors prove

More efficacious? Naught to him I grudge

"Who saves me. Only keep my head above

The cloud that 's creeping round it--I 'll divide

My empire with thee! No? What 's left but--love?

"Does love allure thee? Well then, take as bride

My only daughter, fair beyond belief!

Save me--to-morrow shall the knot be tied!"

"Father, you hear him! Respite ne'er so brief

Is all I beg: go now and come again

Next day, for aught I care: respect the grief

"Mine will be if thy first-born sues in vain!"

"Fool, I must have my prey!" was all he got

In answer. But a fancy crossed his brain.

"I have it! Sire, methinks a meteor shot

Just now across the heavens and neutralized

Jove's salutary influence: 'neath the blot

"Plumb are you placed now: well that I surmised

The cause of failure! Knaves, reverse the bed!"

"Stay!" groaned the monarch, "I shall be capsized--

"Jolt--jolt--my heels uplift where late my head

Was lying--sure I 'm turned right round at last!

What do you say now, Doctor?" Naught he said,

For why? With one brisk leap the Antic passed

From couch-foot back to pillow,--as before,

Lord of the situation. Long aghast

The Doctor gazed, then "Yet one trial more

Is left me" inwardly he uttered. "Shame

Upon thy flinty heart! Do I implore

"This trifling favor in the idle name

Of mercy to the moribund? I plead

The cause of all thou dost affect: my aim

"Befits my author! Why would I succeed?

Simply that by success I may promote

The growth of thy pet virtues--pride and greed.

"But keep thy favors!--curse thee! I devote

Henceforth my service to the other side.

No time to lose: the rattle 's in his throat.

"So,--not to leave one last resource untried,--

Run to my house with all haste, somebody!

Bring me that knobstick thence, so often plied

"With profit by the astrologer--shall I

Disdain its help, the mystic Jacob's-Staff?

Sire, do but have the courage not to die

"Till this arrive! Let none of you dare laugh!

Though rugged its exterior, I have seen

That implement work wonders, send the chaff

"Quick and thick flying from the wheat--I mean,

By metaphor, a human sheaf it threshed

Flail-like. Go fetch it! Or--a word between

Just you and me, friend!--go bid, unabashed,

My mother, whom you 'll find there, bring the stick

Herself--herself, mind!" Out the lackey dashed

Zealous upon the errand. Craft and trick

Are meat and drink to Satan: and he grinned

--How else?--at an excuse so politic

For failure: scarce would Jacob's-Staff rescind

Fate's firm decree! And ever as he neared

The agonizing one, his breath like wind

Froze to the marrow, while his eye-flash seared

Sense in the brain up: closelier and more close

Pressing his prey, when at the door appeared

--Who but his Wife the Bad? Whereof one dose,

One grain, one mite of the medicament,

Sufficed him. Up he sprang. One word, too gross

To soil my lips with,--and through ceiling went

Somehow the Husband. "That a storm 's dispersed

We know for certain by the sulphury scent!

"Hail to the Doctor! Who but one so versed

In all Dame Nature's secrets had prescribed

The staff thus opportunely? Style him first

"And foremost of physicians!" "I've imbibed

Elixir surely," smiled the prince,--"have gained

New lease of life. Dear Doctor, how you bribed

"Death to forego me, boots not: you 've obtained

My daughter and her dowry. Death, I 've heard,

Was still on earth the strongest power that reigned,

"Except a Bad Wife!" Whereunto demurred

Nowise the Doctor, so refused the fee

--No dowry, no bad wife!

"You think absurd

This tale?"--the Rabbi added: "True, our Talmud

Boasts sundry such: yet--have our elders erred

In thinking there 's some water there, not all mud?"

I tell it, as the Rabbi told it me.

PAN AND LUNA

Si credere dignum est.--_Georgic_, III. 390.

Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was,

Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines!

No question, that adventure came to pass

One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines,

Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass

Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines,

The sky's embrace,--below, above, around,

All hardened into black without a bound.

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim

With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice:

See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim,

Turns marble to the touch of who would loose

The solid smooth, grown jet from rim to rim,

By turning round the bowl! So night can fuse

Earth with her all-comprising sky. No less.

Light, the least spark, shows air and emptiness.

And thus it proved when--diving into space,

Stript of all vapor, from each web of mist

Utterly film-free--entered on her race

The naked Moon, full-orbed antagonist

Of night and dark, night's dowry: peak to base,

Upstarted mountains, and each valley, kissed

To sudden life, lay silver-bright: in air

Flew she revealed, Maid-Moon with limbs all bare.

Still as she fled, each depth--where refuge seemed--

Opening a lone pale chamber, left distinct

Those limbs: 'mid still-retreating blue, she teemed

Herself with whiteness,--virginal, uncinct

By any halo save what finely gleamed

To outline not disguise her: heaven was linked

In one accord with earth to quaff the joy,

Drain beauty to the dregs without alloy.

Whereof she grew aware. What help? When, lo,

A succorable cloud with sleep lay dense:

Some pinetree-top had caught it sailing slow,

And tethered for a prize: in evidence

Captive lay fleece on fleece of piled-up snow

Drowsily patient: flake-heaped how or whence,

The structure of that succorable cloud,

What matter? Shamed she plunged into its shroud.

Orbed--so the woman-figure poets call

Because of rounds on rounds--that apple-shaped

Head which its hair binds close into a ball

Each side the curving ears--that pure undraped

Pout of the sister paps--that ... Once for all,

Say--her consummate circle thus escaped

With its innumerous circlets, sank absorbed,

Safe in the cloud--O naked Moon full-orbed!

But what means this? The downy swathes combine,

Conglobe, the smothery coy-caressing stuff

Curdles about her! Vain each twist and twine

Those lithe limbs try, encroached on by a fluff

Fitting as close as fits the dented spine

Its flexible ivory outside-flesh: enough!

The plumy drifts contract, condense, constringe,

Till she is swallowed by the feathery springe.

As when a pearl slips lost in the thin foam

Churned on a sea-shore, and, o'er-frothed, conceits

Herself safe-housed in Amphitrite's dome,--

If, through the bladdery wave-worked yeast, she meets

What most she loathes and leaps from,--elf from gnome

No gladlier,--finds that safest of retreats

Bubble about a treacherous hand wide ope

To grasp her--(divers who pick pearls so grope)--

So lay this Maid-Moon clasped around and caught

By rough red Pan, the god of all that tract:

He it was schemed the snare thus subtly wrought

With simulated earth-breath,--wool-tufts packed

Into a billowy wrappage. Sheep far-sought

For spotless shearings yield such: take the fact

As learned Virgil gives it,--how the breed

Whitens itself forever: yes, indeed!

If one forefather ram, though pure as chalk

From tinge on fleece, should still display a tongue

Black 'neath the beast's moist palate, prompt men balk

The propagating plague: he gets no young:

They rather slay him,--sell his hide to calk

Ships with, first steeped in pitch,--nor hands are wrung

In sorrow for his fate: protected thus,

The purity we love is gained for us.

So did Girl-Moon, by just her attribute

Of unmatched modesty betrayed, lie trapped,

Bruised to the breast of Pan, half god half brute,

Raked by his bristly boar-sward while he lapped

--Never say, kissed her! that were to pollute

Love's language--which moreover proves unapt

To tell now she recoiled--as who finds thorns

Where she sought flowers--when, feeling, she touched--horns!

Then--does the legend say?--first moon-eclipse

Happened, first swooning-fit which puzzled sore

The early sages? Is that why she dips

Into the dark, a minute and no more,

Only so long as serves her while she rips

The cloud's womb through and, faultless as before,

Pursues her way? No lesson for a maid

Left she, a maid herself thus trapped, betrayed?

Ha, Virgil? Tell the rest, you! "To the deep

Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith

Called her, and so she followed"--in her sleep,

Surely?--"by no means spurning him." The myth

Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep

--As of a ruin just a monolith--

Thus much, one verse of five words, each a boon:

Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon.

* * * * *

The first ten lines that follow were printed as epilogue to the second

series of _Dramatic Idyls;_ the second ten were added to them by

Browning in the album of a young American girl in Venice, October,

1880. See _The Century_ for November, 1882.

"Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke:

Soil so quick-receptive,--not one feather-seed,

Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke

Vitalizing virtue: song would song succeed

Sudden as spontaneous--prove a poet-soul!"

Indeed?

Rock's the song-soil rather, surface hard and bare:

Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage

Vainly both expend,--few flowers awaken there:

Quiet in its cleft broods--what the after-age

Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage.

* * * * *

Thus I wrote in London, musing on my betters,

Poets dead and gone; and lo, the critics cried,

"Out on such a boast!" as if I dreamed that fetters

Binding Dante bind up--me! as if true pride

Were not also humble!

So I smiled and sighed

As I oped your book in Venice this bright morning,

Sweet new friend of mine! and felt the clay or sand,

Whatsoe'er my soil be, break--for praise or scorning--

Out in grateful fancies--weeds; but weeds expand

Almost into flowers, held by such a kindly hand.

THE BLIND MAN TO THE MAIDEN

Browning translated the following from a German poem in Wilhelmine

von Hillern's novel _The Hour Will Come_ at the request of Mrs. Clara

Bell, the translator of the novel. It there appeared as the work of an

anonymous friend, but was reprinted as Browning's in _The Whitehall

Review_ for March 1, 1883.

The blind man to the maiden said,

"O thou of hearts the truest,

Thy countenance is hid from me;

Let not my question anger thee!

Speak, though in words the fewest.

"Tell me, what kind of eyes are thine?

Dark eyes, or light ones rather?"

"My eyes are a decided brown--

So much, at least, by looking down,

From the brook's glass I gather."

"And is it red--thy little month?

That too the blind must care for."

"Ah! I would tell it soon to thee,

Only--none yet has told it me.

I cannot answer, therefore.

"But dost thou ask what heart I have--

There hesitate I never.

In thine own breast 't is borne, and so

'T is thine in weal, and thine in woe,

For life, for death--thine ever!"

GOLDONI

The following sonnet was written by Browning for the album of the

Committee of the Goldoni monument, erected in Venice in 1883.

Goldoni--good, gay, sunniest of souls,--

Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine,--

What though it just reflect the shade and shine

Of common life, nor render, as it rolls,

Grandeur and gloom? Sufficient for thy shoals

Was Carnival; Parini's depths enshrine

Secrets unsuited to that opaline

Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls.

There throng the people: how they come and go,

Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb,--see,--

On Piazza, Calle, under Portico

And over Bridge! Dear king of Comedy,

Be honored! thou that didst love Venice so,

Venice, and we who love her, all love thee!

VENICE, _November 27, 1883._

JOCOSERIA

This collection of poems was published in 1883. The title of the volume

is mentioned in a foot-note to the _Note_ at the end of _Paracelsus_,

where the poet speaks of "such rubbish as Melander's _Jocoseria_." In a

letter, accompanying a copy of the volume, sent to a friend, Browning

wrote: "The title is taken from the work of Melander (Schwartzmann),

reviewed, by a curious coincidence, in the _Blackwood_ of this month

[February, 1883]. I referred to it in a note to _Paracelsus_. The two

Hebrew quotations [in the note to Jochanan Hakkadosh] (put in to give a

grave look to what is mere fun and invention) being translated amount

to (1) 'A Collection of Lies'; and (2), an old saying, 'From Moses to

Moses arose none like Moses.'"

WANTING IS--WHAT?

This is in the nature of a prelude to the entire group of poems.

Wanting is--what?

Summer redundant,

Blueness abundant,

--Where is the blot?

Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same,

--Framework which waits for a picture to frame:

What of the leafage, what of the flower?

Roses embowering with naught they embower!

Come then, complete incompletion, O comer,

Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer!

Breathe but one breath

Rose-beauty above,

And all that was death

Grows life, grows love,

Grows love!

DONALD

This story which Browning had from the lips of the hero has also been

told in prose by Sir Walter Scott.

"Will you hear my story also,

--Huge Sport, brave adventure in plenty?"

The boys were a band from Oxford,

The oldest of whom was twenty.

The bothy we held carouse in

Was bright with fire and candle;

Tale followed tale like a merry-go-round

Whereof Sport turned the handle.

In our eyes and noses--turf-smoke:

In our ears a tune from the trivet,

Whence "Boiling, boiling," the kettle sang,

"And ready for fresh Glenlivet."

So, feat capped feat, with a vengeance:

Truths, though,--the lads were loyal:

Grouse, five-score brace to the bag!

Deer, ten hours' stalk of the Royal!"

Of boasting, not one bit, boys!

Only there seemed to settle

Somehow above your curly heads,

--Plain through the singing kettle,

Palpable through the cloud,

As each new-puffed Havana

Rewarded the teller's well-told tale,--

This vaunt "To Sport--Hosanna!

"Hunt, fish, shoot,

Would a man fulfil life's duty!

Not to the bodily frame alone

Does Sport give strength and beauty,

"But character gains in--courage?

Ay, Sir, and much beside it!

You don't sport, _more 's the pity;_

You soon would find, if you tried it,

"Good sportsman means good fellow,

Sound-hearted he, to the centre;

Your mealy-mouthed mild milksops

--There 's where the rot can enter!

"There 's where the dirt will breed,

The shabbiness Sport would banish!

Oh no, Sir, no! In your honored case

All such objections vanish.

"'T is known how hard you studied:

A Double-First--what, the jigger!

Give me but half your Latin and Greek,

I 'll never again touch trigger!

"Still, tastes are tastes, allow me!

Allow, too, where there 's keenness

For Sport, there 's little likelihood

Of a man's displaying meanness!"

So, put on my mettle, I interposed.

"Will you hear my story?" quoth I.

Never mind how long since it happed,

I sat, as we sit, in a bothy;

"With as merry a band of mates, too,

Undergrads all on a level:

(One 's a Bishop, one 's gone to the Bench,

And one's gone--well, to the Devil.)

"When, lo, a scratching and tapping!

In hobbled a ghastly visitor.

Listen to just what he told us himself

--No need of our playing inquisitor!"

* * * * *

Do you happen to know in Ross-shire

Mount Ben ... but the name scarce matters:

Of the naked fact I am sure enough,

Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.

You may recognize Ben by description;

Behind him--a moor's immenseness:

Up goes the middle mount of a range,

Fringed with its firs in denseness.

Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind!

For an edge there is, though narrow;

From end to end of the range, a strip

Of path runs straight as an arrow.

And the mountaineer who takes that path

Saves himself miles of journey

He has to plod if he crosses the moor

Through heather, peat, and burnie.

But a mountaineer he needs must be,

For, look you, right in the middle

Projects bluff Ben--with an end in _ich_--

Why planted there, is a riddle:

Since all Ben's brothers little and big

Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder,

And only this burliest out must bulge

Till it seems--to the beholder

From down in the gully,--as if Ben's breast,

To a sudden spike diminished,

Would signify to the boldest foot

"All further passage finished!"

Yet the mountaineer who sidles on

And on to the very bending,

Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,

No necessary ending.

Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt

Having trod, he, there arriving,

Finds--what he took for a point was breadth,

A mercy of Nature's contriving.

So, he rounds what, when 't is reached, proves straight,

From one side gains the other:

The wee path widens--resume the march,

And he foils you, Ben my brother!

But Donald--(that name, I hope, will do)--

I wrong him if I call "foiling"

The tramp of the callant, whistling the while

As blithe as our kettle's boiling.

He had dared the danger from boyhood up,

And now,--when perchance was waiting

A lass at the brig below,--'twixt mount

And moor would he stand debating?

Moreover this Donald was twenty-five,

A glory of bone and muscle:

Did a fiend dispute the right of way,

Donald would try a tussle.

Lightsomely marched he out of the broad

On to the narrow and narrow;

A step more, rounding the angular rock,

Reached the front straight as an arrow.

He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,

When--whom found he full-facing?

What fellow in courage and wariness too,

Had scouted ignoble pacing,

And left low safety to timid mates,

And made for the dread dear danger,

And gained the height where--who could guess

He would meet with a rival ranger?

'T was a gold-red stag that stood and stared,

Gigantic and magnific,

By the wonder--ay, and the peril--struck

Intelligent and pacific:

For a red deer is no fallow deer

Grown cowardly through park-feeding;

He batters you like a thunderbolt

If you brave his haunts unheeding.

I doubt he could hardly perform _volte-face_

Had valor advised discretion:

You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a rope

No Blondin makes profession.

Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit,

Though pride ill brooks retiring:

Each eyed each--mute man, motionless beast--

Less fearing than admiring.

These are the moments when quite new sense,

To meet some need as novel,

Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource:

--"Nor advance nor retreat but--grovel!"

And slowly, surely, never a whit

Relaxing the steady tension

Of eye-stare which binds man to beast,--

By an inch and inch declension,

Sank Donald sidewise down and down:

Till flat, breast upwards, lying

At his six-foot length, no corpse more still,

--"If he cross me! The trick 's worth trying."

Minutes were an eternity;

But a new sense was created

In the stag's brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure,

With eye-stare unabated,

Feelingly he extends a foot

Which tastes the way ere it touches

Earth's solid and just escapes man's soft,

Nor hold of the same unclutches

Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk,

Lands itself no less finely:

So a mother removes a fly from the face

Of her babe asleep supinely.

And now 't is the haunch and hind-foot's turn

--That 's hard: can the beast quite raise it?

Yes, traversing half the prostrate length,

His hoof-tip does not graze it.

Just one more lift! But Donald, you see,

Was sportsman first, man after:

A fancy lightened his caution through,

--He wellnigh broke into laughter:

"It were nothing short of a miracle!

Unrivalled, unexampled--

All sporting feats with this feat matched

Were down and dead and trampled!"

The last of the legs as tenderly

Follows the rest: or never

Or now is the time! His knife in reach,

And his right-hand loose--how clever!

For this can stab up the stomach's soft,

While the left-hand grasps the pastern.

A rise on the elbow, and--now 's the time

Or never: this turn 's the last turn!

I shall dare to place myself by God

Who scanned--for he does--each feature

Of the face thrown up in appeal to him

By the agonizing creature.

Nay, I hear plain words: "Thy gift brings this!"

Up he sprang, back he staggered,

Over he fell, and with him our friend

--At following game no laggard.

Yet he was not dead when they picked next day

From the gully's depth the wreck of him;

His fall had been stayed by the stag beneath

Who cushioned and saved the neck of him.

But the rest of his body--why, doctors said,

Whatever could break was broken;

Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toast

In a tumbler of port-wine soaken.

"That your life is left you, thank the stag!"

Said they when--the slow cure ended--

They opened the hospital-door, and thence

--Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended,

And minor damage left wisely alone,--

Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled,

Out--what went in a Goliath wellnigh,--

Some half of a David hobbled.

"You must ask an alms from house to house:

Sell the stag's head for a bracket,

With its grand twelve tines--I 'd buy it myself--

And use the skin for a jacket!"

He was wiser, made both head and hide

His win-penny: hands and knees on,

Would manage to crawl--poor crab--by the roads

In the misty stalking-season.

And if he discovered a bothy like this,

Why, harvest was sure: folk listened.

He told his tale to the lovers of Sport:

Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened.

And when he had come to the close, and spread

His spoils for the gazers' wonder,

With "Gentlemen, here 's the skull of the stag

I was over, thank God, not under!"--

The company broke out in applause;

"By Jingo, a lucky cripple!

Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread,

And a tug, besides, at our tipple!"

And "There 's my pay for your pluck!" cried This,

"And mine for your jolly story!"

Cried That, while T' other--but he was drunk--

Hiccupped "A trump, a Tory!"

I hope I gave twice as much as the rest;

For, as Homer would say, "within grate

Though teeth kept tongue," my whole soul growled,

"Rightly rewarded,--Ingrate!"

SOLOMON AND BALKIS

Solomon King of the Jews and the Queen of Sheba, Balkis,

Talk on the ivory throne, and we well may conjecture their talk is

Solely of things sublime: why else has she sought Mount Zion,

Climbed the six golden steps, and sat betwixt lion and lion?

She proves him with hard questions: before she has reached the

middle

He smiling supplies the end, straight solves them riddle by riddle;

Until, dead-beaten at last, there is left no spirit in her,

And thus would she close the game whereof she was first beginner:

"O wisest thou of the wise, world's marvel and wellnigh monster,

One crabbed question more to construe or _vulgo_ conster!

Who are those, of all mankind, a monarch of perfect wisdom

Should open to, when they knock at _spheteron do_--that 's, his

dome?"

The King makes tart reply: "Whom else but the wise his equals

Should he welcome with heart and voice?--since, king though he be,

such weak walls

Of circumstance--power and pomp--divide souls each from other

That whoso proves kingly in craft I needs must acknowledge my

brother.

"Come poet, come painter, come sculptor, come builder--whate'er his

condition,

Is he prime in his art? We are peers! My insight has pierced the

partition

And hails--for the poem, the picture, the statue, the building--my

fellow!

Gold 's gold though dim in the dust: court-polish soon turns it

yellow.

"But tell me in turn, O thou to thy weakling sex superior,

That for knowledge hast travelled so far yet seemest nowhit the

wearier,--

Who are those, of all mankind, a queen like thyself, consummate

In wisdom, should call to her side with an affable 'Up hither, come,

mate'?"

"The Good are my mates--how else? Why doubt it?" the Queen

upbridled:

"Sure even above the Wise,--or in travel my eyes have idled,--

I see the Good stand plain: be they rich, poor, shrewd, or simple,

If Good they only are.... Permit me to drop my wimple!"

And, in that bashful jerk of her body, she--peace, thou scoffer!--

Jostled the King's right-hand stretched courtously help to proffer,

And so disclosed a portent: all unaware the Prince eyed

The Ring which bore the Name--turned outside now from inside!

The truth-compelling Name!--and at once, "I greet the Wise--oh,

Certainly welcome such to my court--with this proviso:

The building must be my temple, my person stand forth the statue,

The picture my portrait prove, and the poem my praise--you cat,

you!"

But Solomon nonplussed? Nay! "Be truthful in turn!" so bade he:

"See the Name, obey its hest!" And at once subjoins the lady,

--"Provided the Good are the young, men strong and tall and proper,

Such servants I straightway enlist,--which means" ... But the

blushes stop her.

"Ah, Soul," the Monarch sighed, "that wouldst soar yet ever

crawlest,

How comes it thou canst discern the greatest yet choose the

smallest,

Unless because heaven is far, where wings find fit expansion,

While creeping on all-fours suits, suffices the earthly mansion?

"Aspire to the Best! But which? There are Bests and Bests so many,

With a _habitat_ each for each, earth's Best as much Best as any!

On Lebanon roots the cedar--soil lofty, yet stony and sandy--

While hyssop, of worth in its way, on the wall grows low but handy.

"Above may the Soul spread wing, spurn body and sense beneath her;

Below she must condescend, to plodding unbuoyed by ether.

In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity;

On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools--that 's Vanity.

"It is naught, it will go, it can never presume above to trouble me;

But here,--why, it toys and tickles and teases, howe'er I redouble

me

In a doggedest of endeavors to play the indifferent. Therefore,

Suppose we resume discourse? Thou hast travelled thus far: but

wherefore?

"Solely for Solomon's sake, to see whom earth styles Sagest?"

Through her blushes laughed the Queen. "For the sake of a Sage? The

gay jest!

On high, be communion with Mind--there, Body concerns not Balkis:

Down here,--do I make too bold? Sage Solomon,--one fool's small

kiss!"

CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHI

Ah, but how each loved each, Marquis!

Here 's the gallery they trod

Both together, he her god,

She his idol,--lend your rod,

Chamberlain!--ay, there they are--"_Quis_

_Separabit?_"--plain those two

Touching words come into view,

Apposite for me and you:

Since they witness to incessant

Love like ours: King Francis, he--

Diane the adored one, she--

Prototypes of you and me.

Everywhere is carved her Crescent

With his Salamander-sign--

Flame-fed creature: flame benign

To itself or, if malign,

Only to the meddling curious,

--So, be warned, Sir! Where 's my head?

How it wanders! What I said

Merely meant--the creature, fed

Thus on flame, was scarce injurious

Save to fools who woke its ire,

Thinking fit to play with fire.

'T is the Crescent you admire?

Then, be Diane! I 'll be Francis.

Crescents change,--true!--wax and wane,

Woman-like: male hearts retain

Heat nor, once warm, cool again.

So, we figure--such our chance is--

I as man and you as ... What?

Take offence? My Love forgot

He plays woman, I do not?

I--the woman? See my habit,

Ask my people! Anyhow,

Be we what we may, one vow

Binds us, male or female. Now,--

Stand, Sir! Read! "_Quis separabit?_"

Half a mile of pictured way

Past these palace-walls to-day

Traversed, this I came to say.

You must needs begin to love me;

First I hated, then, at best,

--Have it so!--I acquiesced;

Pure compassion did the rest.

From below thus raised above me,

Would you, step by step, descend,

Pity me, become my friend,

Like me, like less, loathe at end?

That 's the ladder's round you rose by!

That--my own foot kicked away,

Having raised you: let it stay,

Serve you for retreating? Nay.

Close to me you climbed: as close by,

Keep your station, though the peak

Reached proves somewhat bare and bleak!

Woman 's strong if man is weak.

Keep here, loving me forever!

Love's look, gesture, speech, I claim:

Act love, lie love, all the same--

Play as earnest were our game!

Lonely I stood long: 't was clever

When you climbed, before men's eyes,

Spurned the earth and scaled the skies,

Gained my peak and grasped your prize.

Here you stood, then, to men's wonder;

Here you tire of standing? Kneel!

Cure what giddiness you feel,

This way! Do your senses reel?

Not unlikely! What rolls under?

Yawning death in yon abyss

Where the waters whirl and hiss

Round more frightful peaks than this.

Should my buffet dash you thither ...

But be sage! No watery grave

Needs await you: seeming brave

Kneel on safe, dear timid slave!

You surmised, when you climbed hither,

Just as easy were retreat

Should you tire, conceive unmeet

Longer patience at my feet?

Me as standing, you as stooping,--

Who arranged for each the pose?

Lest men think us friends turned foes,

Keep the attitude you chose!

Men are used to this same grouping--

I and you like statues seen.

You and I, no third between,

Kneel and stand! That makes the scene.

Mar it--and one buffet ... Pardon!

Needless warmth--wise words in waste!

'T was prostration that replaced

Kneeling, then? A proof of taste.

Crouch, not kneel, while I mount guard on

Prostrate love--become no waif,

No estray to waves that chafe

Disappointed--love 's so safe!

Waves that chafe? The idlest fancy!

Peaks that scare? I think we know

Walls enclose our sculpture: so

Grouped, we pose in Fontainebleau.

Up now! Wherefore hesitancy?

Arm in arm and cheek by cheek,

Laugh with me at waves and peak!

Silent still? Why, pictures speak.

See, where Juno strikes Ixion,

Primatice speaks plainly! Pooh--

Rather, Florentine Le Roux!

I 've lost head for who is who--

So it swims and wanders! Fie on

What still proves me female! Here,

By the staircase!--for we near

That dark "Gallery of the Deer."

Look me in the eyes once! Steady!

Are you faithful now as erst

On that eve when we two first

Vowed at Avon, blessed and cursed

Faith and falsehood? Pale already?

Forward! Must my hand compel

Entrance--this way? Exit--well,

Somehow, somewhere. Who can tell?

What if to the selfsame place in

Rustic Avon, at the door

Of the village church once more,

Where a tombstone paves the floor

By that holy-water basin

You appealed to--"As, below.

This stone hides its corpse, e'en so

I your secrets hide"? What ho!

Friends, my four! You, Priest, confess him!

I have judged the culprit there:

Execute my sentence! Care

For no mail such cowards wear!

Done, Priest? Then, absolve and bless him!

Now--you three, stab thick and fast,

Deep and deeper! Dead at last?

Thanks, friends--Father, thanks! Aghast?

What one word of his confession

Would you tell me, though I lured

With that royal crown abjured

Just because its bars immured

Love too much? Love burst compression,

Fled free, finally confessed

All its secrets to that breast

Whence ... let Avon tell the rest!

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELI

Oh, but is it not hard, Dear?

Mine are the nerves to quake at a mouse:

If a spider drops I shrink with fear:

I should die outright in a haunted house;

While for you--did the danger dared bring help--

From a lion's den I could steal his whelp,

With a serpent round me, stand stock-still,

Go sleep in a churchyard,--so would will

Give me the power to dare and do

Valiantly--just for you!

Much amiss in the head, Dear,

I toil at a language, tax my brain

Attempting to draw--the scratches here!

I play, play, practise, and all in vain:

But for you--if my triumph brought you pride,

I would grapple with Greek Plays till I died,

Paint a portrait of you--who can tell?

Work my fingers off for your "Pretty well:"

Language and painting and music too,

Easily done--for you!

Strong and fierce in the heart, Dear,

With--more than a will--what seems a power

To pounce on my prey, love outbroke here

In flame devouring and to devour.

Such love has labored its best and worst

To win me a lover; yet, last as first,

I have not quickened his pulse one beat,

Fixed a moment's fancy, bitter or sweet:

Yet the strong fierce heart's love's labor's due,

Utterly lost, was--you!

ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE

One day, it thundered and lightened.

Two women, fairly frightened,

Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed,

At the feet of the man who sat betwixt;

And "Mercy!" cried each--"if I tell the truth

Of a passage in my youth!"

Said This: "Do you mind the morning

I met your love with scorning?

As the worst of the venom left my lips,

I thought, 'If, despite this lie, he strips

The mask from my soul with a kiss--I crawl

His slave,--soul, body, and all!'"

Said That: "We stood to be married;

The priest, or some one, tarried;

'If Paradise-door prove locked?' smiled you.

I thought, as I nodded, smiling too,

'Did one, that 's away, arrive--nor late

Nor soon should unlock Hell's gate!'"

It ceased to lighten and thunder.

Up started both in wonder,

Looked round and saw that the sky was clear,

Then laughed "Confess you believed us, Dear!"

"I saw through the joke!" the man replied

They re-seated themselves beside.

IXION

High in the dome, suspended, of Hell, sad triumph, behold us!

Here the revenge of a God, there the amends of a Man.

Whirling forever in torment, flesh once mortal, immortal

Made--for a purpose of hate--able to die and revive,

Pays to the uttermost pang, then, newly for payment replenished,

Doles out--old yet young--agonies ever afresh;

Whence the result above me: torment is bridged by a rainbow,--

Tears, sweat, blood,--each spasm, ghastly once, glorified now.

Wrung, by the rush of the wheel ordained my place of reposing,

Off in a sparklike spray,--flesh become vapor through pain,--

Flies the bestowment of Zeus, soul's vaunted bodily vesture,

Made that his feats observed gain the approval of Man,--

Flesh that he fashioned with sense of the earth and the sky and the

ocean,

Framed should pierce to the star, fitted to pore on the plant,--

All, for a purpose of hate, re-framed, re-fashioned, re-fitted,

Till, consummate at length,--lo, the employment of sense!

Pain's mere minister now to the soul, once pledged to her pleasure--

Soul, if untrammelled by flesh, unapprehensive of pain!

Body, professed soul's slave, which serving beguiled and betrayed

her,

Made things false seem true, cheated through eye and through ear,

Lured thus heart and brain to believe in the lying reported,--

Spurn but the trait'rous slave, uttermost atom, away,

What should obstruct soul's rush on the real, the only apparent?

Say I have erred,--how else? Was I Ixion or Zeus?

Foiled by my senses I dreamed; I doubtless awaken in wonder:

This proves shine, that--shade? Good was the evil that seemed?

Shall I, with sight thus gained, by torture be taught I was blind

once?

Sisuphos, teaches thy stone--Tantalos, teaches thy thirst

Aught which unaided sense, purged pure, less plainly demonstrates?

No, for the past was dream: now that the dreamers awake,

Sisuphos scouts low fraud, and to Tantalos treason is folly.

Ask of myself, whose form melts on the murderous wheel,

What is the sin which throe and throe prove sin to the sinner!

Say the false charge was true,--thus do I expiate, say,

Arrogant thought, word, deed,--mere man who conceited me godlike,

Sat beside Zeus, my friend--knelt before Heré, my love!

What were the need but of pitying power to touch and disperse it,

Film-work--eye's and ear's--all the distraction of sense?

How should the soul not see, not hear,--perceive and as plainly

Render, in thought, word, deed, back again truth--not a lie?

"Ay, but the pain is to punish thee!" Zeus, once more for a pastime,

Play the familiar, the frank! Speak and have speech in return!

I was of Thessaly king, there ruled and a people obeyed me:

Mine to establish the law, theirs to obey it or die:

Wherefore? Because of the good to the people, because of the honor

Thence accruing to me, king, the king's law was supreme.

What of the weakling, the ignorant criminal? Not who, excuseless,

Breaking my law braved death, knowing his deed and its due--

Nay, but the feeble and foolish, the poor transgressor, of purpose

No whit more than a tree, born to erectness of bole,

Palm or plane or pine, we laud if lofty, columnar--

Loathe if athwart, askew,--leave to the axe and the flame!

Where is the vision may penetrate earth and beholding acknowledge

Just one pebble at root ruined the straightness of stem?

Whose fine vigilance follows the sapling, accounts for the failure,

--Here blew wind, so it bent: there the snow lodged, so it broke?

Also the tooth of the beast, bird's bill, mere bite of the insect

Gnawed, gnarled, warped their worst: passive it lay to offence.

King--I was man, no more: what I recognized faulty I punished,

Laying it prone: be sure, more than a man had I proved,

Watch and ward o'er the sapling at birthtime had saved it, nor

simply

Owned the distortion's excuse,--hindered it wholly: nay, more--

Even a man, as I sat in my place to do judgment, and pallid

Criminals passing to doom shuddered away at my foot,

Could I have probed through the face to the heart, read plain a

repentance,

Crime confessed fools' play, virtue ascribed to the wise,

Had I not stayed the consignment to doom, not dealt the renewed ones

Life to retraverse the past, light to retrieve the misdeed?

Thus had I done, and thus to have done much more it behooves thee,

Zeus who madest man--flawless or faulty, thy work!

What if the charge were true, as thou mouthest,--Ixion the cherished

Minion of Zeus grew vain, vied with the godships and fell,

Forfeit through arrogance? Stranger! I clothed, with the grace of

our human,

Inhumanity--gods, natures I likened to ours.

Man among men I had borne me till gods forsooth must regard me

--Nay, must approve, applaud, claim as a comrade at last.

Summoned to enter their circle, I sat--their equal, how other?

Love should be absolute love, faith is in fulness or naught.

"I am thy friend, be mine!" smiled Zeus: "If Heré attract thee,"

Blushed the imperial cheek, "then--as thy heart may suggest!"

Faith in me sprang to the faith, my love hailed love as its fellow,

"Zeus, we are friends--how fast! Heré, my heart for thy heart!"

Then broke smile into fury of frown, and the thunder of "Hence,

fool!"

Then through the kiss laughed scorn "Limbs or a cloud was to

clasp?"

Then from Olumpos to Erebos, then from the rapture to torment,

Then from the fellow of gods--misery's mate, to the man!

--Man henceforth and forever, who lent from the glow of his nature

Warmth to the cold, with light colored the black and the blank.

So did a man conceive of your passion, you passion-protesters!

So did he trust, so love--being the truth of your lie!

You to aspire to be Man! Man made you who vainly would ape him:

You are the hollowness, he--filling you, falsifies void.

Even as--witness the emblem, Hell's sad triumph suspended,

Born of my tears, sweat, blood--bursting to vapor above--

Arching my torment, an iris ghostlike startles the darkness,

Cold white--jewelry quenched--justifies, glorifies pain.

Strive, mankind, though strife endure through endless obstruction,

Stage after stage, each rise marred by as certain a fall!

Baffled forever--yet never so baffled but, e'en in the baffling,

When Man's strength proves weak, checked in the body or soul,

Whatsoever the medium, flesh or essence,--Ixion's

Made for a purpose of hate,--clothing the entity Thou,

--Medium whence that entity strives for the Not-Thou beyond it,

Fire elemental, free, frame unencumbered, the All,--

Never so baffled but--when, on the verge of an alien existence,

Heartened to press, by pangs burst to the infinite Pure,

Nothing is reached but the ancient weakness still that arrests

strength,

Circumambient still, still the poor human array,

Pride and revenge and hate and cruelty--all it has burst through,

Thought to escape,--fresh formed, found in the fashion it fled,

Never so baffled but--when Man pays the price of endeavor,

Thunderstruck, downthrust, Tartaros-doomed to the wheel,--

Then, ay, then, from the tears and sweat and blood of his torment,

E'en from the triumph of Hell, up let him look and rejoice!

What is the influence, high o'er Hell, that turns to a rapture

Pain--and despair's murk mist blends in a rainbow of hope?

What is beyond the obstruction, stage by stage though it baffle?

Back must I fall, confess "Ever the weakness I fled"?

No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-unobstructed!

Zeus was Zeus--not Man: wrecked by his weakness, I whirl.

Out of the wreck I rise--past Zeus to the Potency o'er him!

I--to have hailed him my friend! I--to have clasped her--my love!

Pallid birth of my pain,--where light, where light is, aspiring

Thither I rise, whilst thou--Zeus, keep the godship and sink!

JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH

"This now, this other story makes amends

And justifies our Mishna," quoth the Jew

Aforesaid. "Tell it, learnedest of friends!"

* * * * *

A certain morn broke beautiful and blue

O'er Schiphaz city, bringing joy and mirth,

--So had ye deemed; while the reverse was true,

Since one small house there gave a sorrow birth

In such black sort that, to each faithful eye,

Midnight, not morning settled on the earth.

How else, when it grew certain thou wouldst die,

Our much-enlightened master, Israel's prop,

Eximious Jochanan Ben Sabbathai?

Old, yea, but, undiminished of a drop,

The vital essence pulsed through heart and brain;

Time left unsickled yet the plenteous crop

On poll and chin and cheek, whereof a skein

Handmaids might weave--hairs silk-soft, silver-white,

Such as the wool-plant's; none the less in vain

Had Physic striven her best against the spite

Of fell disease: the Rabbi must succumb;

And, round the couch whereon in piteous plight

He lay a-dying, scholars,--awe-struck, dumb

Throughout the night-watch,--roused themselves and spoke

One to the other: "Ere death's touch benumb

"His active sense,--while yet 'neath Reason's yoke

Obedient toils his tongue,--befits we claim

The fruit of long experience, bid this oak

"Shed us an acorn which may, all the same,

Grow to a temple-pillar,--dear that day!--

When Israel's scattered seed finds place and name

"Among the envious nations. Lamp us, pray,

Thou the Enlightener! Partest hence in peace?

Hailest without regret--much less, dismay--

"The hour of thine approximate release

From fleshly bondage soul hath found obstruct?

Calmly envisagest the sure increase

"Of knowledge? Eden's tree must hold unplucked

Some apple, sure, has never tried thy tooth,

Juicy with sapience thou hast sought, not sucked?

"Say, does age acquiesce in vanished youth?

Still towers thy purity above--as erst--

Our pleasant follies? Be thy last word--truth!"

The Rabbi groaned; then, grimly, "Last as first

The truth speak I--in boyhood who began

Striving to live an angel, and, amerced

"For such presumption, die now hardly man.

What have I proved of life? To live, indeed,

That much I learned: but here lies Jochanan

"More luckless than stood David when, to speed

His fighting with the Philistine, they brought

Saul's harness forth: whereat, 'Alack, I need

"Armor to arm me, but have never fought

With sword and spear, nor tried to manage shield,

Proving arms' use, as well-trained warrior ought,

"'Only a sling and pebbles can I wield!'

So he: while I, contrariwise, 'No trick

Of weapon helpful on the battlefield

"'Comes unfamiliar to my theoric:

But, bid me put in practice what I know,

Give me a sword--it stings like Moses' stick,

"'A serpent I let drop apace.' E'en so,

I,--able to comport me at each stage

Of human life as never here below

"Man played his part,--since mine the heritage

Of wisdom carried to that perfect pitch,

Ye rightly praise,--I, therefore, who, thus sage,

"Could sure act man triumphantly, enrich

Life's annals, with example how I played

Lover, Bard, Soldier, Statist,--(all of which

"Parts in presentment failing, cries invade

The world's ear--'Ah, the Past, the pearl-gift thrown

To hogs, time's opportunity we made

"'So light of, only recognized when flown!

Had we been wise!')---in fine, I--wise enough,--

What profit brings me wisdom never shown

"Just when its showing would from each rebuff

Shelter weak virtue, threaten back to bounds

Encroaching vice, tread smooth each track too rough

"For youth's unsteady footstep, climb the rounds

Of life's long ladder, one by slippery one,

Yet make no stumble? Me hard fate confounds

"With that same crowd of wailers I outrun

By promising to teach another cry

Of more hilarious mood than theirs, the sun

"I look my last at is insulted by.

What cry,--ye ask? Give ear on every side!

Witness yon Lover! 'How entrapped am I!

"'Methought, because a virgin's rose-lip vied

With ripe Khubbezleh's, needs must beauty mate

With meekness and discretion in a bride:

"'Bride she became to me who wail--too late--

_Unwise I loved!_' That 's one cry. 'Mind 's my gift:

I might have loaded me with lore, full weight

"'Pressed down and running over at each rift

O' the brain-bag where the famished clung and fed.

I filled it with what rubbish!--would not sift

"'The wheat from chaff, sound grain from musty--shed

Poison abroad as oft as nutriment--

And sighing say but as my fellows said,

"'_Unwise I learned!_' That 's two. 'In dwarfs-play spent

Was giant's prowess: warrior all unversed

In war's right waging, I struck brand, was lent

"'For steel's fit service, on mere stone--and cursed

Alike the shocked limb and the shivered steel,

Seeing too late the blade's true use which erst

"How was I blind to! My cry swells the peal--

_Unwise I fought!_' That 's three. But wherefore waste

Breath on the wailings longer? Why reveal

"A root of bitterness whereof the taste

Is noisome to Humanity at large?

First we get Power, but Power absurdly placed

"In Folly's keeping, who resigns her charge

To Wisdom when all Power grows nothing worth:

Bones marrowless are mocked with helm and targe

"When, like your Master's, soon below the earth

With worms shall warfare only be. Farewell,

Children! I die a failure since my birth!"

"Not so!" arose a protest, as, pell-mell,

They pattered from his chamber to the street,

Bent on a last resource. Our Targums tell

That such resource there is. Put case, there meet

The Nine Points of Perfection--rarest chance--

Within some saintly teacher whom the fleet

Years, in their blind implacable advance,

O'ertake before fit teaching born of these

Have magnified his scholars' countenance,--

If haply folk compassionating please

To render up--according to his store,

Each one--a portion of the life he sees

Hardly worth saving when 't is set before

Earth's benefit should the Saint, Hakkadosh,

Favored thereby, attain to full fourscore--

If such contribute (Scoffer, spare thy "Bosh!")

A year, a month, a day, an hour--to eke

Life out,--in him away the gift shall wash

That much of ill-spent time recorded, streak

The twilight of the so-assisted sage

With a new sunrise: truth, though strange to speak!

Quick to the doorway, then, where youth and age,

All Israel, thronging, waited for the last

News of the loved one. "'T is the final stage:

"Art's utmost done, the Rabbi's feet tread fast

The way of all flesh!" So announced that apt

Olive-branch Tsaddik: "Yet, O Brethren, east

"No eye to earthward! Look where heaven has clapped

Morning's extinguisher--yon ray-shot robe

Of sun-threads--on the constellation mapped

"And mentioned by our Elders,--yea, from Job

Down to Satam,--as figuring forth--what?

Perpend a mystery! Ye call it _Dob_,

"'The Bear': I trow, a wiser name than that

Were _Aish_--'The Bier': a corpse those four stars hold,

Which--are not those Three Daughters weeping at

"_Banoth?_ I judge so: list while I unfold

The reason. As in twice twelve hours this Bier

Goes and returns, about the east-cone rolled,

"So may a setting luminary here

Be rescued from extinction, rolled anew

Upon its track of labor, strong and clear,

"About the Pole--that Salem, every Jew

Helps to build up when thus he saves some Saint

Ordained its architect. Ye grasp the clue

"To all ye seek? The Rabbi's lamp-flame faint

Sinks: would ye raise it? Lend then life from yours,

Spare each his oil-drop! Do I need acquaint

"The Chosen how self-sacrifice ensures

Tenfold requital?--urge ye emulate

The fame of those Old Just Ones death procures

"Such praise for, that 't is now men's sole debate

Which of the Ten, who volunteered at Rome

To die for glory to our Race, was great

"Beyond his fellows? Was it thou--the comb

Of iron carded, flesh from bone, away,

While thy lips sputtered through their bloody foam

"Without a stoppage (O brave Akiba!)

'Hear, Israel, our Lord God is One'? Or thou,

Jischab?--who smiledst, burning, since there lay,

"Burning along with thee, our Law! I trow,

Such martyrdom might tax flesh to afford:

While that for which I make petition now,

"To what amounts it? Youngster, wilt thou hoard

Each minute of long years thou look'st to spend

In dalliance with thy spouse? Hast thou so soared,

"Singer of songs, all out of sight of friend

And teacher, warbling like a woodland bird,

There 's left no Selah, 'twixt two psalms, to lend

"Our late-so-tuneful quirist? Thou, averred

The fighter born to plant our lion-flag

Once more on Zion's mount,--doth all-unheard,

"My pleading fail to move thee? Toss some rag

Shall stanch our wound, some minute never missed

From swordsman's lustihood like thine! Wilt lag

"In liberal bestowment, show close fist

When open palm we look for,--thou, wide-known

For statecraft? whom, 't is said, and if thou list,

"The Shah himself would seat beside his throne,

So valued were advice from thee" ... But here

He stopped short: such a hubbub! Not alone

From those addressed, but far as well as near

The crowd brought into clamor: "Mine, mine, mine--

Lop from my life the excrescence, never fear!

"At me thou lookedst, markedst me! Assign

To me that privilege of granting life--

Mine, mine!" Then he: "Be patient! I combine

"The needful portions only, wage no strife

With Nature's law nor seek to lengthen out

The Rabbi's day unduly. 'T is the knife

"I stop,--would eat its thread too short. About

As much as helps life last the proper term,

The appointed Fourscore,--that I crave, and scout

"A too-prolonged existence. Let the worm

Change at fit season to the butterfly!

And here a story strikes me, to confirm

"This judgment. Of our worthies, none ranks high

As Perida who kept the famous school:

None rivalled him in patience: none! For why?

"In lecturing it was his constant rule,

Whatever he expounded, to repeat

--Ay, and keep on repeating, lest some fool

"Should fail to understand him fully--(feat

Unparalleled, Uzzean!)--do ye mark?--

Five hundred times! So might he entrance beat

"For knowledge into howsoever dark

And dense the brain-pan. Yet it happed, at close

Of one especial lecture, not one spark

"Of light was found to have illumed the rows

Of pupils round their pedagogue. 'What, still

Impenetrable to me? Then--here goes!'

"And for a second time he sets the rill

Of knowledge running, and five hundred times

More re-repeats the matter--and gains _nil_.

"Out broke a voice from heaven: 'Thy patience climbs

Even thus high. Choose! Wilt thou, rather, quick

Ascend to bliss--or, since thy zeal sublimes

"'Such drudgery, will thy back still bear its crick,

Bent o'er thy class,--thy voice drone spite of drouth,--

Five hundred years more at thy desk wilt stick?'

"'To heaven with me!' was in the good man's mouth,

When all his scholars--cruel-kind were they!--

Stopped utterance, from East, West, North and South,

"Rending the welkin with their shout of 'Nay--

No heaven as yet for our instructor! Grant

Five hundred years on earth for Perida!'

"And so long did he keep instructing! Want

Our Master no such misery! I but take

Three months of life marital. Ministrant

"Be thou of so much, Poet! Bold I make,

Swordsman, with thy frank offer!--and conclude,

Statist, with thine! One year,--ye will not shake

"My purpose to accept no more. So rude?

The very boys and girls, forsooth, must press

And proffer their addition? Thanks! The mood

"Is laudable, but I reject, no less,

One month, week, day of life more. Leave my gown,

Ye overbold ones! Your life's gift, you guess,

"Were good as any? Rudesby, get thee down!

Set my feet free, or fear my staff! Farewell,

Seniors and saviors, sharers of renown

"With Jochanan henceforward!" Straightway fell

Sleep on the sufferer; who awoke in health,

Hale everyway, so potent was the spell.

* * * * *

O the rare Spring-time! Who is he by stealth

Approaches Jochanan?--embowered that sits

Under his vine and figtree 'mid the wealth

Of garden-sights and sounds, since intermits

Never the turtle's coo, nor stays nor stints

The rose her smell. In homage that befits

The musing Master, Tsaddik, see, imprints

A kiss on the extended foot, low bends

Forehead to earth, then, all-obsequious, hints

"What if it should be time? A period ends--

That of the Lover's gift--his quarter-year

Of lustihood: 't is just thou make amends,

"Return that loan with usury: so, here

Come I, of thy Disciples delegate,

Claiming our lesson from thee. Make appear

"Thy profit from experience! Plainly state

How men should Love!" Thus he: and to him thus

The Rabbi: "Love, ye call it?--rather, Hate!

"What wouldst thou? Is it needful I discuss

Wherefore new sweet wine, poured in bottlescaked

With old strong wine's deposit, offers us

"Spoilt liquor we recoil from, thirst-unslaked?

Like earth-smoke from a crevice, out there wound--

Languors and yearnings: not a sense but ached

"Weighed on by fancied form and feature, sound

Of silver word and sight of sunny smile:

No beckoning of a flower-branch, no profound

"Purple of noon-oppression, no light wile

O' the West wind, but transformed itself till--brief--

Before me stood the phantasy ye style

"Youth's love, the joy that shall not come to grief,

Born to endure, eternal, unimpaired

By custom the accloyer, time the thief.

"Had Age's hard cold knowledge only spared

That ignorance of Youth! But now the dream,

Fresh as from Paradise, alighting fared

"As fares the pigeon, finding what may seem

Her nest's safe hollow holds a snake inside

Coiled to enclasp her. See, Eve stands supreme

"In youth and beauty! Take her for thy bride!

What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew

Morn set a-sparkle, but which noon quick dried

"While Youth bent gazing at its red and blue

Supposed perennial,--never dreamed the sun

Which kindled the display would quench it too.

"Graces of shape and color--every one

With its appointed period of decay

When ripe to purpose! 'Still, these dead and done,

"'Survives the woman-nature--the soft sway

Of undefinable omnipotence

O'er our strong male-stuff, we of Adam's clay.'

"Ay, if my physics taught not why and whence

The attraction! Am I like the simple steer

Who, from his pasture lured inside the fence,

"Where yoke and goad await him, holds that mere

Kindliness prompts extension of the hand

Hollowed for barley, which drew near and near

"His nose--in proof that, of the hornèd band,

The farmer best affected him? Beside,

Steer, since his calfhood, got to understand

"Farmers a many in the world so wide

Were ready with a handful just as choice

Or choicer--maize and cummin, treats untried.

"Shall I wed wife, and all my days rejoice

I gained the peacock? 'Las me, round I look,

And lo--'With me thou wouldst have blamed no voice

"'Like hers that daily deafens like a rook:

I am the phœnix!'--'I, the lark, the dove,

--The owl,' for aught knows he who blindly took

"Peacock for partner, while the vale, the grove,

The plain held bird-mates in abundance. There!

Youth, try fresh capture! Age has found out Love

"Long ago. War seems better worth man's care.

But leave me! Disappointment finds a balm

Haply in slumber." "This first step o' the stair

"To knowledge fails me, but the victor's palm

Lies on the next to tempt him overleap

A stumbling-block. Experienced, gather calm,

"Thou excellence of Judah, cured by sleep

Which ushers in the Warrior, to replace

The Lover! At due season I shall reap

"Fruit of my planting!" So, with lengthened face,

Departed Tsaddik: and three moons more waxed

And waned, and not until the summer-space

Waned likewise, any second visit taxed

The Rabbi's patience. But at three months' end

Behold, supine beneath a rock, relaxed

The sage lay musing till the noon should spend

Its ardor. Up comes Tsaddik, who but he,

With "Master, may I warn thee, nor offend,

"That time comes round again? We look to see

Sprout from the old branch--not the youngling twig--

But fruit of sycamine: deliver me,

"To share among my fellows, some plump fig

Juicy as seedy! That same man of war,

Who, with a scantling of his store, made big

"Thy starveling nature, caused thee, safe from scar,

To share his gains by long acquaintanceship

With bump and bruise and all the knocks that are

"Of battle dowry,--he bids loose thy lip,

Explain the good of battle! Since thou know'st,

Let us know likewise! Fast the moments slip,

"More need that we improve them!"--"Ay, we boast,

We warriors in our youth, that with the sword

Man goes the swiftliest to the uttermost--

"Takes the straight way through lands yet unexplored

To absolute Right and Good,--may so obtain

God's glory and man's weal too long ignored,

"Too late attained by preachments all in vain--

The passive process. Knots get tangled worse

By toying with: does cut cord close again?

"Moreover there is blessing in the curse

Peace-praisers call war. What so sure evolves

All the capacities of soul, proves nurse

"Of that self-sacrifice in men which solves

The riddle--_Wherein differs Man from beast?_

Foxes boast cleverness and courage wolves:

"Nowhere but in mankind is found the least

Touch of an impulse 'To our fellows--good

I' the highest!--not diminished but increased

"'By the condition plainly understood

--Such good shall be attained at price of hurt

I' the highest to ourselves!' Fine sparks that brood

"Confusedly in Man, 't is war bids spurt

Forth into flame: as fares the meteor-mass,

Whereof no particle but holds inert

"Some seed of light and heat, however crass

The enclosure, yet avails not to discharge

Its radiant birth before there come to pass

"Some push external,--strong to set at large

Those dormant fire-seeds; whirl them in a trice

Through heaven, and light up earth from marge to marge:

"Since force by motion makes--what erst was ice--

Crash into fervency and so expire,

Because some Djinn has hit on a device

"For proving the full prettiness of fire!

Ay, thus we prattle--young: but old--why, first,

Where 's that same Right and Good--(the wise inquire)--

"So absolute, it warrants the outburst

Of blood, tears, all war's woeful consequence,

That comes of the fine flaring? Which plague cursed

"The more your benefited Man--offence,

Or what suppressed the offender? Say it did--

Show us the evil cured by violence,

"Submission cures not also! Lift the lid

From the maturing crucible, we find

Its slow sure coaxing-out of virtue, hid

"In that same meteor-mass, hath uncombined

Those particles and, yielding for result

Gold, not mere flame, by so much leaves behind

"The heroic product. E'en the simple cult

Of Edom's children wisely bids them turn

Cheek to the smiter with '_Sic Jesus vult._'

"Say there 's a tyrant by whose death we earn

Freedom, and justify a war to wage:

Good!--were we only able to discern

"Exactly how to reach and catch and cage

Him only and no innocent beside!

Whereas the folk whereon war wreaks its rage

"--How shared they his ill-doing? Far and wide

The victims of our warfare strew the plain,

Ten thousand dead, whereof not one but died

"In faith that vassals owed their suzerain

Life: therefore each paid tribute--honest soul--

To that same Right and Good ourselves are fain

"To call exclusively our end. From bole

(Since ye accept in me a sycamine)

Pluck, eat, digest a fable--yea, the sole

"Fig I afford you! 'Dost thou dwarf my vine?'

(So did a certain husbandman address

The tree which faced his field.) 'Receive condign

"'Punishment, prompt removal by the stress

Of axe I forthwith lay unto thy root!'

Long did he hack and hew, the root no less

"As long defied him, for its tough strings shoot

As deep down as the boughs above aspire:

All that he did was--shake to the tree's foot

"Leafage and fruitage, things we most require

For shadow and refreshment: which good deed

Thoroughly done, behold the axe-haft tires

"His hand, and he desisting leaves unfreed

The vine he hacked and hewed for. Comes a frost,

One natural night's work, and there 's little need

"Of hacking, hewing: lo, the tree 's a ghost!

Perished it starves, black death from topmost bough

To farthest-reaching fibre! Shall I boast

"My rough work--warfare--helped more? Loving, now--

That, by comparison, seems wiser, since

The loving fool was able to avow

"He could effect his purpose, just evince

Love's willingness,--once 'ware of what she lacked,

His loved one,--to go work for that, nor wince

"At self-expenditure: he neither hacked

Nor hewed, but when the lady of his field

Required defence because the sun attacked,

"He, failing to obtain a fitter shield,

Would interpose his body, and so blaze,

Blest in the burning. Ah, were mine to wield

"The intellectual weapon--poet-lays,--

How preferably had I sung one song

Which ... but my sadness sinks me: go your ways!

"I sleep out disappointment." "Come along,

Never lose heart! There 's still as much again

Of our bestowment left to right the wrong

"Done by its earlier moiety--explain

Wherefore, who may! The Poet's mood comes next.

Was he not wishful the poetic vein

"Should pulse within him? Jochanan, thou reck'st

Little of what a generous flood shall soon

Float thy clogged spirit free and unperplexed

"Above dry dubitation! Song 's the boon

Shall make amends for my untoward mistake

That Joshua-like thou couldst bid sun and moon--

"Fighter and Lover,--which for most men make

All they descry in heaven,--stand both stock-still

And lend assistance. Poet shalt thou wake!"

Autumn brings Tsaddik. "Ay, there speeds the rill

Loaded with leaves: a scowling sky, beside:

The wind makes olive-trees up yonder hill

"Whiten and shudder--symptoms far and wide

Of gleaning-time's approach; and glean good store

May I presume to trust we shall, thou tried

"And ripe experimenter! Three months more

Have ministered to growth of Song: that graft

Into thy sterile stock has found at core

"Moisture, I warrant, hitherto unquaffed

By boughs, however florid, wanting sap

Of prose-experience which provides the draught

"Which song-sprouts, wanting, wither: vain we tap

A youngling stem all green and immature;

Experience must secrete the stuff, our hap

"Will be to quench Man's thirst with, glad and sure

That fancy wells up through corrective fact:

Missing which test of truth, though flowers allure

"The goodman's eye with promise, soon the pact

Is broken, and 'tis flowers--mere words--he finds

When things--that's fruit--he looked for. Well, once cracked

"The nut, how glad my tooth the kernel grinds!

Song may henceforth boast substance! Therefore, hail

Proser and poet, perfect in both kinds!

"Thou from whose eye hath dropped the envious scale

Which hides the truth of things and substitutes

Deceptive show, unaided optics fail

"To transpierce,--hast entrusted to the lute's

Soft but sure guardianship some unrevealed

Secret shall lift mankind above the brutes

"As only knowledge can?" "A fount unsealed"

(Sighed Jochanan) "should seek the heaven in leaps

To die in dew-gems--not find death, congealed

"By contact with the cavern's nether deeps,

Earth's secretest foundation where, enswathed

In dark and fear, primeval mystery sleeps--

"Petrific fount wherein my fancies bathed

And straight turned ice. My dreams of good and fair

In soaring upwards had dissolved, unscathed

"By any influence of the kindly air,

Singing, as each took flight, 'The Future--that's

Our destination, mists turn rainbows there,

"'Which sink to fog, confounded in the flats

O' the Present! Day's the song-time for the lark,

Night for her music boasts but owls and bats.

"'And what's the Past but night--the deep and dark

Ice-spring I speak of, corpse-thicked with its drowned

Dead fancies which no sooner touched the mark

"'They aimed at--fact--than all at once they found

Their film-wings freeze, henceforth unfit to reach

And roll in ether, revel--robed and crowned

"'As truths confirmed by falsehood all and each--

Sovereign and absolute and ultimate!

Up with them, skyward, Youth, ere Age impeach

"'Thy least of promises to reinstate

Adam in Eden!' Sing on, ever sing,

Chirp till thou burst!--the fool cicada's fate,

"Who holds that after Summer next comes Spring,

Than Summer's self sun-warmed, spice-scented more.

Fighting was better! There, no fancy-fling

"Pitches you past the point was reached of yore

By Samsons, Abners, Joabs, Judases,

The mighty men of valor who, before

"Our little day, did wonders none profess

To doubt were fable and not fact, so trust

By fancy-flights to emulate much less.

"Were I a Statesman, now! Why, that were just

To pinnacle my soul, mankind above,

A-top the universe: no vulgar lust

"To gratify--fame, greed, at this remove

Looked down upon so far--or overlooked

So largely, rather--that mine eye should rove

"World-wide and rummage earth, the many-nooked,

Yet find no unit of the human flock

Caught straying but straight comes back hooked and crooked

"By the strong shepherd who, from out his stock

Of aids proceeds to treat each ailing fleece,

Here stimulate to growth, curtail and dock

"There, baldness or excrescence,--that, with grease,

This, with up-grubbing of the bristly patch

Born of the tick-bite. How supreme a peace

"Steals o'er the Statist,--while, in wit, a match

For shrewd Ahithophel, in wisdom ... well,

His name escapes me--somebody, at watch

"And ward, the fellow of Ahithophel

In guidance of the Chosen!"--at which word

Eyes closed and fast asleep the Rabbi fell.

"Cold weather!" shivered Tsaddik. "Yet the hoard

Of the sagacious ant shows garnered grain,

Ever abundant most when fields afford

"Least pasture, and alike disgrace the plain

Tall tree and lowly shrub. 'T is so with us

Mortals: our age stores wealth ye seek in vain

"While busy youth culls just what we discuss

At leisure in the last days: and the last

Truly are these for Jochanan, whom thus

"I make one more appeal to! Thine amassed

Experience, now or never, let escape

Some portion of! For I perceive aghast

"The end approaches, while they jeer and jape,

These sons of Shimei: 'Justify your boast!

What have ye gained from Death by twelve months' rape?'

"Statesman, what cure hast thou for--least and most--

Popular grievances? What nostrum, say,

Will make the Rich and Poor, expertly dosed,

"Forget disparity, bid each go gay,

That, with his bauble,--with his burden, this?

Propose an alkahest shall melt away

"Men's lacquer, show by prompt analysis

Which is the metal, which the make-believe,

So that no longer brass shall find, gold miss

"Coinage and currency? Make haste, retrieve

The precious moments, Master!" Whereunto

There snarls an "Ever laughing in thy sleeve,

"Pert Tsaddik? Youth indeed sees plain a clue

To guide man where life's wood is intricate:

How shall he fail to thrid its thickest through

"When every oak-trunk takes the eye? Elate

He goes from hole to brushwood, plunging finds--

Smothered in briers--that the small's the great!

"All men are men: I would all minds were minds!

Whereas 't is just the many's mindless mass

That most needs helping: laborers and hinds

"We legislate for--not the cultured class

Which law-makes for itself nor needs the whip

And bridle,--proper help for mule and ass,

"Did the brutes know! In vain our statesmanship

Strives at contenting the rough multitude:

Still the ox cries ''T is me thou shouldst equip

"'With equine trappings!' or, in humbler mood,

'Cribful of corn for me! and, as for work--

Adequate rumination o'er my food!'

"Better remain a Poet! Needs it irk

Such an one if light, kindled in his sphere,

Fail to transfuse the Mizraim cold and murk

"Round about Goshen? Though light disappear,

Shut inside,--temporary ignorance

Got outside of, lo, light emerging clear

"Shows each astonished starer the expanse

Of heaven made bright with knowledge! That's the way,

The only way--I see it at a glance--

"To legislate for earth! As poet ... Stay!

What is ... I would that ... were it ... I had been ...

O sudden change, as if my arid clay

"Burst into bloom!" ... "A change indeed, I ween,

And change the last!" sighed Tsaddik as he kissed

The closing eyelids. "Just as those serene

"Princes of Night apprised me! Our acquist

Of life is spent, since corners only four

Hath Aisch, and each in turn was made desist

"In passage round the Pole (O Mishna's lore--

Little it profits here!) by strenuous tug

Of friends who eked out thus to full fourscore

"The Rabbi's years. I see each shoulder shrug!

What have we gained? Away the Bier may roll!

To-morrow, when the Master's grave is dug,

"In with his body I may pitch the scroll

I hoped to glorify with, text and gloss,

My Science of Man's Life: one blank's the whole!

"Love, war, song, statesmanship--no gain, all loss,

The stars' bestowment! We on our return

To-morrow merely find--not gold but dross,

"The body not the soul. Come, friends, we learn

At least thus much by our experiment--

That--that ... well, find what, whom it may concern!"

But next day through the city rumors went

Of a new persecution; so, they fled

All Israel, each man,--this time,--from his tent,

Tsaddik among the foremost. When, the dread

Subsiding, Israel ventured back again

Some three months after, to the cave they sped

Where lay the Sage,--a reverential train!

Tsaddik first enters. "What is this I view?

The Rabbi still alive? No stars remain

"Of Aisch to stop within their courses. True,

I mind me, certain gamesome boys must urge

Their offerings on me: can it be--one threw

"Life at him and it stuck? There needs the scourge

To teach that urchin manners! Prithee, grant

Forgiveness if we pretermit thy dirge

"Just to explain no friend was ministrant,

This time, of life to thee! Some jackanapes,

I gather, has presumed to foist his scant

"Scurvy unripe existence--wilding grapes

Grass-green and sorrel-sour--on that grand wine,

Mighty as mellow, which, so fancy shapes

"May fitly image forth this life of thine

Fed on the last low fattening lees--condensed

Elixir, no milk-mildness of the vine!

"Rightly with Tsaddik wert thou now incensed

Had he been witting of the mischief wrought

When, for elixir, verjuice he dispensed!"

And slowly woke,--like Shushan's flower besought

By over-curious handling to unloose

The curtained secrecy wherein she thought

Her captive bee, 'mid store of sweets to choose,

Would loll, in gold pavilioned lie unteased,

Sucking on, sated never,--whose, O whose

Might seem that countenance, uplift, all eased

Of old distraction and bewilderment,

Absurdly happy? "How ye have appeased

"The strife within me, bred this whole content,

This utter acquiescence in my past,

Present and future life,--by whom was lent

"The power to work this miracle at last,--

Exceeds my guess. Though--_ignorance confirmed_

_By knowledge_ sounds like paradox, I cast

"Vainly about to tell you--fitlier termed--

Of calm struck by encountering opposites,

Each nullifying either! Henceforth wormed

"From out my heart is every snake that bites

The dove that else would brood there: doubt, which kills

With hiss of 'What if sorrows end delights?'

"Fear which stings ease with 'Work the Master wills!'

Experience which coils round and strangles quick

Each hope with 'Ask the Past if hoping skills

"'To work accomplishment, or proves a trick

Wiling thee to endeavor! Strive, fool, stop

Nowise, so live, so die--that's law! why kick

"'Against the pricks?' All out-wormed! Slumber, drop

Thy films once more and veil the bliss within!

Experience strangle hope? Hope waves a-top

"Her wings triumphant! Come what will, I win,

Whoever loses! Every dream's assured

Of soberest fulfilment. Where's a sin

"Except in doubting that the light, which lured

The unwary into darkness, meant no wrong

Had I but marched on bold, nor paused immured

"By mists I should have pressed through, passed along

My way henceforth rejoicing? Not the boy's

Passionate impulse he conceits so strong,

"Which, at first touch, truth, bubble-like, destroys,--

Not the man's slow conviction 'Vanity

Of vanities--alike my griefs and joys!'

"Ice!--thawed (look up) each bird, each insect by--

(Look round) by all the plants that break in bloom,

(Look down) by every dead friend's memory

"That smiles 'Am I the dust within my tomb?'

Not either, but both these--amalgam rare--

Mix in a product, not from Nature's womb,

"But stuff which He the Operant--who shall dare

Describe His operation?--strikes alive

And thaumaturgic. I nor know nor care

"How from this tohu-bohu--hopes which dive,

And fears which soar--faith, ruined through and through

By doubt, and doubt, faith treads to dust?--revive

"In some surprising sort,--as see, they do!--

Not merely foes no longer but fast friends.

What does it mean unless--O strange and new

"Discovery!--this life proves a wine-press--blends

Evil and good, both fruits of Paradise,

Into a novel drink which--who intends

"To quaff, must bear a brain for ecstasies

Attempered, not this all-inadequate

Organ which, quivering within me, dies

"--Nay, lives!--what, how,--too soon, or else too late--

I was--I am" ... ("He babbleth!" Tsaddik mused)

"O Thou Almighty, who canst reinstate

"Truths in their primal clarity, confused

By man's perception, which is man's and made

To suit his service,--how, once disabused

"Of reason which sees light half shine half shade,

Because of flesh, the medium that adjusts

Purity to his visuals, both an aid

"And hindrance,--how to eyes earth's air encrusts,

When purged and perfect to receive truth's beam

Pouring itself on the new sense it trusts

"With all its plenitude of power,--how seem

The intricacies now, of shade and shine,

Oppugnant natures--Right and Wrong, we deem

"Irreconcilable? O eyes of mine,

Freed now of imperfection, ye avail

To see the whole sight, nor may uncombine

"Henceforth what, erst divided, caused you quail--

So huge the chasm between the false and true,

The dream and the reality! All hail,

"Day of my soul's deliverance--day the new,

The never-ending! What though every shape

Whereon I wreaked my yearning to pursue

"Even to success each semblance of escape

From my own bounded self to some all-fair

All-wise external fancy, proved a rape

"Like that old giant's, feigned of fools--on air,

Not solid flesh? How otherwise? To love--

That lesson was to learn not here--but there--

"On earth, not here! 'Tis there we learn,--there prove

Our parts upon the stuff we needs must spoil,

Striving at mastery, there bend above

"The spoiled clay potsherds, many a year of toil

Attests the potter tried his hand upon,

Till sudden he arose, wiped free from soil

"His hand, cried 'So much for attempt--anon

Performance! Taught to mould the living vase,

What matter the cracked pitchers dead and gone?'

"Could I impart and could thy mind embrace

The secret, Tsaddik!" "Secret none to me!"

Quoth Tsaddik, as the glory on the face

Of Jochanan was quenched. "The truth I see

Of what that excellence of Judah wrote,

Doughty Halaphta. This a case must be

"Wherein, though the last breath, have passed the throat,

So that 'The man is dead' we may pronounce,

Yet is the Ruach--(thus do we denote

"The imparted Spirit)--in no haste to bounce

From its entrusted Body,--some three days

Lingers ere it relinquish to the pounce

"Of hawk-clawed Death his victim. Further says

Halaphta, 'Instances have been, and yet

Again may be, when saints, whose earthly ways

"'Tend to perfection, very nearly get

To heaven while still on earth: and, as a fine

Interval shows where waters pure have met

"'Waves brackish, in a mixture, sweet with brine,

That's neither sea nor river but a taste

Of both--so meet the earthly and divine

"'And each is either.' Thus I hold him graced--

Dying on earth, half inside and half out,

Wholly in heaven, who knows? My mind embraced

"Thy secret, Jochanan, how dare I doubt?

Follow thy Ruach, let earth, all it can,

Keep of the leavings!" Thus was brought about

The sepulture of Rabbi Jochanan:

Thou hast him,--sinner-saint, live-dead, boy-man,--

Schiphaz, on Bendimir, in Farzistan!

* * * * *

NOTE.--This story can have no better authority than that of the

treatise, existing dispersedly in fragments, of Rabbinical writing,

משׁך של דבים בדים, from which I might have helped myself

more liberally. Thus, instead of the simple reference to "Moses'

stick,"--but what if I make amends by attempting three illustrations,

when some thirty might be composed on the same subject, equally

justifying that pithy proverb םםשה עד םשה לא קם בםשה.

I

Moses the Meek was thirty cubits high,

The staff he strode with--thirty cubits long;

And when he leapt, so muscular and strong

Was Moses that his leaping neared the sky

By thirty cubits more: we learn thereby

He reached full ninety cubits--am I wrong?--

When, in a fight slurred o'er by sacred song,

With staff outstretched he took a leap to try

The just dimensions of the giant Og.

And yet he barely touched--this marvel lacked

Posterity to crown earth's catalogue

Of marvels--barely touched--to be exact--

The giant's ankle-bone, remained a frog

That fain would match an ox in stature: fact!

II

And this same fact has met with unbelief!

How saith a certain traveller? "Young, I chanced

To come upon an object--if thou canst,

Guess me its name and nature! 'Twas, in brief,

White, hard, round, hollow, of such length, in chief,

--And this is what especially enhanced

My wonder--that it seemed, as I advanced,

Never to end. Bind up within thy sheaf

Of marvels, this--Posterity! I walked

From end to end,--four hours walked I, who go

A goodly pace,--and found--I have not balked

Thine expectation, Stranger? Ay or No?--

'T was but Og's thighbone, all the while, I stalked

Alongside of: respect to Moses, though!

III

Og's thighbone--if ye deem its measure strange,

Myself can witness to much length of shank

Even in birds. Upon a water's bank

Once halting, I was minded to exchange

Noon heat for cool. Quoth I, "On many a grange

I have seen storks perch--legs both long and lank:

Yon stork's must touch the bottom of this tank,

Since on its top doth wet no plume derange

Of the smooth breast. I'll bathe there!" "Do not so!"

Warned me a voice from heaven. "A man let drop

His axe into that shallow rivulet--

As thou accountest--seventy years ago:

It fell and fell and still without a stop

Keeps falling, nor has reached the bottom yet."

NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE