Stand thou forth then, state_The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition

Thy wrong, thou sole aggrieved--disconsolate--

While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gay

And glad acknowledges the bounteous day!

Man speaks now: "What avails Sun's earth-felt thrill

To me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant--

They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skill

He interfuses fly, worm, brute, until

Each favored object pays life's ministrant

By pressing, in obedience to his will,

Up to completion of the task prescribed,

So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibed

Such influence also, stood and stand complete--

The perfect Man,--head, body, hands and feet,

True to the pattern: but does that suffice?

How of my superadded mind which needs

--Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleads

For--more than knowledge that by some device

Sun quickens matter: mind is nobly fain

To realize the marvel, make--for sense

As mind--the unseen visible, condense

--Myself--Sun's all-pervading influence

So as to serve the needs of mind, explain

What now perplexes. Let the oak increase

His corrugated strength on strength, the palm

Lift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,--

Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,--

The eagle, like some skyey derelict,

Drift in the blue, suspended, glorying,--

The lion lord it by the desert-spring,--

What know or care they of the power which pricked

Nothingness to perfection? I, instead,

When all-developed still am found a thing

All-incomplete: for what though flesh had force

Transcending theirs--hands able to unring

The tightened snake's coil, eyes that could out-course

The eagle's soaring, voice whereat the king

Of carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see,

Touch, understand, by mind inside of me,

The outside mind--whose quickening I attain

To recognize--I only. All in vain

Would mind address itself to render plain

The nature of the essence. Drag what lurks

Behind the operation--that which works

Latently everywhere by outward proof--

Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloof

I solely crave that one of all the beams

Which do Sun's work in darkness, at my will

Should operate--myself for once have skill

To realize the energy which streams

Flooding the universe. Above, around,

Beneath--why mocks that mind my own thus found

Simply of service, when the world grows dark,

To half-surmise--were Sun's use understood,

I might demonstrate him supplying food,

Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one spark

Myself may deal with--make it thaw my blood

And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark

Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise

That somehow secretly is operant,

A power all matter feels, mind only tries

To comprehend! Once more--no idle vaunt

'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries

At source why probe into? Enough: display,

Make demonstrable, how, by night as day,

Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all 's informed

Equally by Sun's efflux!--source from whence

If just one spark I drew, full evidence

Were mine of fire ineffably enthroned--

Sun's self made palpable to Man!"

Thus moaned

Man till Prometheus helped him,--as we learn,--

Offered an artifice whereby he drew

Sun's rays into a focus,--plain and true,

The very Sun in little: made fire burn

And henceforth do Man service--glass-conglobed

Though to a pin-point circle--all the same

Comprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobed

Of that else-unconceived essential flame

Borne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye strive

Achingly to companion as it may

The supersubtle effluence, and contrive

To follow beam and beam upon their way

Hand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint--confessed

Frustrate, eluded by unknown unguessed

Infinitude of action? Idle quest!

Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descry

The spectrum--mind, infer immensity!

Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed--

Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not I

More than yourself: so, good my friend, keep still

Trustful with--me? with thee, sage Mandeville!

WITH DANIEL BARTOLI

Don, the divinest women that have walked

Our world were scarce those saints of whom we talked.

My saint, for instance--worship if you will!

'T is pity poets need historians' skill:

What legendary 's worth a chronicle?

Come, now! A great lord once upon a time

Visited--oh a king, of kings the prime,

To sign a treaty such as never was:

For the king's minister had brought to pass

That this same duke--so style him--must engage

Two of his dukedoms as an heritage

After his death to this exorbitant

Craver of kingship. "Let who lacks go scant,

Who owns much, give the more to!" Why rebuke?

So bids the devil, so obeys the duke.

III

Now, as it happened, at his sister's house

--Duchess herself--indeed the very spouse

Of the king's uncle,--while the deed of gift

Whereby our duke should cut his rights adrift

Was drawing, getting ripe to sign and seal--

What does the frozen heart but uncongeal

And, shaming his transcendent kin and kith,

Whom do the duke's eyes make acquaintance with?

A girl. "What, sister, may this wonder be?"

"Nobody! Good as beautiful is she,

With gifts that match her goodness, no faint flaw

I' the white: she were the pearl you think you saw,

But that she is--what corresponds to white?

Some other stone, the true pearl's opposite,

As cheap as pearls are costly. She 's--now, guess

Her parentage! Once--twice--thrice? Foiled, confess!

Drugs, duke, her father deals in--faugh, the scents!--

Manna and senna--such medicaments

For payment he compounds you. Stay--stay--stay!

I 'll have no rude speech wrong her! Whither away,

The hot-head? Ah, the scapegrace! She deserves

Respect--compassion, rather! right it serves

My folly, trusting secrets to a fool!

Already at it, is he? She keeps cool--

Helped by her fan's spread. Well, our state atones

For thus much license, and words break no bones!"

(Hearts, though, sometimes.)

Next morn 't was "Reason, rate,

Rave, sister, on till doomsday! Sure as fate,

I wed that woman--what a woman is

Now that I know, who never knew till this!"

So swore the duke. "I wed her: once again--

Rave, rate, and reason--spend your breath in vain!"

At once was made a contract firm and fast,

Published the banns were, only marriage, last,

Required completion when the Church's rite

Should bless and bid depart, make happy quite

The coupled man and wife forevermore:

Which rite was soon to follow. Just before--

All things at all but end--the folk o' the bride

Flocked to a summons. Pomp the duke defied:

"Of ceremony--so much as empowers,

Naught that exceeds, suits best a tie like ours"--

He smiled--"all else were mere futility.

We vow, God hears us: God and you and I--

Let the world keep at distance! This is why

We choose the simplest forms that serve to bind

Lover and lover of the human kind,

No care of what degree--of kings or clowns--

Come blood and breeding. Courtly smiles and frowns

Miss of their mark, would idly soothe or strike

My style and yours--in one style merged alike--

God's man and woman merely. Long ago

'T was rounded in my ears 'Duke, wherefore slow

To use a privilege? Needs must one who reigns

Pay reigning's due: since statecraft so ordains--

Wed for the commonweal's sake! law prescribes

One wife: but to submission license bribes

Unruly nature: mistresses accept

--Well, at discretion!' Prove I so inept

A scholar, thus instructed? Dearest, be

Wife and all mistresses in one to me,

Now, henceforth, and forever!" So smiled he.

Good: but the minister, the crafty one,

Got ear of what was doing--all but done--

Not sooner, though, than the king's very self,

Warned by the sister on how sheer a shelf

Royalty's ship was like to split. "I bar

The abomination! Mix with muck my star?

Shall earth behold prodigiously enorbed

An upstart marsh-born meteor sun-absorbed?

Nuptial me no such nuptials!" "Past dispute,

Majesty speaks with wisdom absolute,"

Admired the minister: "yet, all the same,

I would we may not--while we play his game,

The ducal meteor's--also lose our own.

The solar monarch's: we relieve your throne

Of an ungracious presence, like enough:

Balked of his project he departs in huff,

And so cuts short--dare I remind the king?--

Our not so unsuccessful bargaining.

The contract for eventual heritage

Happens to _pari passu_ reach the stage

Attained by just this other contract,--each

Unfixed by signature though fast in speech.

Off goes the duke in dudgeon--off withal

Go with him his two dukedoms past recall.

You save a fool from tasting folly's fruit,

Obtain small thanks thereby, and lose to boot

Sagacity's reward. The jest is grim:

The man will mulct you--for amercing him?

Nay, for ... permit a poor similitude!

A witless wight in some fantastic mood

Would drown himself: you plunge into the wave,

Pluck forth the undeserving: he, you save,

Pulls you clean under also for your pains.

Sire, little need that I should tax my brains

To help your inspiration!" "Let him sink!

Always contriving"--hints the royal wink--

"To keep ourselves dry while we claim his clothes."

VII

Next day, the appointed day for plighting troths

At eve,--so little time to lose, you see,

Before the Church should weld, indissolubly

Bond into bond, wed these who, side by side,

Sit each by other, bold groom, blushing bride,--

At the preliminary banquet, graced

By all the lady's kinsfolk come in haste

To share her triumph,--lo, a thunderclap!

"Who importunes now?" "Such is my mishap--

In the king's name! No need that any stir

Except this lady!" bids the minister:

"With her I claim a word apart, no more:

For who gainsays--a guard is at the door.

Hold, duke! Submit you, lady, as I bow

To him whose mouthpiece speaks his pleasure now!

It well may happen I no whit arrest

Your marriage: be it so,--we hope the best!

By your leave, gentles! Lady, pray you, hence!

Duke, with my soul and body's deference!"

VIII

Doors shut, mouth opens and persuasion flows

Copiously forth. "What flesh shall dare oppose

The king's command? The matter in debate

--How plain it is! Yourself shall arbitrate,

Determine. Since the duke affects to rate

His prize in you beyond all goods of earth,

Accounts as naught old gains of rank and birth,

Ancestral obligation, recent fame,

(We know his feats)--nay, ventures to disclaim

Our will and pleasure almost--by report--

Waives in your favor dukeliness, in short,--

We--('t is the king speaks)--who might forthwith stay

Such suicidal purpose, brush away

A bad example shame would else record,--

Lean to indulgence rather. At his word

We take the duke: allow him to complete

The cession of his dukedoms, leave our feet

Their footstool when his own head, safe in vault,

Sleeps sound. Nay, would the duke repair his fault

Handsomely, and our forfeited esteem

Recover,--what if wisely he redeem

The past,--in earnest of good faith, at once

Give us such jurisdiction for the nonce

As may suffice--prevent occasion slip--

And constitute our actual ownership?

Concede this--straightway be the marriage blessed

By warrant of this paper! Things at rest,

This paper duly signed, down drops the bar,

To-morrow you become--from what you are,

The druggist's daughter--not the duke's mere spouse,

But the king's own adopted: heart and house

Open to you--the idol of a court

'Which heaven might copy'--sing our poet-sort.

In this emergency, on you depends

The issue: plead what bliss the king intends!

Should the duke frown, should arguments and prayers,

Nay, tears if need be, prove in vain,--who cares?

We leave the duke to his obduracy,

Companionless,--you, madam, follow me

Without, where divers of the body-guard

Wait signal to enforce the king's award

Of strict seclusion: over you at least

Vibratingly the sceptre threats increased

Precipitation! How avert its crash?"

"Re-enter, sir! A hand that 's calm, not rash,

Averts it!" quietly the lady said.

"Yourself shall witness."

At the table's head

Where, mid the hushed guests, still the duke sat glued

In blank bewilderment, his spouse pursued

Her speech to end--syllabled quietude.

"Duke, I, your duchess of a day, could take

The hand you proffered me for love's sole sake,

Conscious my love matched yours; as you, myself

Would waive, when need were, all but love--from pelf

To potency. What fortune brings about

Haply in some far future, finds me out,

Faces me on a sudden here and now.

The better! Read--if beating heart allow--

Read this, and bid me rend to rags the shame!

I and your conscience--hear and grant our claim!

Never dare alienate God's gift you hold

Simply in trust for him! Choose muck for gold?

Could you so stumble in your choice, cajoled

By what I count my least of worthiness

--The youth, the beauty,--you renounce them--yes,

With all that's most too: love as well you lose,

Slain by what slays in you the honor! Choose!

Dear--yet my husband--dare I love you yet?"

How the duke's wrath o'erboiled,--words, words, and yet

More words,--I spare you such fool's fever-fret.

They were not of one sort at all, one size,

As souls go--he and she. 'T is said, the eyes

Of all the lookers-on let tears fall fast.

The minister was mollified at last:

"Take a day,--two days even, ere through pride

You perish,--two days' counsel--then decide!"

XII

"If I shall save his honor and my soul?

Husband,--this one last time,--you tear the scroll?

Farewell, duke! Sir, I follow in your train!"

XIII

So she went forth: they never met again,

The duke and she. The world paid compliment

(Is it worth noting?) when, next day, she sent

Certain gifts back--"jewelry fit to deck

Whom you call wife." I know not round what neck

They took, to sparkling, in good time--weeks thence.

XIV

Of all which was the pleasant consequence,

So much and no more--that a fervid youth,

Big-hearted boy,--but ten years old, in truth--

Laid this to heart and loved, as boyhood can,

The unduchessed lady: boy and lad grew man:

He loved as man perchance may: did meanwhile

Good soldier-service, managed to beguile

The years, no few, until he found a chance:

Then, as at trumpet-summons to advance,

Outbroke the love that stood at arms so long,

Brooked no withstanding longer. They were wed.

Whereon from camp and court alike he fled,

Renounced the sun-king, dropped off into night,

Evermore lost, a ruined satellite:

And, oh, the exquisite deliciousness

That lapped him in obscurity! You guess

Such joy is fugitive: she died full soon.

He did his best to die--as sun, so moon

Left him, turned dusk to darkness absolute.

Failing of death--why, saintship seemed to suit:

Yes, your sort, Don! He trembled on the verge

Of monkhood: trick of cowl and taste of scourge

He tried: then, kicked not at the pricks perverse,

But took again, for better or for worse,

The old way in the world, and, much the same

Man o' the outside, fairly played life's game.

"Now, Saint Scholastica, what time she fared

In Paynimrie, behold, a lion glared

Right in her path! Her waist she promptly strips

Of girdle, binds his teeth within his lips,

And, leashed all lamblike, to the Soldan's court

Leads him." Ay, many a legend of the sort

Do you praiseworthily authenticate:

Spare me the rest. This much of no debate

Admits: my lady flourished in grand days

When to be duchess was to dance the hays

Up, down, across the heaven amid its host:

While to be hailed the sun's own self almost--

So close the kinship--was--was--

Saint, for this.

Be yours the feet I stoop to--kneel and kiss!

So human? Then the mouth too, if you will!

Thanks to no legend but a chronicle.

XVI

One leans to like the duke, too: up we 'll patch

Some sort of saintship for him--not to match

Hers--but man's best and woman's worst amount

So nearly to the same thing, that we count

In man a miracle of faithfulness

If, while unfaithful somewhat, he lay stress

On the main fact that love, when love indeed,

Is wholly solely love from first to last--

Truth--all the rest a lie. Too likely, fast

Enough that necklace went to grace the throat

--Let 's say, of such a dancer as makes doat

The senses when the soul is satisfied--

_Trogalia_, say the Greeks--a sweetmeat tried

Approvingly by sated tongue and teeth,

Once body's proper meal consigned beneath

Such unconsidered munching.

XVII

Fancy's flight

Makes me a listener when, some sleepless night,

The duke reviewed his memories, and aghast

Found that the Present intercepts the Past

With such effect as when a cloud enwraps

The moon and, moon-suf£used, plays moon perhaps

To who walks under, till comes, late or soon,

A stumble: up he looks, and lo, the moon

Calm, clear, convincingly herself once more!

How could he 'scape the cloud that thrust between

Him and effulgence? Speak, fool--duke, I mean!

XVIII

"Who bade you come, brisk-marching bold she-shape,

A terror with those black-balled worlds of eyes,

That black hair bristling solid-built from nape

To crown its coils about? O dread surmise!

Take, tread on, trample under past escape

Your capture, spoil and trophy! Do--devise

Insults for one who, fallen once, ne'er shall rise!

"Mock on, triumphant o'er the prostrate shame!

Laugh 'Here lies he among the false to Love--

Love's loyal liegeman once: the very same

Who, scorning his weak fellows, towered above

Inconstancy: yet why his faith defame?

Our eagle's victor was at least no dove,

No dwarfish knight picked up our giant's glove--

"'When, putting prowess to the proof, faith urged

Her champion to the challenge: had it chanced

That merely virtue, wisdom, beauty--merged

All in one woman--merely these advanced

Their claim to conquest,--hardly had he purged

His mind of memories, dearnesses enhanced

Rather than harmed by death, nor, disentranced,

"'Promptly had he abjured the old pretence

To prove his kind's superior--first to last

Display erect on his heart's eminence

An altar to the never-dying Past.

For such feat faith might boast fit play of fence

And easily disarm the iconoclast

Called virtue, wisdom, beauty: impudence

"'Fought in their stead, and how could faith but fall?

There came a bold she-shape brisk-marching, bent

No inch of her imperious stature, tall

As some war-engine from whose top was sent

One shattering volley out of eye's black ball,

And prone lay faith's defender!' Mockery spent?

Malice discharged in full? In that event,

"My queenly impudence, I cover close,

I wrap me round with love of your black hair,

Black eyes, black every wicked inch of those

Limbs' war-tower tallness: so much truth lives there

'Neath the dead heap of lies. And yet--who knows?

What if such things are? No less, such things were,

Then was the man your match whom now you dare

"Treat as existent still. A second truth!

They held--this heap of lies you rightly scorn--

A man who had approved himself in youth

More than a match for--you? for sea-foam born

Venus herself: you conquer him forsooth?

'T is me his ghost: he died since left and lorn,

As needs must Samson when his hair is shorn.

"Some day, and soon, be sure himself will rise,

Called into life by her who long ago

Left his soul whiling time in flesh-disguise.

Ghosts tired of waiting can play tricks, you know!

Tread, trample me--such sport we ghosts devise,

Waiting the morn-star's reappearance--though

You think we vanish scared by the cock's crow."

WITH CHRISTOPHER SMART

It seems as if ... or did the actual chance

Startle me and perplex? Let truth be said!

How might this happen? Dreaming, blindfold led

By visionary hand, did soul's advance

Precede my body's, gain inheritance

Of fact by fancy--so that when I read

At length with waking eyes your Song, instead

Of mere bewilderment, with me first glance

Was but full recognition that in trance

Or merely thought's adventure some old day

Of dim and done-with boyishness, or--well,

Why might it not have been, the miracle

Broke on me as I took my sober way

Through veritable regions of our earth

And made discovery, many a wondrous one?

Anyhow, fact or fancy, such its birth:

I was exploring some huge house, had gone

Through room and room complacently, no dearth

Anywhere of the signs of decent taste,

Adequate culture: wealth had run to waste

Nowise, nor penury was proved by stint:

All showed the Golden Mean without a hint

Of brave extravagance that breaks the rule.

The master of the mansion was no fool

Assuredly, no genius just as sure!

Safe mediocrity had scorned the lure

Of now too much and now too little cost,

And satisfied me sight was never lost

Of moderate design's accomplishment

In calm completeness. On and on I went

With no more hope than fear of what came next,

Till lo, I push a door, sudden uplift

A hanging, enter, chance upon a shift

Indeed of scene! So--thus it is thou deck'st

High heaven, our low earth's brick-and-mortar work?

III

It was the Chapel. That a star, from murk

Which hid, should flashingly emerge at last,

Were small surprise: but from broad day I passed

Into a presence that turned shine to shade.

There fronted me the Rafael Mother-Maid,

Never to whom knelt votarist in shrine

By Nature's bounty helped, by Art's divine

More varied--beauty with magnificence--

Than this: from floor to roof one evidence

Of how far earth may rival heaven. No niche

Where glory was not prisoned to enrich

Man's gaze with gold and gems, no space but glowed

With color, gleamed with carving--hues which owed

Their outburst to a brush the painter fed

With rainbow-substance--rare shapes never wed

To actual flesh and blood, which, brain-born once,

Became the sculptor's dowry, Art's response

To earth's despair. And all seemed old yet new:

Youth,--in the marble's curve, the canvas' hue,

Apparent,--wanted not the crowning thrill

Of age the consecrator. Hands long still

Had worked here--could it be, what lent them skill

Retained a power to supervise, protect,

Enforce new lessons with the old, connect

Our life with theirs? No merely modern touch

Told me that here the artist, doing much,

Elsewhere did more, perchance does better, lives--

So needs must learn.

Well, these provocatives

Having fulfilled their office, forth I went

Big with anticipation--well-nigh fear--

Of what next room and next for startled eyes

Might have in store, surprise beyond surprise.

Next room and next and next--what followed here?

Why, nothing! not one object to arrest

My passage--everywhere too manifest

The previous decent null and void of best

And worst, mere ordinary right and fit,

Calm commonplace which neither missed, nor hit

Inch-high, inch-low, the placid mark proposed.

Armed with this instance, have I diagnosed

Your case, my Christopher? The man was sound

And sane at starting: all at once the ground

Gave way beneath his step, a certain smoke

Curled up and caught him, or perhaps down broke

A fireball wrapping flesh and spirit both

In conflagration. Then--as heaven were loth

To linger--let earth understand too well

How heaven at need can operate--off fell

The flame-robe, and the untransfigured man

Resumed sobriety,--as he began,

So did he end nor alter pace, not he!

Now, what I fain would know is--could it be

That he--whoe'er he was that furnished forth

The Chapel, making thus, from South to North,

Rafael touch Leighton, Michelagnolo

Join Watts, was found but once combining so

The elder and the younger, taking stand

On Art's supreme,--or that yourself who sang

A Song where flute-breath silvers trumpet-clang,

And stations you for once on either hand

With Milton and with Keats, empowered to claim

Affinity on just one point--(or blame

Or praise my judgment, thus it fronts you full)--

How came it you resume the void and null,

Subside to insignificance,--live, die

--Proved plainly two mere mortals who drew nigh

One moment--that, to Art's best hierarchy,

This, to the superhuman poet-pair?

What if, in one point only, then and there

The otherwise all-unapproachable

Allowed impingement? Does the sphere pretend

To span the cube's breadth, cover end to end

The plane with its embrace? No, surely! Still,

Contact is contact, sphere's touch no whit less

Than cube's superimposure. Such success

Befell Smart only out of throngs between

Milton and Keats that donned the singing-dress--

Smart, solely of such songmen, pierced the screen

'Twixt thing and word, lit language straight from soul,--

Left no fine film-flake on the naked coal

Live from the censer--shapely or uncouth,

Fire-suffused through and through, one blaze of truth

Undeadened by a lie,--(you have my mind)--

For, think! this blaze outleapt with black behind

And blank before, when Hayley and the rest ...

But let the dead successors worst and best

Bury their dead: with life be my concern--

Yours with the fire-flame: what I fain would learn

Is just--(suppose me haply ignorant

Down to the common knowledge, doctors vaunt)

Just this--why only once the fire-flame was:

No matter if the marvel came to pass

The way folk judged--if power too long suppressed

Broke loose and maddened, as the vulgar guessed

Or simply brain-disorder (doctors said),

A turmoil of the particles disturbed,

Brain's workaday performance in your head,

Spurred spirit to wild action health had curbed,

And so verse issued in a cataract

Whence prose, before and after, unperturbed

Was wont to wend its way. Concede the fact

That here a poet was who always could--

Never before did--never after would--

Achieve the feat: how were such fact explained?

VII

Was it that when, by rarest chance, there fell

Disguise from Nature, so that Truth remained

Naked, and whoso saw for once could tell

Us others of her majesty and might

In large, her lovelinesses infinite

In little,--straight you used the power wherewith

Sense, penetrating as through rind to pith

Each object, thoroughly revealed might view

And comprehend the old things thus made new,

So that while eye saw, soul to tongue could trust

Thing which struck word out, and once more adjust

Real vision to right language, till heaven's vault

Pompous with sunset, storm-stirred sea's assault

On the swilled rock-ridge, earth's embosomed brood

Of tree and flower and weed, with all the life

That flies or swims or crawls, in peace or strife,

Above, below,--each had its note and name

For Man to know by,--Man who, now--the same

As erst in Eden, needs that all he sees

Be named him ere he note by what degrees

Of strength and beauty to its end Design

Ever thus operates--(your thought and mine,

No matter for the many dissident)--

So did you sing your Song, so truth found vent

In words for once with you?

VIII

Then--back was furled

The robe thus thrown aside, and straight the world

Darkened into the old oft-catalogued

Repository of things that sky, wave, land,

Or show or hide, clear late, accretion-clogged

Now, just as long ago, by tellings and

Re-tellings to satiety, which strike

Muffled upon the ear's drum. Very like

None was so startled as yourself when friends

Came, hailed your fast-returning wits: "Health mends

Importantly, for--to be plain with you--

This scribble on the wall was done--in lieu

Of pen and paper--with--ha, ha!--your key

Denting it on the wainscot! Do you see

How wise our caution was? Thus much we stopped

Of babble that had else grown print: and lopped

From your trim bay-tree this unsightly bough--

Smart's who translated Horace! Write us now" ...

Why, what Smart did write--never afterward

One line to show that he, who paced the sward,

Had reached the zenith from his madhouse cell.

Was it because you judged (I know full well

You never had the fancy)--judged--as some--

That who makes poetry must reproduce

Thus ever and thus only, as they come,

Each strength, each beauty, everywhere diffuse

Throughout creation, so that eye and ear,

Seeing and hearing, straight shall recognize,

At touch of just a trait, the strength appear,--

Suggested by a line's lapse see arise

All evident the beauty,--fresh surprise

Startling at fresh achievement? "So, indeed,

Wallows the whale's bulk in the waste of brine,

Nor otherwise its feather-tufts make fine

Wild Virgin's Bower when stars faint off to seed!"

(My prose--your poetry I dare not give,

Purpling too much my mere gray argument.)

--Was it because you judged--when fugitive

Was glory found, and wholly gone and spent

Such power of startling up deaf ear, blind eye,

At truth's appearance,--that you humbly bent

The head and, bidding vivid work good-by,

Doffed lyric dress and trod the world once more

A drab-clothed decent proseman as before?

Strengths, beauties, by one word's flash thus laid bare

--That was effectual service: made aware

Of strengths and beauties, Man but hears the text,

Awaits your teaching. Nature? What comes next?

Why all the strength and beauty?--to be shown

Thus in one word's flash, thenceforth let alone

By Man who needs must deal with aught that 's known

Never so lately and so little? Friend,

First give us knowledge, then appoint its use!

Strength, beauty are the means: ignore their end?

As well you stopped at proving how profuse

Stones, sticks, nay stubble lie to left and right

Ready to help the builder,--careless quite

If he should take, or leave the same to strew

Earth idly,--as by word's flash bring in view

Strength, beauty, then bid who beholds the same

Go on beholding. Why gains unemployed?

Nature was made to be by Man enjoyed

First; followed duly by enjoyment's fruit,

Instruction--haply leaving joy behind:

And you, the instructor, would you slack pursuit

Of the main prize, as poet help mankind

Just to enjoy, there leave them? Play the fool,

Abjuring a superior privilege?

Please simply when your function is to rule--

By thought incite to deed? From edge to edge

Of earth's round, strength and beauty everywhere

Pullulate--and must you particularize

All, each and every apparition? Spare

Yourself and us the trouble! Ears and eyes

Want so much strength and beauty, and no less

Nor more, to learn life's lesson by. Oh, yes--

The other method 's favored in our day!

The end ere the beginning: as you may

Master the heavens before you study earth,

Make you familiar with the meteor's birth

Ere you descend to scrutinize the rose!

I say, o'erstep no least one of the rows

That lead man from the bottom where he plants

Foot first of all, to life's last ladder-top:

Arrived there, vain enough will seem the vaunts

Of those who say--"We scale the skies, then drop

To earth--to find, how all things there are loth

To answer heavenly law: we understand

The meteor's course, and lo, the rose's growth--

How other than should be by law's command!"

Would not you tell such--"Friends, beware lest fume

Offuscate sense: learn earth first ere presume

To teach heaven legislation. Law must be

Active in earth or nowhere: earth you see,--

Or there or not at all, Will, Power and Love

Admit discovery,--as below, above

Seek next law's confirmation! But reverse

The order, where 's the wonder things grow worse

Than, by the law your fancy formulates,

They should be? Cease from anger at the fates

Which thwart themselves so madly. Live and learn,

Not first learn and then live, is our concern.

WITH GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON

Ah, George Bubb Dodington Lord Melcombe,--no,

Yours was the wrong way!--always understand,

Supposing that permissibly you planned

How statesmanship--your trade--in outward show

Might figure as inspired by simple zeal

For serving country, king and commonweal,

(Though service tire to death the body, tease

The soul from out an o'ertasked patriot-drudge)

And yet should prove zeal's outward show agrees

In all respects--right reason being judge--

With inward care that, while the statesman spends

Body and soul thus freely for the sake

Of public good, his private welfare take

No harm by such devotedness. Intends

Scripture aught else--let captious folk inquire--

Which teaches "Laborers deserve their hire,

And who neglects his household bears the bell

Away of sinning from an infidel"?

Wiselier would fools that carp bestow a thought

How birds build nests; at outside, roughly wrought,

Twig knots with twig, loam plasters up each chink,

Leaving the inmate rudely lodged--you think?

Peep but inside! That specious rude-and-rough

Covers a domicile where downy fluff

Embeds the ease-deserving architect,

Who toiled and moiled not merely to effect

'Twixt sprig and spray a stop-gap in the teeth

Of wind and weather, guard what swung beneath

From upset only, but contrived himself

A snug interior, warm and soft and sleek.

Of what material? Oh, for that, you seek

How nature prompts each volatile! Thus--pelf

Smoothens the human mudlark's lodging, power

Demands some hardier wrappage to embrace

Robuster heart-beats: rock, not tree nor tower,

Contents the building eagle: rook shoves close

To brother rook on branch, while crow morose

Apart keeps balance perched on topmost bough.

No sort of bird but suits his taste somehow:

Nay, Darwin tells of such as love the bower--

His bower-birds opportunely yield us yet

The lacking instance when at loss to get

A feathered parallel to what we find

The secret motor of some mighty mind

That worked such wonders--all for vanity!

Worked them to haply figure in the eye

Of intimates as first of--doers' kind?

Actors', that work in earnest sportively,

Paid by a sourish smile. How says the Sage?

Birds born to strut prepare a platform-stage

With sparkling stones and speckled shells, all sorts

Of slimy rubbish, odds and ends and orts,

Whereon to pose and posture and engage

The priceless female simper.

I have gone

Thus into detail, George Bubb Dodington,

Lest, when I take you presently to task

For the wrong way of working, you should ask

"What fool conjectures that profession means

Performance? that who goes behind the scenes

Finds,--acting over,--still the soot-stuff screens

Othello's visage, still the self-same cloak's

Bugle-bright-blackness half reveals half chokes

Hamlet's emotion, as ten minutes since?"

No, each resumes his garb, stands--Moor or prince--

Decently draped: just so with statesmanship!

All outside show, in short, is sham--why wince?

Concede me--while our parley lasts! You trip

Afterwards--lay but this to heart! (there lurks

Somewhere in all of us a lump which irks

Somewhat the spriteliest-scheming brain that 's bent

On brave adventure, would but heart consent!)

--Here trip you, that--your aim allowed as right--

Your means thereto were wrong. Come, we, this night,

Profess one purpose, hold one principle,

Are at odds only as to--not the will

But way of winning solace for ourselves

--No matter if the ore for which zeal delves

Be gold or coprolite, while zeal's pretence

Is--we do good to men at--whose expense

But ours? who tire the body, tease the soul,

Simply that, running, we may reach fame's goal

And wreathe at last our brows with bay--the State's

Disinterested slaves, nay--please the Fates--

Saviors and nothing less: such lot has been!

Statesmanship triumphs pedestalled, serene,--

O happy consummation!--brought about

By managing with skill the rabble-rout

For which we labor (never mind the name--

People or populace, for praise or blame)

Making them understand--their heaven, their hell,

Their every hope and fear is ours as well.

Man's cause--what other can we have at heart?

Whence follows that the necessary part

High o'er Man's head we play,--and freelier breathe

Just that the multitude which gasps beneath

May reach the level where unstifled stand

Ourselves at vantage to put forth a hand,

Assist the prostrate public. 'T is by right

Merely of such pretence, we reach the height

Where storms abound, to brave--nay, court their stress,

Though all too well aware--of pomp the less,

Of peace the more! But who are we, to spurn

For peace' sake, duty's pointing? Up, then--earn

Albeit no prize we may but martyrdom!

Now, such fit height to launch salvation from,

How get and gain? Since help must needs be craved

By would-be saviours of the else-unsaved,

How coax them to co-operate, lend a lift,

Kneel down and let us mount?

III

You say, "Make shift

By sham--the harsh word: preach and teach, persuade

Somehow the Public--not despising aid

Of salutary artifice--we seek

Solely their good: our strength would raise the weak,

Our cultivated knowledge supplement

Their rudeness, rawness: why to us were lent

Ability except to come in use?

Who loves his kind must by all means induce

That kind to let his love play freely, press

In Man's behalf to full performance!"

Yes--

Yes, George, we know!--whereat they hear, believe,

And bend the knee, and on the neck receive

Who fawned and cringed to purpose? Not so, George!

Try simple falsehood on shrewd folk who forge

Lies of superior fashion day by day

And hour by hour? With craftsmen versed as they

What chance of competition when the tools

Only a novice wields? Are knaves such fools?

Disinterested patriots, spare your tongue

The tones thrice-silvery, cheek save smiles it flung

Pearl-like profuse to swine--a herd, whereof

No unit needs be taught, his neighbor's trough

Scarce holds for who but grunts and whines the husks

Due to a wrinkled snout that shows sharp tusks.

No animal--much less our lordly Man--

Obeys its like: with strength all rule began,

The stoutest awes the pasture. Soon succeeds

Discrimination,--nicer power Man needs

To rule him than is bred of bone and thew:

Intelligence must move strength's self. This too

Lasts but its time: the multitude at length

Looks inside for intelligence and strength

And finds them here and there to pick and choose:

"All at your service, mine, see!" Ay, but who 's

My George, at this late day, to make his boast

"In strength, intelligence, I rule the roast,

Beat, all and some, the ungraced who crowd your ranks?"

"Oh, but I love, would lead you, gain your thanks

By unexampled yearning for Man's sake--

Passion that solely waits your help to take

Effect in action!" George, which one of us

But holds with his own heart communion thus:

"I am, if not of men the first and best,

Still--to receive enjoyment--properest:

Which since by force I cannot, nor by wit

Most likely--craft must serve in place of it.

Flatter, cajole! If so I bring within

My net the gains which wit and force should win,

What hinders?" 'T is a trick we know of old:

Try, George, some other of tricks manifold!

The multitude means mass and mixture--right!

Are mixtures simple, pray, or composite?

Dive into Man, your medley: see the waste!

Sloth-stifled genius, energy disgraced

By ignorance, high aims with sorry skill,

Will without means and means in want of will

--Sure we might fish, from out the mothers' sons

That welter thus, a dozen Dodingtons!

Why call up Dodington, and none beside,

To take his seat upon our backs and ride

As statesman conquering and to conquer? Well,

The last expedient, which must needs excel

Those old ones--this it is,--at any rate

To-day's conception thus I formulate:

As simple force has been replaced, just so

Must simple wit be: men have got to know

Such wit as what you boast is nowise held

The wonder once it was, but, paralleled

Too plentifully, counts not,--puts to shame

Modest possessors like yourself who claim,

By virtue of it merely, power and place

--Which means the sweets of office. Since our race

Teems with the like of you, some special gift,

Your very own, must coax our hands to lift,

And backs to bear you: is it just and right

To privilege your nature?

"State things quite

Other than so"--make answer! "I pretend

No such community with men. Perpend

My key to domination! Who would use

Man for his pleasure needs must introduce

The element that awes Man. Once for all,

His nature owns a Supernatural

In fact as well as phrase--which found must he

--Where, in this doubting age? Old mystery

Has served its turn--seen through and sent adrift

To nothingness: new wizard-craft makes shift

Nowadays shorn of help by robe and book,--

Otherwise, elsewhere, for success must look

Than chalked-ring, incantation-gibberish.

Somebody comes to conjure: that 's he? Pish!

He 's like the roomful of rapt gazers,--there 's

No sort of difference in the garb he wears

From ordinary dressing,--gesture, speech,

Deportment, just like those of all and each

That eye their master of the minute. Stay!

What of the something--call it how you may--

Uncanny in the--quack? That 's easy said!

Notice how the Professor turns no head

And yet takes cognizance of who accepts,

Denies, is puzzled as to the adept's

Supremacy, yields up or lies in wait

To trap the trickster! Doubtless, out of date

Are dealings with the devil: yet, the stir

Of mouth, its smile half smug half sinister,

Mock-modest boldness masked in diffidence,--

What if the man have--who knows how or whence?--

Confederate potency unguessed by us--

Prove no such cheat as he pretends?"

Ay, thus

Had but my George played statesmanship's new card

That carries all! "Since we"--avers the Bard--

"All of us have one human heart"--as good

As say--by all of us is understood

Right and wrong, true and false--in rough, at least,

We own a common conscience. God, man, beast--

How should we qualify the statesman-shape

I fancy standing with our world agape?

Disguise, flee, fight against with tooth and nail

The outrageous designation! "Quack" men quail

Before? You see, a little year ago

They heard him thunder at the thing which, lo,

To-day he vaunts for unscathed, while what erst

Heaven-high he lauded, lies hell-low, accursed!

And yet where 's change? Who, awe-struck, cares to point

Critical finger at a dubious joint

In armor, true _æs triplex_, breast and back

Binding about, defiant of attack,

An imperturbability that 's--well,

Or innocence or impudence--how tell

One from the other? Could ourselves broach lies,

Yet brave mankind with those unaltered eyes,

Those lips that keep the quietude of truth?

Dare we attempt the like? What quick uncouth

Disturbance of thy smug economy,

O coward visage! Straight would all descry

Back on the man's brow the boy's blush once more!

No: he goes deeper--could our sense explore--

Finds conscience beneath conscience such as ours.

Genius is not so rare,--prodigious powers--

Well, others boast such,--but a power like this

Mendacious intrepidity--_quid vis?_

Besides, imposture plays another game,

Admits of no diversion from its aim

Of captivating hearts, sets zeal aflare

In every shape at every turn,--nowhere

Allows subsidence into ash. By stress

Of what does guile succeed but earnestness,

Earnest word, look and gesture? Touched with aught

But earnestness, the levity were fraught

With ruin to guile's film-work. Grave is guile;

Here no act wants its qualifying smile,

Its covert pleasantry to neutralize

The outward ardor. Can our chief despise

Even while most he seems to adulate?

As who should say "What though it be my fate

To deal with fools? Among the crowd must lurk

Some few with faculty to judge my work

Spite of its way which suits, they understand,

The crass majority:--the Sacred Band,

No duping them forsooth!" So tells a touch

Of subintelligential nod and wink--

Turning foes friends. Coarse flattery moves the gorge:

Mine were the mode to awe the many, George!

They guess you half despise them while most bent

On demonstrating that your sole intent

Strives for their service. Sneer at them? Yourself

'T is you disparage,--tricksy as an elf,

Scorning what most you strain to bring to pass,

Laughingly careless,--triply cased in brass,--

While pushing strenuous to the end in view.

What follows? Why, you formulate within

The vulgar headpiece this conception: "Win

A master-mind to serve us needs we must,

One who, from motives we but take on trust,

Acts strangelier--haply wiselier than we know

Stronglier, for certain. Did he say 'I throw

Aside my good for yours, in all I do

Care nothing for myself and all for you'--

We should both understand and disbelieve:

Said he, 'Your good I laugh at in my sleeve,

My own it is I solely labor at,

Pretending yours the while'--that, even that,

We, understanding well, give credence to,

And so will none of it. But here 't is through

Our recognition of his service, wage

Well earned by work, he mounts to such a stage

Above competitors as all save Bubb

Would agonize to keep. Yet--here 's the rub--

So slightly does he hold by our esteem

Which solely fixed him fast there, that we seem

Mocked every minute to our face, by gibe

And jest--scorn insuppressive: what ascribe

The rashness to? Our pay and praise to boot--

Do these avail him to tread under foot

Something inside us all and each, that stands

Somehow instead of somewhat which commands

'Lie not'? Folk fear to jeopardize their soul,

Stumble at times, walk straight upon the whole,--

That 's nature's simple instinct: what may be

The portent here, the influence such as we

Are strangers to?"--

VII

Exact the thing I call

Man's despot, just the Supernatural

Which, George, was wholly out of--far beyond

Your theory and practice. You had conned

But to reject the precept "To succeed

In gratifying selfishness and greed,

Asseverate such qualities exist

Nowise within yourself! then make acquist

By all means, with no sort of fear!" Alack,

That well-worn lie is obsolete! Fall back

On still a working pretext--"Hearth and Home,

The Altar, love of England, hate of Rome"--

That 's serviceable lying--that perchance

Had screened you decently: but 'ware advance

By one step more in perspicacity

Of these our dupes! At length they get to see

As through the earlier, this the latter plea--

And find the greed and selfishness at source!

_Ventum est ad triarios:_ last resource

Should be to what but--exquisite disguise

Disguise-abjuring, truth that looks like lies,

Frankness so sure to meet with unbelief?

Say--you hold in contempt--not them in chief--

But first and foremost your own self! No use

In men but to make sport for you, induce

The puppets now to dance, now stand stock-still,

Now knock their heads together, at your will

For will's sake only--while each plays his part

Submissive: why? through terror at the heart:

"Can it be--this bold man, whose hand we saw

Openly pull the wires, obeys some law

Quite above Man's--nay, God's?" On face fall they.

This was the secret missed, again I say,

Out of your power to grasp conception of,

Much less employ to purpose. Hence the scoff

That greets your very name: folk see but one

Fool more, as well as knave, in Dodington.

WITH FRANCIS FURINI

Nay, _that_, Furini, never I at least

Mean to believe! What man you were I know,

While you walked Tuscan earth, a painter-priest,

Something about two hundred years ago.

Priest--you did duty punctual as the sun

That rose and set above Saint Sano's church,

Blessing Mugello: of your flock not one

But showed a whiter fleece because of smirch,

Your kind hands wiped it clear from: were they poor?

Bounty broke bread apace,--did marriage lag

For just the want of moneys that ensure

Fit hearth-and-home provision?--straight your bag

Unplumped itself,--reached hearts by way of palms

Goodwill's shake had but tickled. All about

Mugello valley, felt some parish qualms

At worship offered in bare walls without

The comfort of a picture?--prompt such need

Our painter would supply, and throngs to see

Witnessed that goodness--no unholy greed

Of gain--had coaxed from Don Furini--he

Whom princes might in vain implore to toil

For worldly profit--such a masterpiece.

Brief--priest, you poured profuse God's wine and oil

Praiseworthily, I know: shall praising cease

When, priestly vesture put aside, mere man,

You stand for judgment? Rather--what acclaim

--"Good son, good brother, friend in whom we scan

No fault nor flaw"--salutes Furini's name,

The loving as the liberal! Enough:

Only to ope a lily, though for sake

Of setting free its scent, disturbs the rough

Loose gold about its anther. I shall take

No blame in one more blazon, last of all--

Good painter were you: if in very deed

I styled you great--what modern art dares call

My word in question? Let who will take heed

Of what he seeks and misses in your brain

To balance that precision of the brush

Your hand could ply so deftly: all in vain

Strives poet's power for outlet when the push

Is lost upon a barred and bolted gate

Of painter's impotency. Agnolo--

Thine were alike the head and hand, by fate

Doubly endowed! Who boasts head only--woe

To hand's presumption should brush emulate

Fancy's free passage by the pen, and show

Thought wrecked and ruined where the inexpert

Foolhardy fingers half grasped, half let go

Film-wings the poet's pen arrests unhurt!

No--painter such as that miraculous

Michael, who deems you? But the ample gift

Of gracing walls else blank of this our house

Of life with imagery, one bright drift

Poured forth by pencil,--man and woman mere,

Glorified till half owned for gods,--the dear

Fleshly perfection of the human shape,--

This was apportioned you whereby to praise

Heaven and bless earth. Who clumsily essays,

By slighting painter's craft, to prove the ape

Of poet's pen-creation, just betrays

Twofold ineptitude.

By such sure ways

Do I return, Furini, to my first

And central confidence--that he I proved

Good priest, good man, good painter, and rehearsed

Praise upon praise to show--not simply loved

For virtue, but for wisdom honored too

Needs must Furini be,--it follows--who

Shall undertake to breed in me belief

That, on his death-bed, weakness played the thief

With wisdom, folly ousted reason quite?

List to the chronicler! With main and might--

So fame runs--did the poor soul beg his friends

To buy and burn his hand-work, make amends

For having reproduced therein--(Ah me!

Sighs fame--that's friend Filippo)--nudity!

Yes, I assure you; he would paint--not men

Merely--a pardonable fault--but when

He had to deal with--oh, not mother Eve

Alone, permissibly in Paradise

Naked and unashamed,--but dared achieve

Dreadful distinction, at soul-safety's price,

By also painting women--(why the need?)

Just as God made them: there, you have the truth!

Yes, rosed from top to toe in flush of youth,

One foot upon the moss-fringe, would some Nymph

Try, with its venturous fellow, if the lymph

Were chillier than the slab-stepped fountain-edge;

The while a-heap her garments on its ledge

Of boulder lay within hand's easy reach,

--No one least kid-skin cast around her! Speech

Shrinks from enumerating case and case

Of--were it but Diana at the chase,

With tunic tucked discreetly hunting-high!

No, some Queen Venus set our necks awry,

Turned faces from the painter's all-too-frank

Triumph of flesh! For--whom had he to thank

--This self-appointed nature-student? Whence

Picked he up practice? By what evidence

Did he unhandsomely become adept

In simulating bodies? How except

By actual sight of such? Himself confessed

The enormity: quoth Philip, "When I pressed

The painter to acknowledge his abuse

Of artistry else potent--what excuse

Made the infatuated man? I give

His very words: 'Did you but know, as I,

--O scruple-splitting sickly-sensitive

Mild-moral-monger, what the agony

Of Art is ere Art satisfy herself

In imitating Nature--(Man, poor elf,

Striving to match the finger-mark of Him

The immeasurably matchless)--gay or grim,

Pray, would your smile be? Leave mere fools to tax

Art's high-strung brain's intentness as so lax

That, in its mid-throe, idle fancy sees

The moment for admittance!' Pleadings these--

Specious, I grant." So adds, and seems to wince

Somewhat, our censor--but shall truth convince

Blockheads like Baldinucci?

III

I resume

My incredulity: your other kind

Of soul, Furini, never was so blind,

Even through death-mist, as to grope in gloom

For cheer beside a bonfire piled to turn

Ashes and dust all that your noble life

Did homage to life's Lord by,--bid them burn

--These Baldinucci blockheads--pictures rife

With record, in each rendered loveliness,

That one appreciative creature's debt

Of thanks to the Creator, more or less,

Was paid according as heart's-will had met

Hand's-power in Art's endeavor to express

Heaven's most consummate of achievements, bless

Earth by a semblance of the seal God set

On woman his supremest work. I trust

Rather, Furini, dying breath had vent

In some fine fervor of thanksgiving just

For this--that soul and body's power you spent--

Agonized to adumbrate, trace in dust

That marvel which we dream the firmament

Copies in star-device when fancies stray

Outlining, orb by orb, Andromeda--

God's best of beauteous and magnificent

Revealed to earth--the naked female form.

Nay, I mistake not: wrath that's but lukewarm

Would boil indeed were such a critic styled

Himself an artist: artist! Ossa piled

Topping Olympus--the absurd which crowns

The extravagant--whereat one laughs, not frowns.

Paints he? One bids the poor pretender take

His sorry self, a trouble and disgrace,

From out the sacred presence, void the place

Artists claim only. What--not merely wake

Our pity that suppressed concupiscence--

A satyr masked as matron--makes pretence

To the coarse blue-fly's instinct--can perceive

No better reason why she should exist--

--God's lily-limbed and blushrose-bosomed Eve--

Than as a hot-bed for the sensualist

To fly-blow with his fancies, make pure stuff

Breed him back filth--this were not crime enough?

But further--fly to style itself--nay, more--

To steal among the sacred ones, crouch down

Though but to where their garments sweep the floor--

--Still catching some faint sparkle from the crown

Crowning transcendent Michael, Leonard,

Rafael,--to sit beside the feet of such,

Unspurned because unnoticed, then reward

Their toleration--mercy overmuch--

By stealing from the throne-step to the fools

Curious outside the gateway, all-agape

To learn by what procedure, in the schools

Of Art, a merest man in outward shape

May learn to be Correggio! Old and young,

These learners got their lesson: Art was just

A safety-screen--(Art, which Correggio's tongue

Calls "Virtue")--for a skulking vice: mere lust

Inspired the artist when his Night and Morn

Slept and awoke in marble on that edge

Of heaven above our awe-struck earth: lust-born

His Eve low bending took the privilege

Of life from what our eyes saw--God's own palm

That put the flame forth--to the love and thanks

Of all creation save this recreant!

Calm

Our phrase, Furini! Not the artist-ranks

Claim riddance of an interloper: no--

This Baldinucci did but grunt and sniff

Outside Art's pale--ay, grubbed, where pine-trees grow,

For pignuts only.

You the Sacred! If

Indeed on you has been bestowed the dower

Of Art in fulness, graced with head and hand,

Head--to lookup not downwards, hand--of power

To make head's gain the portion of a world

Where else the uninstructed ones too sure

Would take all outside beauty--film that's furled

About a star--for the star's self, endure

No guidance to the central glory,--nay,

(Sadder) might apprehend the film was fog,

Or (worst) wish all but vapor well away,

And sky's pure product thickened from earth's bog--

Since so, nor seldom, have your worthiest failed

To trust their own soul's insight--why? except

For warning that the head of the adept

May too much prize the hand, work unassailed

By scruple of the better sense that finds

An orb within each halo, bids gross flesh

Free the fine spirit-pattern, nor enmesh

More than is meet a marvel, custom blinds

Only the vulgar eye to. Now, less fear

That you, the foremost of Art's fellowship,

Will oft--will ever so offend! But--hip

And thigh--smite the Philistine! _You_--slunk here--

Connived at, by too easy tolerance,

Not to scrape palette simply or squeeze brush,

But dub your very self an Artist? Tush--

You, of the daubings, is it, dare advance

This doctrine that the Artist-mind must needs

Own to affinity with yours--confess

Provocative acquaintance, more or less,

With each impurely-peevish worm that breeds

Inside your brain's receptacle?

Enough.

Who owns "I dare not look on diadems

Without an itch to pick out, purloin gems

Others contentedly leave sparkling"--gruff

Answers the guard of the regalia: "Why--

Consciously kleptomaniac--thrust yourself

Where your illicit craving after pelf

Is tempted most--in the King's treasury?

Go elsewhere! Sort with thieves, if thus you feel--

When folk clean-handed simply recognize

Treasure whereof the mere sight satisfies--

But straight your fingers are on itch to steal!

Hence with you!"

Pray, Furini!

VII

"Bounteous God,

Deviser and dispenser of all gifts

To soul through sense,--in Art the soul uplifts

Man's best of thanks! What but thy measuring-rod

Meted forth heaven and earth? more intimate,

Thy very hands were busied with the task

Of making, in this human shape, a mask--

A match for that divine. Shall love abate

Man's wonder? Nowise! True--true--all too true--

No gift but, in the very plenitude

Of its perfection, goes maimed, misconstrued

By wickedness or weakness: still, some few

Have grace to see thy purpose, strength to mar

Thy work by no admixture of their own,

--Limn truth not falsehood, bid us love alone

The type untampered with, the naked star!"

VIII

And, prayer done, painter--what if you should preach?

Not as of old when playing pulpiteer

To simple-witted country folk, but here

In actual London try your powers of speech

On us the cultured, therefore skeptical--

What would you? For, suppose he has his word

In faith's behalf, no matter how absurd,

This painter-theologian? One and all

We lend an ear--nay, Science takes thereto--

Encourages the meanest who has racked

Nature until he gains from her some fact,

To state what truth is from his point of view,

Mere pin-point though it be: since many such

Conduce to make a whole, she bids our friend

Come forward unabashed and haply lend

His little life-experience to our much

Of modern knowledge. Since she so insists,

Up stands Furini.

"Evolutionists!

At truth I glimpse from depths, you glance from heights,

Our stations for discovery opposites,--

How should ensue agreement? I explain:

'T is the tip-top of things to which you strain

Your vision, until atoms, protoplasm,

And what and whence and how may be the spasm

Which sets all going, stop you: down perforce

Needs must your observation take its course,

Since there 's no moving upwards: link by link

You drop to where the atoms somehow think.

Feel, know themselves to be: the world 's begun,

Such as we recognize it. Have you done

Descending? Here's ourself,--Man, known to-day,

Duly evolved at last,--so far, you say,

The sum and seal of being's progress. Good!

Thus much at least is clearly understood--

Of power does Man possess no particle:

Of knowledge--just so much as shows that still

It ends in ignorance on every side:

But righteousness--ah, Man is deified

Thereby, for compensation! Make survey

Of Man's surroundings, try creation--nay,

Try emulation of the minimized

Minuteness fancy may conceive! Surprised

Reason becomes by two defeats for one--

Not only power at each phenomenon

Baffled, but knowledge also in default--

Asking what _is_ minuteness--yonder vault

Speckled with suns, or this the millionth--thing,

How shall I call?--that on some insect's wing

Helps to make out in dyes the mimic star?

Weak, ignorant, accordingly we are:

What then? The worse for Nature! Where began

Righteousness, moral sense except in Man?

True, he makes nothing, understands no whit:

Had the initiator-spasm seen fit

Thus doubly to endow him, none the worse

And much the better were the universe.

What does Man see or feel or apprehend

Here, there, and everywhere, but faults to mend,

Omissions to supply,--one wide disease

Of things that are, which Man at once would ease

Had will but power and knowledge? failing both--

Things must take will for deed--Man, nowise loth,

Accepts pre-eminency: mere blind force--

Mere knowledge undirected in its course

By any care for what is made or marred

In either's operation--_these_ award

The crown to? Rather let it deck thy brows,

Man, whom alone a righteousness endows

Would cure the wide world's ailing! Who disputes

Thy claim thereto? Had Spasm more attributes

Than power and knowledge in its gift, before

Man came to pass? The higher that we soar,

The less of moral sense like Man's we find:

No sign of such before,--what comes behind,

Who guesses! But until there crown our sight

The quite new--not the old mere infinite

Of changings,--some fresh kind of sun and moon,--

Then, not before, shall I expect a boon

Of intuition just as strange, which turns

Evil to good, and wrong to right, unlearns

All Man's experience learned since Man was he.

Accept in Man, advanced to this degree,

The Prime Mind, therefore! neither wise nor strong--

Whose fault? but were he both, then right, not wrong

As now, throughout the world were paramount

According to his will,--which I account

The qualifying faculty. He stands

Confessed supreme--the monarch whose commands

Could he enforce, how bettered were the world!

He's at the height this moment--to be hurled

Next moment to the bottom by rebound

Of his own peal of laughter. All around

Ignorance wraps him,--whence and how and why

Things are,--yet cloud breaks and lets blink the sky

Just overhead, not elsewhere! What assures

His optics that the very blue which lures

Comes not of black outside it, doubly dense?

Ignorance overwraps his moral sense,

Winds him about, relaxing, as it wraps,

So much and no more than lets through perhaps

The murmured knowledge--'Ignorance exists.'

"I at the bottom, Evolutionists,

Advise beginning, rather. I profess

To know just one fact--my self-consciousness,--

'Twixt ignorance and ignorance enisled,--

Knowledge: before me was my Cause--that 's styled

God: after, in due course succeeds the rest,--

All that my knowledge comprehends--at best--

At worst, conceives about in mild despair.

Light needs must touch on either darkness: where?

Knowledge so far impinges on the Cause

Before me, that I know--by certain laws

Wholly unknown, whate'er I apprehend

Within, without me, had its rise: thus blend

I, and all things perceived, in one Effect.

How far can knowledge any ray project

On what comes after me--the universe?

Well, my attempt to make the cloud disperse

Begins--not from above but underneath:

I climb, you soar,--who soars soon loses breath

And sinks, who climbs keeps one foot firm on fact

Ere hazarding the next step: soul's first act

(Call consciousness the soul--some name we need)

Getting itself aware, through stuff decreed

Thereto (so call the body)--who has stept

So far, there let him stand, become adept

In body ere he shift his station thence

One single hair's breadth. Do I make pretence

To teach, myself unskilled in learning? Lo,

My life's work! Let my pictures prove I know

Somewhat of what this fleshly frame of ours

Or is or should be, how the soul empowers

The body to reveal its every mood

Of love and hate, pour forth its plenitude

Of passion. If my hand attained to give

Thus permanence to truth else fugitive,

Did not I also fix each fleeting grace

Of form and feature--save the beauteous face--

Arrest decay in transitory might

Of bone and muscle--cause the world to bless

Forever each transcendent nakedness

Of man and woman? Were such feats achieved

By sloth, or strenuous labor unrelieved,

--Yet lavished vainly? Ask that underground

(So may I speak) of all on surface found

Of flesh-perfection! Depths on depths to probe

Of all-inventive artifice, disrobe

Marvel at hiding under marvel, pluck

Veil after veil from Nature--were the luck

Ours to surprise the secret men so name,

That still eludes the searcher--all the same,

Repays his search with still fresh proof--'Externe,

Not inmost, is the Cause, fool! Look and learn!'

Thus teach my hundred pictures: firm and fast

There did I plant my first foot. And the next?

Nowhere! 'T was put forth and withdrawn, perplexed

At touch of what seemed stable and proved stuff

Such as the colored clouds are: plain enough

There lay the outside universe: try Man--

My most immediate! and the dip began

From safe and solid into that profound

Of ignorance I tell you surges round

My rock-spit of self-knowledge. Well and ill,

Evil and good irreconcilable

Above, beneath, about my every side,--

How did this wild confusion far and wide

Tally with my experience when my stamp--

So far from stirring--struck out, each a lamp,

Spark after spark of truth from where I stood--

Pedestalled triumph? Evil there was good,

Want was the promise of supply, defect

Ensured completion,--where and when and how?

Leave that to the First Cause! Enough that now,

Here where I stand, this moment's me and mine,

Shows me what is, permits me to divine

What shall be. Wherefore? Nay, how otherwise?

Look at my pictures! What so glorifies

The body that the permeating soul

Finds there no particle elude control

Direct, or fail of duty,--most obscure

When most subservient? Did that Cause ensure

The soul such raptures as its fancy stings

Body to furnish when, uplift by wings

Of passion, here and now, it leaves the earth,

Loses itself above, where bliss has birth--

(Heaven, be the phrase)--did that same Cause contrive

Such solace for the body, soul must dive

At drop of fancy's pinion, condescend

To bury both alike on earth, our friend

And fellow, where minutely exquisite

Low lie the pleasures, now and here--no herb

But hides its marvel, peace no doubts perturb

In each small mystery of insect life--

--Shall the soul's Cause thus gift the soul, yet strife

Continue still of fears with hopes,--for why?

What if the Cause, whereof we now descry

So far the wonder-working, lack at last

Will, power, benevolence--a protoplast,

No consummator, sealing up the sum

Of all things,--past and present and to come--

Perfection? No, I have no doubt at all!

There's my amount of knowledge--great or small,

Sufficient for my needs: for see! advance

Its light now on that depth of ignorance

I shrank before from--yonder where the world

Lies wreck-strewn,--evil towering, prone good--hurled

From pride of place, on every side. For me

(Patience, beseech you!) knowledge can but be

Of good by knowledge of good's opposite--

Evil,--since, to distinguish wrong from right,

Both must be known in each extreme, beside--

(Or what means knowledge--to aspire or bide

Content with half-attaining? Hardly so!)

Made to know on, know ever, I must know

All to be known at any halting-stage

Of my soul's progress, such as earth, where wage

War, just for soul's instruction, pain with joy,

Folly with wisdom, all that works annoy

With all that quiets and contents,--in brief,

Good strives with evil.

"Now then for relief,

Friends, of your patience kindly curbed so long.

'What?' snarl you, 'is the fool's conceit thus strong--

Must the whole outside world in soul and sense

Suffer, that he grow sage at its expense?'

By no means! 'T is by merest touch of toe

I try--not trench on--ignorance, just know--

And so keep steady footing: how you fare,

Caught in the whirlpool--that 's the Cause's care,

Strong, wise, good,--this I know at any rate

In my own self,--but how may operate

With you--strength, wisdom, goodness--no least blink

Of knowledge breaks the darkness round me. Think!

Could I see plain, be somehow certified

All was illusion,--evil far and wide

Was good disguised,--why, out with one huge wipe

Goes knowledge from me. Type needs antitype:

As night needs day, as shine needs shade, so good

Needs evil: how were pity understood

Unless by pain? Make evident that pain

Permissibly masks pleasure--you abstain

From outstretch of the finger-tip that saves

A drowning fly. Who proffers help of hand

To weak Andromeda exposed on strand

At mercy of the monster? Were all true,

Help were not wanting: 'But 't is false,' cry you,

'Mere fancy-work of paint and brush!' No less,

Were mine the skill, the magic, to impress

Beholders with a confidence they saw

Life,--veritable flesh and blood in awe

Of just as true a sea-beast,--would they stare

Simply as now, or cry out, curse and swear,

Or call the gods to help, or catch up stick

And stone, according as their hearts were quick

Or sluggish? Well, some old artificer

Could do as much,--at least, so books aver,--

Able to make believe, while I, poor wight,

Make fancy, nothing more. Though wrong were right,

Could we but know--still wrong must needs seem wrong

To do right's service, prove men weak or strong,

Choosers of evil or of good. 'No such

Illusion possible!' Ah, friends, you touch

Just here my solid standing-place amid

The wash and welter, whence all doubts are bid

Back to the ledge they break against in foam,

Futility: my soul, and my soul's home

This body,--how each operates on each,

And how things outside, fact or feigning, teach

What good is and what evil,--just the same,

Be feigning or be fact the teacher,--blame

Diffidence nowise if, from this I judge

My point of vantage, not an inch I budge.

All--for myself--seems ordered wise and well

Inside it,--what reigns outside, who can tell?

Contrariwise, who needs be told 'The space

Which yields thee knowledge,--do its bounds embrace

Well-willing and wise-working, each at height?

Enongh: beyond thee lies the infinite--

Back to thy circumscription!'

"Back indeed!

Ending where I began--thus: retrocede,

Who will,--what comes first, take first, I advise!

Acquaint you with the body ere your eyes

Look upward: this Andromeda of mine--

Gaze on the beauty, Art hangs out for sign

There 's finer entertainment underneath.

Learn how they ministrate to life and death--

Those incommensurably marvellous

Contrivances which furnish forth the house

Where soul has sway! Though Master keep aloof,

Signs of his presence multiply from roof

To basement of the building. Look around,

Learn thoroughly,--no fear that you confound

Master with messuage! He 's away, no doubt,

But what if, all at once, you come upon

A startling proof--not that the Master gone

Was present lately--but that something--whence

Light comes--has pushed him into residence?

Was such the symbol's meaning,--old, uncouth--

That circle of the serpent, tail in mouth?

Only by looking low, ere looking high,

Comes penetration of the mystery."

Thanks! After sermonizing, psalmody!

Now praise with pencil, Painter! Fools attaint

Your fame, forsooth, because its power inclines

To livelier colors, more attractive lines

Than suit some orthodox sad sickly saint

--Gray male emaciation, haply streaked

Carmine by scourgings--or they want, far worse--

Some self-scathed woman, framed to bless not curse

Nature that loved the form whereon hate wreaked

The wrongs you see. No, rather paint some full

Benignancy, the first and foremost boon

Of youth, health, strength,--show beauty's May, ere June

Undo the bud's blush, leave a rose to cull

--No poppy, neither! yet less perfect-pure,

Divinely-precious with life's dew besprent.

Show saintliness that's simply innocent

Of guessing sinnership exists to cure

All in good time! In time let age advance

And teach that knowledge helps--not ignorance--

The healing of the nations. Let my spark

Quicken your tinder! Burn with--Joan of Arc!

Not at the end, nor midway when there grew

The brave delusions, when rare fancies flew

Before the eyes, and in the ears of her

Strange voices woke imperiously astir:

No,--paint the peasant girl all peasant-like,

Spirit and flesh--the hour about to strike

When this should be transfigured, that inflamed,

By heart's admonishing "Thy country shamed,

Thy king shut out of all his realm except

One sorry corner!" and to life forth leapt

The indubitable lightning "Can there be

Country and king's salvation--all through me?"

Memorize that burst's moment, Francis! Tush--

None of the nonsense-writing! Fitlier brush

Shall clear off fancy's film-work and let show

Not what the foolish feign but the wise know--

Ask Sainte-Beuve else!--or better, Quicherat,

The downright-digger into truth that's--Bah,

Bettered by fiction? Well, of fact thus much

Concerns you, that "of prudishness no touch

From first to last defaced the maid; anon,

Camp-use compelling"--what says D'Alençon

Her fast friend?--"though I saw while she undressed

How fair she was--especially her breast--

Never had I a wild thought!"--as indeed

I nowise doubt. Much less would she take heed--

When eve came, and the lake, the hills around

Were all one solitude and silence,--found

Barriered impenetrably safe about,--

Take heed of interloping eyes shut out,

But quietly permit the air imbibe

Her naked beauty till ... but hear the scribe!

_Now as she fain would bathe, one even-tide,_

_God's maid, this Joan, from the pool's edge she spied_

_The fair blue bird clowns call the Fisher-king:_

_And "'Las, sighed she, my Liege is such a thing_

_As thou, lord but of one poor lonely place_

_Out of his whole wide France: were mine the grace_

_To set my Dauphin free as thou, blue bird!"_

Properly Martin-fisher--that's the word,

Not yours nor mine: folk said the rustic oath

In common use with her was--"By my troth"?

No,--"By my Martin"! Paint this! Only, turn

Her face away--that face about to burn

Into an angel's when the time is ripe!

That task's beyond you. Finished, Francis? Wipe

Pencil, scrape palette, and retire content!

"_Omnia non omnibus_"--no harm is meant!

WITH GERARD DE LAIRESSE

_The Art of Painting_ by Gerard le Lairesse, translated by J. F.

Fritsch, was the "tome" to which Browning refers as having interested

him when he was a boy and so given rise to this poem. The song at the

end of the poem was first printed in a small volume called _The New

Amphion_, published for the Edinburgh University Union Fancy Fair in

1886.

Ah, but--because you were struck blind, could bless

Your sense no longer with the actual view

Of man and woman, those fair forms you drew

In happier days so duteously and true,--

Must I account my Gerard de Lairesse

All sorrow-smitten? He was hindered too

--Was this no hardship?--from producing, plain

To us who still have eyes, the pageantry

Which passed and passed before his busy brain

And, captured on his canvas, showed our sky

Traversed by flying shapes, earth stocked with brood

Of monsters,--centaurs bestial, satyrs lewd,--

Not without much Olympian glory, shapes

Of god and goddess in their gay escapes

From the severe serene: or haply paced

The antique ways, god-counselled, nymph-embraced,

Some early human kingly personage.

Such wonders of the teeming poet's-age

Were still to be: nay, these indeed began--

Are not the pictures extant?--till the ban

Of blindness struck both palette from his thumb

And pencil from his finger.

Blind--not dumb,

Else, Gerard, were my inmost bowels stirred

With pity beyond pity: no, the word

Was left upon your unmolested lips:

Your mouth unsealed, despite of eyes' eclipse,

Talked all brain's yearning into birth. I lack

Somehow the heart to wish your practice back

Which boasted hand's achievement in a score

Of veritable pictures, less or more,

Still to be seen: myself have seen them,--moved

To pay due homage to the man I loved

Because of that prodigious book he wrote

On Artistry's Ideal, by taking note,

Making acquaintance with his artist-work.

So my youth's piety obtained success

Of all too dubious sort: for, though it irk

To tell the issue, few or none would guess

From extant lines and colors, De Lairesse,

Your faculty, although each deftly-grouped

And aptly-ordered figure-piece was judged

Worthy a prince's purchase in its day.

Bearded experience bears not to be duped

Like boyish fancy: 'twas a boy that budged

No foot's breath from your visioned steps away

The while that memorable "Walk" he trudged

In your companionship,--the Book must say

Where, when and whither,--"Walk," come what come may,

No measurer of steps on this our globe

Shall ever match for marvels. Faustus' robe,

And Fortunatus' cap were gifts of price:

But--oh, your piece of sober sound advice

That artists should descry abundant worth

In trivial commonplace, nor groan at dearth

If fortune bade the painter's craft be plied

In vulgar town and country! Why despond

Because hemmed round by Dutch canals? Beyond

The ugly actual, lo, on every side

Imagination's limitless domain

Displayed a wealth of wondrous sounds and sights

Ripe to be realized by poet's brain

Acting on painter's brush! "Ye doubt? Poor wights,

What if I set example, go before,

While you come after, and we both explore

Holland turned Dreamland, taking care to note

Objects whereto my pupils may devote

Attention with advantage?"

III

So commenced

That "Walk" amid true wonders--none to you,

But huge to us ignobly common-sensed,

Purblind, while plain could proper optics view

In that old sepulchre by lightning split,

Whereof the lid bore carven,--any dolt

Imagines why,--Jove's very thunderbolt:

You who could straight perceive, by glance at it,

This tomb must needs be Phaeton's! In a trice,

Confirming that conjecture, close on hand,

Behold, half out, half in the ploughed-up sand,

A chariot-wheel explained its bolt-device:

What other than the Chariot of the Sun

Ever let drop the like? Consult the tome--

I bid inglorious tarriers-at-home--

For greater still surprise the while that "Walk"

Went on and on, to end as it begun,

Chokefull of chances, changes, every one

No whit less wondrous. What was there to balk

Us, who had eyes, from seeing? You with none

Missed not a marvel: wherefore? Let us talk.

Say am I right? Your sealed sense moved your mind,

Free from obstruction, to compassionate

Art's power left powerless, and supply the blind

With fancies worth all facts denied by fate.

Mind could invent things, add to--take away,

At pleasure, leave out trifles mean and base

Which vex the sight that cannot say them nay

But, where mind plays the master, have no place.

And bent on banishing was mind, be sure,

All except beauty from its mustered tribe

Of objects apparitional which lure

Painter to show and poet to describe--

That imagery of the antique song

Truer than truth's self. Fancy's rainbow-birth

Conceived 'mid clouds in Greece, could glance along

Your passage o'er Dutch veritable earth,

As with ourselves, who see, familiar throng

About our pacings men and women worth

Nowise a glance--so poets apprehend--

Since naught avails portraying them in verse:

While painters turn upon the heel, intend

To spare their work the critic's ready curse

Due to the daily and undignified.

I who myself contentedly abide

Awake, nor want the wings of dream,--who tramp

Earth's common surface, rough, smooth, dry or damp,

--I understand alternatives, no less

Conceive your soul's leap, Gerard de Lairesse!

How were it could I mingle false with true,

Boast, with the sights I see, your vision too?

Advantage would it prove or detriment

If I saw double? Could I gaze intent

On Dryope plucking the blossoms red,

As you, whereat her lote-tree writhed and bled!

Yet lose no gain, no hard fast wide-awake

Having and holding nature for the sake

Of nature only--nymph and lote-tree thus

Gained by the loss of fruit not fabulous,

Apple of English homesteads, where I see

Nor seek more than crisp buds a struggling bee

Uncrumples, caught by sweet he clambers through?

Truly, a moot point: make it plain to me,

Who, bee-like, sate sense with the simply true,

Nor seek to heighten that sufficiency

By help of feignings proper to the page--

Earth's surface-blank whereon the elder age

Put color, poetizing--poured rich life

On what were else a dead ground--nothingness--

Until the solitary world grew rife

With Joves and Junos, nymphs and satyrs. Yes,

The reason was, fancy composed the strife

'Twixt sense and soul: for sense, my De Lairesse,

Cannot content itself with outward things,

Mere beauty: soul must needs know whence there springs--

How, when and why--what sense but loves, nor lists

To know at all.

Not one of man's acquists

Ought he resignedly to lose, methinks:

So, point me out which was it of the links

Snapt first, from out the chain which used to bind

Our earth to heaven, and yet for you, since blind,

Subsisted still efficient and intact?

Oh, we can fancy too! but somehow fact

Has got to--say, not so much push aside

Fancy, as to declare its place supplied

By fact unseen but no less fact the same,

Which mind bids sense accept. Is mind to blame,

Or sense,--does that usurp, this abdicate?

First of all, as you "walked"--were it too late

For us to walk, if so we willed? Confess

We have the sober feet still, De Lairesse!

Why not the freakish brain too, that must needs

Supplement nature--not see flowers and weeds

Simply as such, but link with each and all

The ultimate perfection--what we call

Rightly enough the human shape divine?

The rose? No rose unless it disentwine

From Venus' wreath the while she bends to kiss

Her deathly love?

VII

Plain retrogression, this!

No, no: we poets go not back at all:

What you did we could do--from great to small

Sinking assuredly: if this world last

One moment longer when Man finds its Past

Exceed its Present--blame the Protoplast!

If we no longer see as you of old,

'Tis we see deeper. Progress for the bold!

You saw the body, 'tis the soul we see.

Try now! Bear witness while you walk with me,

I see as you: if we loose arms, stop pace,

'Tis that you stand still, I conclude the race

Without your company. Come, walk once more

The "Walk:" if I to-day as you of yore

See just like you the blind--then sight shall cry

--The whole long day quite gone through--victory!

VIII

Thunders on thunders, doubling and redoubling

Doom o'er the mountain, while a sharp white fire

Now shone, now sheared its rusty herbage, troubling

Hardly the fir-boles, now discharged its ire

Full where some pine-tree's solitary spire

Crashed down, defiant to the last: till--lo,

The motive of the malice!--all aglow,

Circled with flame there yawned a sudden rift

I' the rock-face, and I saw a form erect

Front and defy the outrage, while--as checked,

Chidden, beside him dauntless in the drift--

Cowered a heaped creature, wing and wing outspread

In deprecation o'er the crouching head

Still hungry for the feast foregone awhile.

O thou, of scorn's unconquerable smile,

Was it when this--Jove's feathered fury--slipped

Gore-glutted from the heart's core whence he ripped--

This eagle-hound--neither reproach nor prayer--

Baffled, in one more fierce attempt to tear

Fate's secret from thy safeguard,--was it then

That all these thunders rent earth, ruined air

To reach thee, pay thy patronage of men?

He thundered,--to withdraw, as beast to lair,

Before the triumph on thy pallid brow.

Gather the night again about thee now,

Hate on, love ever! Morn is breaking there--

The granite ridge pricks through the mist, turns gold

As wrong turns right. O laughters manifold

Of ocean's ripple at dull earth's despair!

But morning's laugh sets all the crags alight

Above the baffled tempest: tree and tree

Stir themselves from the stupor of the night,

And every strangled branch resumes its right

To breathe, shakes loose dark's clinging dregs, waves free

In dripping glory. Prone the runnels plunge,

While earth, distent with moisture like a sponge,

Smokes up, and leaves each plant its gem to see,

Each grass-blade's glory-glitter. Had I known

The torrent now turned river?--masterful

Making its rush o'er tumbled ravage--stone

And stub which barred the froths and foams: no bull

Ever broke bounds in formidable sport

More overwhelmingly, till lo, the spasm

Sets him to dare that last mad leap: report

Who may--his fortunes in the deathly chasm

That swallows him in silence! Rather turn

Whither, upon the upland, pedestalled

Into the broad day-splendor, whom discern

These eyes but thee, supreme one, rightly called

Moon-maid in heaven above and, here below,

Earth's huntress-queen? I note the garb succinct

Saving from smirch that purity of snow

From breast to knee--snow's self with just the tinct

Of the apple-blossom's heart-blush. Ah, the bow

Slack-strung her fingers grasp, where, ivory-linked

Horn curving blends with horn, a moonlike pair

Which mimic the brow's crescent sparkling so--

As if a star's live restless fragment winked

Proud yet repugnant, captive in such hair!

What hope along the hillside, what far bliss

Lets the crisp hair-plaits fall so low they kiss

Those lucid shoulders? Must a morn so blithe

Needs have its sorrow when the twang and hiss

Tell that from out thy sheaf one shaft makes writhe

Its victim, thou unerring Artemis?

Why did the chamois stand so fair a mark

Arrested by the novel shape he dreamed

Was bred of liquid marble in the dark

Depths of the mountain's womb which ever teemed

With novel births of wonder? Not one spark

Of pity in that steel-gray glance which gleamed

At the poor hoof's protesting as it stamped

Idly the granite? Let me glide unseen

From thy proud presence: well mayst thou be queen

Of all those strange and sudden deaths which damped

So oft Love's torch and Hymen's taper lit

For happy marriage till the maidens paled

And perished on the temple-step, assailed

By--what except to envy must man's wit

Impute that sure implacable release

Of life from warmth and joy? But death means peace.

Noon is the conqueror,--not a spray, nor leaf,

Nor herb, nor blossom but has rendered up

Its morning dew: the valley seemed one cup

Of cloud-smoke, but the vapor's reign was brief;

Sun-smitten, see, it hangs--the filmy haze--

Gray-garmenting the herbless mountain-side,

To soothe the day's sharp glare: while far and wide

Above unclouded burns the sky, one blaze

With fierce immitigable blue, no bird

Ventures to spot by passage. E'en of peaks

Which still presume there, plain each pale point speaks

In wan transparency of waste incurred

By over-daring: far from me be such!

Deep in the hollow, rather, where combine

Tree, shrub and brier to roof with shade and cool

The remnant of some lily-strangled pool,

Edged round with mossy fringing soft and fine.

Smooth lie the bottom slabs, and overhead

Watch elder, bramble, rose, and service-tree

And one beneficent rich barberry

Jewelled all over with fruit-pendants red.

What have I seen! O Satyr, well I know

How sad thy case, and what a world of woe

Was hid by the brown visage furry-framed

Only for mirth: who otherwise could think--

Marking thy mouth gape still on laughter's brink,

Thine eyes a-swim with merriment unnamed

But haply guessed at by their furtive wink?

And all the while a heart was panting sick

Behind that shaggy bulwark of thy breast--

Passion it was that made those breath-bursts thick

I took for mirth, subsiding into rest.

So, it was Lyda--she of all the train

Of forest-thridding nymphs,--'twas only she

Turned from thy rustic homage in disdain,

Saw but that poor uncouth outside of thee,

And, from her circling sisters, mocked a pain

Echo had pitied--whom Pan loved in vain--

For she was wishful to partake thy glee,

Mimic thy mirth--who loved her not again,

Savage for Lyda's sake. She crouches there--

Thy cruel beauty, slumberously laid

Supine on heaped-up beast-skins, unaware

Thy steps have traced her to the briery glade,

Thy greedy hands disclose the cradling lair,

Thy hot eyes reach and revel on the maid!

Now, what should this be for? The sun's decline

Seems as he lingered lest he lose some act

Dread and decisive, some prodigious fact

Like thunder from the safe sky's sapphirine

About to alter earth's conditions, packed

With fate for nature's self that waits, aware

What mischief unsuspected in the air

Menaces momently a cataract.

Therefore it is that yonder space extends

Untrenched upon by any vagrant tree,

Shrub, weed well-nigh; they keep their bounds, leave free

The platform for what actors? Foes or friends,

Here come they trooping silent: heaven suspends

Purpose the while they range themselves. I see!

Bent on a battle, two vast powers agree

This present and no after-contest ends

One or the other's grasp at rule in reach

Over the race of man--host fronting host,

As statue statue fronts--wrath-molten each,

Solidified by hate,--earth halved almost,

To close once more in chaos. Yet two shapes

Show prominent, each from the universe

Of minions round about him, that disperse

Like cloud-obstruction when a bolt escapes.

Who flames first? Macedonian, is it thou?

Ay, and who fronts thee, King Darius, drapes

His form with purple, fillet-folds his brow.

XII

What, then the long day dies at last? Abrupt

The sun that seemed, in stooping, sure to melt

Our mountain-ridge, is mastered: black the belt

Of westward crags, his gold could not corrupt,

Barriers again the valley, lets the flow

Of lavish glory waste itself away

--Whither? For new climes, fresh eyes breaks the day!

Night was not to be baffled. If the glow

Were all that's gone from us! Did clouds, afloat

So filmily but now, discard no rose,

Sombre throughout the fleeciness that grows

A sullen uniformity. I note

Rather displeasure,--in the overspread

Change from the swim of gold to one pale lead

Oppressive to malevolence,--than late

Those amorous yearnings when the aggregate

Of cloudlets pressed that each and all might sate

Its passion and partake in relics red

Of day's bequeathment: now, a frown instead

Estranges, and affrights who needs must fare

On and on till his journey ends: but where?

Caucasus? Lost now in the night. Away

And far enough lies that Arcadia.

The human heroes tread the world's dark way

No longer. Yet I dimly see almost--

Yes, for my last adventure! 'Tis a ghost.

So drops away the beauty! There he stands

Voiceless, scarce strives with deprecating hands ...

XIII

Enough! Stop further fooling, De Lairesse!

My fault, not yours! Some fitter way express

Heart's satisfaction that the Past indeed

Is past, gives way before Life's best and last,

The all-including Future! What were life

Did soul stand still therein, forego her strife

Through the ambiguous Present to the goal

Of some all-reconciling Future? Soul,

Nothing has been which shall not bettered be

Hereafter,--leave the root, by law's decree

Whence springs the ultimate and perfect tree!

Busy thee with unearthing root? Nay, climb--

Quit trunk, branch, leaf and flower--reach, rest sublime

Where fruitage ripens in the blaze of day!

O'erlook, despise, forget, throw flower away,

Intent on progress? No whit more than stop

Ascent therewith to dally, screen the top

Sufficiency of yield by interposed

Twistwork bold foot gets free from. Wherefore glozed

The poets--"Dream afresh old godlike shapes,

Recapture ancient fable that escapes,

Push back reality, repeople earth

With vanished falseness, recognize no worth

In fact new-born unless 't is rendered back

Pallid by fancy, as the western rack

Of fading cloud bequeaths the lake some gleam

Of its gone glory!"

XIV

Let things be--not seem,

I counsel rather,--do, and nowise dream!

Earth's young significance is all to learn:

The dead Greek lore lies buried in the urn

Where who seeks fire finds ashes. Ghost, forsooth!

What was the best Greece babbled of as truth?

"A shade, a wretched nothing,--sad, thin, drear,

Cold, dark, it holds on to the lost loves here,

If hand have haply sprinkled o'er the dead

Three charitable dust-heaps, made mouth red

One moment by the sip of sacrifice:

Just so much comfort thaws the stubborn ice

Slow-thickening upward till it choke at length

The last faint flutter craving--not for strength,

Not beauty, not the riches and the rule

O'er men that made life life indeed." Sad school

Was Hades! Gladly,--might the dead but slink

To life back,--to the dregs once more would drink

Each interloper, drain the humblest cup

Fate mixes for humanity.

Cheer up,--

Be death with me, as with Achilles erst,

Of Man's calamities the last and worst:

Take it so! By proved potency that still

Makes perfect, be assured, come what come will,

What once lives never dies--what here attains

To a beginning, has no end, still gains

And never loses aught: when, where, and how--

Lies in Law's lap. What 's death then? Even now

With so much knowledge is it hard to bear

Brief interposing ignorance? Is care

For a creation found at fault just there--

There where the heart breaks bond and outruns time,

To reach not follow what shall be?

XVI

Here 's rhyme

Such as one makes now,--say, when Spring repeats

That miracle the Greek Bard sadly greets:

"Spring for the tree and herb--no Spring for us!"

Let Spring come: why, a man salutes her thus:

Dance, yellows and whites and reds,--

Lead your gay orgy, leaves, stalks, heads

Astir with the wind in the tulip-beds!

There 's sunshine; scarcely a wind at all

Disturbs starved grass and daisies small

On a certain mound by a churchyard wall.

Daisies and grass be my heart's bedfellows

On the mound wind spares and sunshine mellows:

Dance you, reds and whites and yellows!

WITH CHARLES AVISON

The manuscript of the _Grand March_ written by Avison was in the

possession of Browning's father, and a copy is given at the end of the

poem. The _Relfe_ who is two or three times mentioned was Browning's

teacher of music, who was a learned contrapuntist.

How strange!--but, first of all, the little fact

Which led my fancy forth. This bitter morn

Showed me no object in the stretch forlorn

Of garden-ground beneath my window, backed

By yon worn wall wherefrom the creeper, tacked

To clothe its brickwork, hangs now, rent and racked

By five months' cruel winter,--showed no torn

And tattered ravage worse for eyes to see

Than just one ugly space of clearance, left

Bare even of the bones which used to be

Warm wrappage, safe embracement: this one cleft--

--Oh, what a life and beauty filled it up

Startlingly, when methought the rude clay cup

Ran over with poured bright wine! 'T was a bird

Breast-deep there, tugging at his prize, deterred

No whit by the fast-falling snow-flake: gain

Such prize my blackcap must by might and main--

The cloth-shred, still a-flutter from its nail

That fixed a spray once. Now, what told the tale

To thee,--no townsman but born orchard-thief,--

That here--surpassing moss-tuft, beard from sheaf

Of sun-scorched barley, horsehairs long and stout,

All proper country-pillage--here, no doubt,

Was just the scrap to steal should line thy nest

Superbly? Off he flew, his bill possessed

The booty sure to set his wife's each wing

Greenly a-quiver. How they climb and cling,

Hang parrot-wise to bough, these blackcaps! Strange

Seemed to a city-dweller that the finch

Should stray so far to forage: at a pinch,

Was not the fine wool's self within his range

--Filchings on every fence? But no: the need

Was of this rag of manufacture, spoiled

By art, and yet by nature near unsoiled,

New-suited to what scheming finch would breed

In comfort, this uncomfortable March.

Yet--by the first pink blossom on the larch!--

This was scarce stranger than that memory,--

In want of what should cheer the stay-at-home,

My soul,--must straight clap pinion, well-nigh roam

A century back, nor once close plume, descry

The appropriate rag to plunder, till she pounced--

Pray, on what relic of a brain long still?

What old-world work proved forage for the bill

Of memory the far-flyer? "March" announced,

I verily believe, the dead and gone

Name of a music-maker: one of such

In England as did little or did much,

But, doing, had their day once. Avison!

Singly and solely for an air of thine,

Bold-stepping "March," foot stept to ere my hand

Could stretch an octave, I o'erlooked the band

Of majesties familiar, to decline

On thee--not too conspicuous on the list

Of worthies who by help of pipe or wire

Expressed in sound rough rage or soft desire--

Thou, whilom of Newcastle organist!

III

So much could one--well, thinnish air effect!

Am I ungrateful? for, your March, styled "Grand,"

Did veritably seem to grow, expand,

And greaten up to title as, unchecked,

Dream-marchers marched, kept marching, slow and sure,

In time, to tune, unchangeably the same,

From nowhere into nowhere,--out they came,

Onward they passed, and in they went. No lure

Of novel modulation pricked the flat

Forthright persisting melody,--no hint

That discord, sound asleep beneath the flint,

Struck--might spring spark-like, claim due tit-for-tat,

Quenched in a concord. No! Yet, such the might

Of quietude's immutability,

That somehow coldness gathered warmth, well-nigh

Quickened--which could not be!--grew burning-bright

With fife-shriek, cymbal-clash and trumpet-blare,

To drum-accentuation: pacing turned

Striding, and striding grew gigantic, spurned

At last the narrow space 'twixt earth and air,

So shook me back into my sober self.

And where woke I? The March had set me down

There whence I plucked the measure, as his brown

Frayed flannel-bit my blackcap. Great John Relfe,

Master of mine, learned, redoubtable,

It little needed thy consummate skill

To fitly figure such a bass! The key

Was--should not memory play me false--well, C.

Ay, with the Greater Third, in Triple Time,

Three crochets to a bar: no change, I grant,

Except from Tonic down to Dominant.

And yet--and yet--if I could put in rhyme

The manner of that marching!--which had stopped

--I wonder, where?--but that my weak self dropped

From out the ranks, to rub eyes disentranced

And feel that, after all the way advanced,

Back must I foot it, I and my compeers,

Only to reach, across a hundred years,

The bandsman Avison whose little book

And large tune thus had led me the long way

(As late a rag my blackcap) from to-day

And to-day's music-manufacture,--Brahms,

Wagner, Dvorak, Liszt,--to where--trumpets, shawms,

Show yourselves joyful!--Handel reigns--supreme?

By no means! Buononcini's work is theme

For fit laudation of the impartial few:

(We stand in England, mind you!) Fashion too

Favors Geminiani--of those choice

Concertos: nor there wants a certain voice

Raised in thy favor likewise, famed Pepusch

Dear to our great-grandfathers! In a bush

Of Doctor's wig, they prized thee timing beats

While Greenway trilled "Alexis." Such were feats

Of music in thy day--dispute who list--

Avison, of Newcastle organist!

And here 's your music all alive once more--

As once it was alive, at least: just so

The figured worthies of a waxwork-show

Attest--such people, years and years ago,

Looked thus when outside death had life below,

--Could say "We are now" not "We were of yore,"

--"Feel how our pulses leap!" and not "Explore--

Explain why quietude has settled o'er

Surface once all awork!" Ay, such a "Suite"

Roused heart to rapture, such a "Fugue" would catch

Soul heavenwards up, when time was: why attach

Blame to exhausted faultlessness, no match

For fresh achievement? Feat once--ever feat!

How can completion grow still more complete?

Hear Avison! He tenders evidence

That music in his day as much absorbed

Heart and soul then as Wagner's music now,

Perfect from centre to circumference--

Orbed to the full can be but fully orbed:

And yet--and yet--whence comes it that "O Thou"--

Sighed by the soul at eve to Hesperus--

Will not again take wing and fly away

(Since fatal Wagner fixed it fast for us)

In some unmodulated minor? Nay,

Even by Handel's help!

I state it thus:

There is no truer truth obtainable

By Man than comes of music. "Soul"--(accept

A word which vaguely names what no adept

In word-use fits and fixes so that still

Thing shall not slip word's fetter and remain

Innominate as first, yet, free again,

Is no less recognized the absolute

Fact underlying that same other fact

Concerning which no cavil can dispute

Our nomenclature when we call it "Mind"--

Something not Matter)--"Soul," who seeks shall find

Distinct beneath that something. You exact

An illustrative image? This may suit.

VII

We see a work: the worker works behind,

Invisible himself. Suppose his act

Be to o'erarch a gulf: he digs, transports,

Shapes and, through enginery--all sizes, sorts,

Lays stone by stone until a floor compact

Proves our bridged causeway. So works Mind--by stress

Of faculty, with loose facts, more or less,

Builds up our solid knowledge: all the same,

Underneath rolls what Mind may hide not tame,

An element which works beyond our guess,

Soul, the unsounded sea--whose lift of surge,

Spite of all superstructure, lets emerge,

In flower and foam, Feeling from out the deeps

Mind arrogates no mastery upon--

Distinct indisputably. Has there gone

To dig up, drag forth, render smooth from rough

Mind's flooring,--operosity enough?

Still the successive labor of each inch,

Who lists may learn: from the last turn of winch

That let the polished slab-stone find its place,

To the first prod of pickaxe at the base

Of the unquarried mountain,--what was all

Mind's varied process except natural,

Nay, easy even, to descry, describe,

After our fashion? "So worked Mind: its tribe

Of senses ministrant above, below,

Far, near, or now or haply long ago

Brought to pass knowledge." But Soul's sea,--drawn whence,

Fed how, forced whither,--by what evidence

Of ebb and flow, that 's felt beneath the tread,

Soul has its course 'neath Mind's work overhead,--

Who tells of, tracks to source the founts of Soul?

Yet wherefore heaving sway and restless roll

This side and that, except to emulate

Stability above? To match and mate

Feeling with knowledge,--make as manifest

Soul's work as Mind's work, turbulence as rest,

Hates, loves, joys, woes, hopes, fears, that rise and sink

Ceaselessly, passion's transient flit and wink,

A ripple's tinting or a spume-sheet's spread

Whitening the wave,--to strike all this life dead,

Run mercury into a mould like lead,

And henceforth have the plain result to show--

How we Feel, hard and fast as what we Know--

This were the prize and is the puzzle!--which

Music essays to solve: and here 's the hitch

That balks her of full triumph else to boast.

VIII

All Arts endeavor this, and she the most

Attains thereto, yet fails of touching: why?

Does Mind get Knowledge from Art's ministry?

What 's known once is known ever: Arts arrange,

Dissociate, re-distribute, interchange

Part with part, lengthen, broaden, high or deep

Construct their bravest,--still such pains produce

Change, not creation: simply what lay loose

At first lies firmly after, what design

Was faintly traced in hesitating line

Once on a time, grows firmly resolute

Henceforth and evermore. Now, could we shoot

Liquidity into a mould,--some way

Arrest Soul's evanescent moods, and keep

Unalterably still the forms that leap

To life for once by help of Art!--which yearns

To save its capture: Poetry discerns,

Painting is 'ware of passion's rise and fall,

Bursting, subsidence, intermixture--all

A-seethe within the gulf. Each Art a-strain

Would stay the apparition,--nor in vain:

The Poet's word-mesh, Painter's sure and swift

Color-and-line-throw--proud the prize they lift!

Thus felt Man and thus looked Man,--passions caught

I' the midway swim of sea,--not much, if aught,

Of nether-brooding loves, hates, hopes and fears,

Enwombed past Art's disclosure. Fleet the years,

And still the Poet's page holds Helena

At gaze from topmost Troy--"But where are they,

My brothers, in the armament I name

Hero by hero? Can it be that shame

For their lost sister holds them from the war?"

--Knowing not they already slept afar

Each of them in his own dear native land.

Still on the Painter's fresco, from the hand

Of God takes Eve the life-spark whereunto

She trembles up from nothingness. Outdo

Both of them, Music! Dredging deeper yet,

Drag into day,--by sound, thy master-net,--

The abysmal bottom-growth, ambiguous thing

Unbroken of a branch, palpitating

With limbs' play and life's semblance! There it lies.

Marvel and mystery, of mysteries

And marvels, most to love and laud thee for!

Save it from chance and change we most abhor!

Give momentary feeling permanence,

So that thy capture hold, a century hence,

Truth's very heart of truth as, safe to-day,

The Painter's Eve, the Poet's Helena

Still rapturously bend, afar still throw

The wistful gaze! Thanks, Homer, Angelo!

Could Music rescue thus from Soul's profound,

Give feeling immortality by sound,

Then were she queenliest of Arts! Alas--

As well expect the rainbow not to pass!

"Praise 'Radamisto'--love attains therein

To perfect utterance! Pity--what shall win

Thy secret like 'Rinaldo'?"--so men said:

Once all was perfume--now, the flower is dead--

They spied tints, sparks have left the spar! Love, hate,

Joy, fear, survive,--alike importunate

As ever to go walk the world again,

Nor ghost-like pant for outlet all in vain

Till Music loose them, fit each filmily

With form enough to know and name it by

For any recognizer sure of ken

And sharp of ear, no grosser denizen

Of earth than needs be. Nor to such appeal

Is Music long obdurate: off they steal--

How gently, dawn-doomed phantoms! back come they

Full-blooded with new crimson of broad day--

Passion made palpable once more. Ye look

Your last on Handel? Gaze your first on Gluck!

Why wistful search, O waning ones, the chart

Of stars for you while Haydn, while Mozart

Occupies heaven? These also, fanned to fire,

Flamboyant wholly,--so perfections tire,--

Whiten to wanness, till ... let others note

The ever-new invasion!

I devote

Rather my modicum of parts to use

What power may yet avail to re-infuse

(In fancy, please you!) sleep that looks like death

With momentary liveliness, lend breath

To make the torpor half inhale. O Relfe,

An all-unworthy pupil, from the shelf

Of thy laboratory, dares unstop

Bottle, ope box, extract thence pinch and drop

Of dusts and dews a many thou didst shrine

Each in its right receptacle, assign

To each its proper office, letter large

Label and label, then with solemn charge,

Reviewing learnedly the list complete

Of chemical reactives, from thy feet

Push down the same to me, attent below,

Power in abundance: armed wherewith I go

To play the enlivener. Bring good antique stuff!

Was it alight once? Still lives spark enough

For breath to quicken, run the smouldering ash

Red right-through. What, "stone-dead" were fools so rash

As style my Avison, because he lacked

Modern appliance, spread out phrase unracked

By modulations fit to make each hair

Stiffen upon his wig? See there--and there!

I sprinkle my reactives, pitch broadcast

Discords and resolutions, turn aghast

Melody's easy-going, jostle law

With license, modulate (no Bach in awe)

Change enharmonically (Hudl to thank)

And lo, upstart the flamelets,--what was blank

Turns scarlet, purple, crimson! Straightway scanned

By eyes that like new lustre--Love once more

Yearns through the Largo, Hatred as before

Rages in the Rubato: e'en thy March,

My Avison, which, sooth to say--(ne'er arch

Eyebrows in anger!)--timed, in Georgian years

The step precise of British Grenadiers

To such a nicety,--if score I crowd,

If rhythm I break, if beats I vary,--tap

At bar's off-starting turns true thunder-clap,

Eyer the pace augmented till--what 's here?

Titanic striding toward Olympus!

Fear

No such irreverent innovation! Still

Glide on, go rolling, water-like, at will--

Nay, were thy melody in monotone,

The due three-parts dispensed with!

This alone

Comes of my tiresome talking: Music's throne

Seats somebody whom somebody unseats,

And whom in turn--by who knows what new feats

Of strength--shall somebody as sure push down,

Consign him dispossessed of sceptre, crown,

And orb imperial--whereto? Never dream

That what once lived shall ever die! They seem

Dead--do they? lapsed things lost in limbo? Bring

Our life to kindle theirs, and straight each king

Starts, you shall see, stands up, from head to foot

No inch that is not Purcell! Wherefore? (Suit

Measure to subject, first--no marching on

Yet in thy bold C major, Avison,

As suited step a minute since: no: wait--

Into the minor key first modulate--

Gently with A, now--in the Lesser Third!)

XII

Of all the lamentable debts incurred

By Man through buying knowledge, this were worst:

That he should find his last gain prove his first

Was futile--merely nescience absolute,

Not knowledge in the bud which holds a fruit

Haply undreamed of in the soul's Spring-tide,

Pursed in the petals Summer opens wide,

And Autumn, withering, rounds to perfect ripe,--

Not this,--but ignorance, a blur to wipe

From human records, late it graced so much.

"Truth--this attainment? Ah, but such and such

Beliefs of yore seemed inexpugnable

When we attained them! E'en as they, so will

This their successor have the due morn, noon,

Evening and night--just as an old-world tune

Wears out and drops away, until who hears

Smilingly questions--'This it was brought tears

Once to all eyes,--this roused heart's rapture once?'

So will it be with truth that, for the nonce,

Styles itself truth perennial: 'ware its wile!

Knowledge turns nescience,--foremost on the file,

Simply proves first of our delusions."

XIII

Now--

Blare it forth, bold C major! Lift thy brow,

Man, the immortal, that wast never fooled

With gifts no gifts at all, nor ridiculed--

Man knowing--he who nothing knew! As Hope,

Fear, Joy, and Grief,--though ampler stretch and scope

They seek and find in novel rhythm, fresh phrase,--

Were equally existent in far days

Of Music's dim beginning--even so,

Truth was at full within thee long ago,

Alive as now it takes what latest shape

May startle thee by strangeness. Truths escape

Time's insufficient garniture: they fade,

They fall--those sheathings now grown sere, whose aid

Was infinite to truth they wrapped, saved fine

And free through March frost: May dews crystalline

Nourish truth merely,--does June boast the fruit

As--not new vesture merely but, to boot,

Novel creation? Soon shall fade and fall

Myth after myth--the husk-like lies I call

New truth's corolla-safeguard: Autumn comes,

So much the better!

XIV

Therefore--bang the drums,

Blow the trumpets, Avison! March-motive? that's

Truth which endures resetting. Sharps and flats,

Lavish at need, shall dance athwart thy score

When ophicleide and bombardon's uproar

Mate the approaching trample, even now

Big in the distance--or my ears deceive--

Of federated England, fitly weave

March-music for the Future!

Or suppose

Back, and not forward, transformation goes?

Once more some sable-stoled procession--say,

From Little-ease to Tyburn--wends its way,

Out of the dungeon to the gallows-tree

Where heading, hacking, hanging is to be

Of half-a-dozen recusants--this day

Three hundred years ago! How duly drones

Elizabethan plain-song--dim antique

Grown clarion-clear the while I humbly wreak

A classic vengeance on thy March! It moans--

Larges and Longs and Breves displacing quite

Crotchet-and-quaver pertness--brushing bars

Aside and filling vacant sky with stars

Hidden till now that day return to night.

XVI

Nor night nor day: one purpose move us both,

Be thy mood mine! As thou wast minded, Man 's

The cause our music champions: I were loth

To think we cheered our troop to Preston Pans

Ignobly: back to times of England's best!

Parliament stands for privilege--life and limb

Guards Hollis, Haselrig, Strode, Hampden, Pym,

The famous Five. There 's rumor of arrest.

Bring up the Train Bands, Southwark! They protest:

Shall we not all join chorus? Hark the hymn,

--Rough, rude, robustious--homely heart a-throb,

Harsh voice a-hallo, as beseems the mob!

How good is noise! what 's silence but despair

Of making sound match gladness never there?

Give me some great glad "subject," glorious Bach,

Where cannon-roar not organ-peal we lack!

Join in, give voice robustious rude and rough,--

Avison helps--so heart lend noise enough!

Fife, trump, drum, sound! and singers then

Marching say "Pym, the man of men!"

Up, heads, your proudest,--out throats, your loudest--

"Somerset's Pym!"

Strafford from the block, Eliot from the den,

Foes, friends, shout "Pym, our citizen!"

Wail, the foes he quelled,--hail, the friends he held,

"Tavistock's Pym!"

Hearts prompt heads, hands that ply the pen

Teach babes unborn the where and when.

--Tyrants, he braved them,--patriots, he saved them--

"Westminster's Pym!"

[Music]

FUST AND HIS FRIENDS

AN EPILOGUE

(_Inside the House of Fust, Mayence, 1457._)

_First Friend._ Up, up, up--next step of the staircase

Lands us, lo, at the chamber of dread!

_Second Friend._ Locked and barred?

_Third Friend._ Door open--the rare case!

_Fourth Friend._ Ay, there he leans--lost wretch!

_Fifth Friend._ His head

Sunk on his desk 'twixt his arms outspread!

* * * * *

_Sixth Friend._ Hallo,--wake, man, ere God thunderstrike Mayence

--Mulct for thy sake who art Satan's, John Fust!

Satan installed here, God's rule in abeyance,

Mayence some morning may crumble to dust.

Answer our questions thou shalt and thou must!

_Seventh Friend._ Softly and fairly! Wherefore a-gloom?

Greet us, thy gossipry, cousin and sib!

Raise the forlorn brow, Fust! Make room--

Let daylight through arms which, enfolding thee, crib

From those clenched lids the comfort of sunshine!

_First Friend._ So glib

Thy tongue slides to "comfort" already? Not mine!

Behoove us deal roundly: the wretch is distraught

--Too well I guess wherefore! Behooves a Divine

--Such as I, by grace, boast me--to threaten one caught

In the enemy's toils,--setting "comfort" at naught.

_Second Friend._ Nay, Brother, so hasty? I heard--nor long since--

Of a certain Black Art'sman who,--helplessly bound

By rash pact with Satan,--through paying--why mince

The matter?--fit price to the Church,--safe and sound

Full a year after death in his grave-clothes was found.

Whereas 't is notorious the Fiend claims his due

During lifetime,--comes clawing, with talons aflame,

The soul from the flesh-rags left smoking and blue:

So it happed with John Faust; lest John Fust fare the same,--

Look up, I adjure thee by God's holy name!

For neighbors and friends--no foul hell-brood flock we!

Saith Solomon "Words of the wise are as goads:"

Ours prick but to startle from torpor, set free

Soul and sense from death's drowse!

_First Friend._ And soul, wakened, unloads

Much sin by confession: no mere palinodes!

--"I was youthful and wanton, am old yet no sage:

When angry I cursed, struck and slew: did I want?

Right and left did I rob: though no war I dared wage

With the Church (God forbid!)--harm her least ministrant--

Still I outraged all else. Now that strength is grown scant,

"I am probity's self"--no such bleatings as these!

But avowal of guilt so enormous, it balks

Tongue's telling. Yet penitence prompt may appease

God's wrath at thy bond with the Devil who stalks

--Strides hither to strangle thee!

_Fust._ Childhood so talks.--

Not rare wit nor ripe age--ye boast them, my neighbors!--

Should lay such a charge on your townsman, this Fust

Who, known for a life spent in pleasures and labors

If freakish yet venial, could scarce be induced

To traffic with fiends.

_First Friend._ So, my words have unloosed

A plie from those pale lips corrugate but now?

_Fust._ Lost count me, yet not as ye lean to surmise.

_First Friend._ To surmise? to establish! Unbury that brow!

Look up, that thy judge may read clear in thine eyes!

_Second Friend._ By your leave, Brother Barnabite! Mine to advise!

--Who arraign thee, John Fust! What was bruited erewhile

Now bellows through Mayence. All cry--thou hast trucked

Salvation away for lust's solace! Thy smile

Takes its hue from hell's smoulder!

_Fust._ Too certain! I sucked

--Got drunk at the nipple of sense.

_Second Friend._ Thou hast ducked--

Art drowned there, say rather! Faugh--fleshly disport!

How else but by help of Sir Belial didst win

That Venus-like lady, no drudge of thy sort

Could lure to become his accomplice in sin?

Folk nicknamed her Helen of Troy!

_First Friend._ Best begin

At the very beginning. Thy father,--all knew,

A mere goldsmith ...

_Fust._ Who knew him, perchance may know this--

He dying left much gold and jewels no few:

Whom these help to court with, but seldom shall miss

The love of a leman: true witchcraft, I wis!

* * * * *

_First Friend_. Dost flout me? 'T is said, in debauchery's guild

Admitted prime guttler and guzzler--O swine!--

To honor thy headship, those tosspots so swilled

That out of their table there sprouted a vine

Whence each claimed a cluster, awaiting thy sign

To out knife, off mouthful: when--who could suppose

Such malice in magic?--each sot woke and found

Cold steel but an inch from the neighbor's red nose

He took for a grape-bunch!

_Fust._ Does that so astound

Sagacity such as ye boast,--who surround

Your mate with eyes staring, hairs standing erect

At his magical feats? Are good burghers unversed

In the humors of toping? Full oft, I suspect,

Ye, counting your fingers, call thumbkin their first,

And reckon a groat every guilder disbursed.

What marvel if wags, while the skinker fast brimmed

Their glass with rare tipple's enticement, should gloat

--Befooled and beflustered--through optics drink-dimmed--

On this draught and that, till each found in his throat

Our Rhenish smack rightly as Raphal? For, note--

They fancied--their fuddling deceived them so grossly--

That liquor sprang out of the table itself

Through gimlet-holes drilled there,--nor noticed how closely

The skinker kept plying my guests, from the shelf

O'er their heads, with the potable madness. No elf

Had need to persuade them a vine rose umbrageous,

Fruit-bearing, thirst-quenching! Enough! I confess

To many such fool-pranks, but none so outrageous

That Satan was called in to help me: excess

I own to, I grieve at--no more and no less.

* * * * *

_Second Friend._ Strange honors were heaped on thee--medal for

breast,

Chain for neck, sword for thigh: not a lord of the land

But acknowledged thee peer! What ambition possessed

A goldsmith by trade, with craft's grime on his hand,

To seek such associates?

_Fust._ Spare taunts! Understand--

I submit me! Of vanities under the sun,

Pride seized me at last as concupiscence first,

Crapulosity ever: true Fiends, every one,

Haled this way and that my poor soul: thus amerced--

Forgive and forget me!

_First Friend._ Had flesh sinned the worst,

Yet help were in counsel: the Church could absolve:

But say not men truly thou barredst escape

By signing and sealing ...

_Second Friend._ On me must devolve

The task of extracting ...

The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning Cambridge Edition · 第 32 / 34 章