_First Friend._ Shall Barnabites ape

Us Dominican experts?

_Seventh Friend._ Nay, Masters,--agape

When Hell yawns for a soul, 't is myself claim the task

Of extracting, by just one plain question, God's truth!

Where 's Peter Genesheim thy partner? I ask

Why, cloistered up still in thy room, the pale youth

Slaves tongue-tied--thy trade brooks no tattling forsooth!

No less he, thy _famulus_, suffers entrapping,

Succumbs to good fellowship: barrel a-broach

Runs freely nor needs any subsequent tapping:

Quoth Peter, "That room, none but I dare approach,

Holds secrets will help me to ride in my coach."

He prattles, we profit: in brief, he assures

Thou hast taught him to speak so that all men may hear

--Each alike, wide world over, Jews, Pagans, Turks, Moors,

The same as we Christians--speech heard far and near

At one and the same magic moment!

_Fust._ That 's clear!

Said he--how?

_Seventh Friend._ Is it like he was licensed to learn?

Who doubts but thou dost this by aid of the Fiend?

Is it so? So it is, for thou smilest! Go, burn

To ashes, since such proves thy portion, unscreened

By bell, book and candle! Yet lately I weened

Balm yet was in Gilead,--some healing in store

For the friend of my bosom. Men said thou wast sunk

In a sudden despondency: not, as before,

Fust gallant and gay with his pottle and punk,

But sober, sad, sick as one yesterday drunk!

* * * * *

_Fust._ Spare Fust, then, thus contrite!--who, youthful and

healthy,

Equipped for life's struggle with culture of mind,

Sound flesh and sane soul in coherence, born wealthy,

Nay, wise--how he wasted endowment designed

For the glory of God and the good of mankind!

That much were misused such occasions of grace

Ye well may upbraid him, who bows to the rod.

But this should bid anger to pity give place--

He has turned from the wrong, in the right path to plod,

Makes amends to mankind and craves pardon of God.

"Yea, friends, even now from my lips the _Heureka_--

Soul saved!" was nigh bursting--unduly elate!

Have I brought Man advantage, or hatched--so to speak--a

Strange serpent, no cygnet? 'T is this I debate

Within me. Forbear, and leave Fust to his fate!

* * * * *

_First Friend._ So abject, late lofty? Methinks I spy respite.

Make clean breast, discover what mysteries hide

In thy room there!

_Second Friend._ Ay, out with them! Do Satan despite!

Remember what caused his undoing was pride!

_First Friend._ Dumb devil! Remains one resource to be tried!

* * * * *

_Second Friend._ Exorcise!

_Seventh Friend._ Nay, first--is there any remembers

In substance that potent "_Ne pulvis_"--a psalm

Whereof some live spark haply lurks 'mid the embers

Which choke in my brain. Talk of "Gilead and balm"?

I mind me, sung half through, this gave such a qualm

To Asmodeus inside of a Hussite, that, queasy,

He broke forth in brimstone with curses. I'm strong

In--at least the commencement: the rest should go easy,

Friends helping. "_Ne pulvis et ignis_" ...

_Sixth Friend._ All wrong!

_Fifth Friend._ I 've conned till I captured the whole.

_Seventh Friend._ Get along!

"_Ne pulvis et cinis superbe te geras,_

_Nam fulmina_" ...

_Sixth Friend._ Fiddlestick! Peace, dolts and dorrs!

Thus runs it "_Ne Numinis fulmina feras_"--

Then "_Hominis perfidi justa sunt sors_

_Fulmen et grando et horrida mors._"

* * * * *

_Seventh Friend_. You blunder ... "_Irati ne._"

_Sixth Friend._ Mind your own

business!

_Fifth Friend._ I do not so badly, who gained the monk's leave

To study an hour his choice parchment. A dizziness

May well have surprised me. No Christian dares thieve,

Or I scarce had returned him his treasure. These cleave:

"_Nos pulvis et cinis, trementes, gementes,_

_Venimus_"--some such word--"_ad te, Domine!_

_Da lumen, juvamen, ut sancta sequentes_

_Cor ... corda_" ... Plague take it!

_Seventh Friend._ --"_erecta sint spe:_"

Right text, ringing rhyme, and ripe Latin for me!

* * * * *

_Sixth Friend._ A Canon's self wrote it me fair: I was tempted

To part with the sheepskin.

_Seventh Friend._ Didst grasp and let go

Such a godsend, thou Judas? My purse had been emptied

Ere part with the prize!

_Fust._ Do I dream? Say ye so?

Clouds break, then! Move, world! I have gained my "_Pou sto_"!

I am saved: Archimedes, salute me!

_Omnes._ Assistance!

Help, Angels! He summons ... Aroint thee!--by name,

His familiar!

_Fust._ Approach!

_Omnes._ Devil, keep thy due distance!

_Fust._ Be tranquillized, townsmen! The knowledge ye claim

Behold, I prepare to impart. Praise or blame,--

Your blessing or banning, whatever betide me,

At last I accept. The slow travail of years,

The long-teeming brain's birth--applaud me, deride me,--

At last claims revealment. Wait!

_Seventh Friend._ Wait till appears

Uncaged Archimedes cooped-up there?

_Second Friend._ Who fears?

Here 's have at thee!

_Seventh Friend._ Correctly now! "_Pulvis et cinis_" ...

_Fust._ The verse ye so value, it happens I hold

In my memory safe from _initium_ to _finis_.

Word for word, I produce you the whole, plain enrolled,

Black letters, white paper--no scribe's red and gold!

* * * * *

_Omnes._ Aroint thee!

_Fust._ I go and return.

(_He enters the inner room._)

_First Friend._ Ay, 't is "_ibis_"

No doubt: but as boldly "_redibis_"--who 'll say?

I rather conjecture "_in Orco peribis!_"

_Seventh Friend._ Come, neighbors!

_Sixth Friend._ I 'm with you! Show courage and

stay

Hell's outbreak? Sirs, cowardice here wins the day!

* * * * *

_Fifth Friend_. What luck had that student of Bamberg who ventured

To peep in the cell where a wizard of note

Was busy in getting some black deed debentured

By Satan? In dog's guise there sprang at his throat

A flame-breathing fury. Fust favors, I note,

An ugly huge lurcher!

_Seventh Friend._ If I placed reliance

As thou, on the beads thou art telling so fast,

I 'd risk just a peep through the keyhole.

_Sixth Friend._ Appliance

Of ear might be safer. Five minutes are past.

_Omnes._ Saints, save us! The door is thrown open at last!

* * * * *

_Fust_ (_re-enters, the door closing behind him_).

As I promised, behold I perform! Apprehend you

The object I offer is poison or pest?

Receive without harm from the hand I extend you

A gift that shall set every scruple at rest!

Shrink back from mere paper-strips? Try them and test!

Still hesitate? Myk,-was it thou who lamentedst

Thy five wits clean failed thee to render aright

A poem read once and no more?--who repentedst

Vile pelf had induced thee to banish from sight

The characters none but our clerics indite?

Take and keep!

_First Friend._ Blessed Mary and all Saints about her!

_Second Friend._ What imps deal so deftly,--five minutes suffice

To play thus the penman?

_Third Friend._ By Thomas the Doubter,

Five minutes, no more!

_Fourth Friend._ Out on arts that entice

Such scribes to do homage!

_Fifth Friend._ Stay! Once--and now twice--

Yea, a third time, my sharp eye completes the inspection

Of line after line, the whole series, and finds

Each letter join each--not a fault for detection!

Such upstrokes, such downstrokes, such strokes of all kinds

In the criss-cross, all perfect!

_Sixth Friend._ There 's nobody minds

His quill-craft with more of a conscience, o'er-scratches

A sheepskin more nimbly and surely with ink,

Than Paul the Sub-Prior: here 's paper that matches

His parchment with letter on letter, no link

Overleapt--underlost!

_Seventh Friend._ No erasure, I think--

No blot, I am certain!

_Fust._ Accept the new treasure!

_Sixth Friend._ I remembered full half!

_Seventh Friend._ But who other than I

(Bear witness, bystanders!) when he broke the measure

Repaired fault with "_fulmen_"?

_Fust._ Put bickerings by!

Here 's for thee--thee--and thee, too: at need a supply

(_Distributing Proofs._)

For Mayence, though seventy times seven should muster!

How now? All so feeble of faith that no face

Which fronts me but whitens--or yellows, were juster?

Speak out lest I summon my Spirits!

_Omnes._ Grace--grace!

Call none of thy--helpmates! We 'll answer apace!

My paper--and mine--and mine also--they vary

In nowise--agree in each tittle and jot!

Fust, how--why was this?

_Fust._ Shall such "_Cur_" miss a "_quare_"?

Within, there! Throw doors wide! Behold who complot

To abolish the scribe's work--blur, blunder and blot!

(_The doors open, and the Press is discovered in operation._)

Brave full-bodied birth of this brain that conceived thee

In splendor and music,--sustained the slow drag

Of the days stretched to years dim with doubt,--yet believed thee,

Had faith in thy first leap of life! Pulse might flag--

--Mine fluttered how faintly!--Arch-moment might lag

Its longest--I bided, made light of endurance,

Held hard by the hope of an advent which--dreamed,

Is done now: night yields to the dawn's reassurance:

I have thee--I hold thee--my fancy that seemed,

My fact that proves palpable! Ay, Sirs, I schemed

Completion that 's fact: see this Engine--be witness

Yourselves of its working! Nay, handle my Types!

Each block bears a Letter: in order and fitness

I range them. Turn, Peter, the winch! See, it gripes

What 's under! Let loose--? draw! In regular stripes

Lies plain, at one pressure, your poem--touched, tinted,

Turned out to perfection! The sheet, late a blank,

Filled--ready for reading,--not written but PRINTED!

Omniscient omnipotent God, thee I thank,

Thee ever, thee only!--thy creature that shrank

From no task thou, Creator, imposedst! Creation

Revealed me no object, from insect to Man,

But bore thy hand's impress: earth glowed with salvation:

"Hast sinned? Be thou saved, Fust! Continue my plan,

Who spake and earth was: with my word things began.

"As sound so went forth, to the sight be extended

Word's mission henceforward! The task I assign,

Embrace--thy allegiance to evil is ended!

Have cheer, soul impregnate with purpose! Combine

Soul and body, give birth to my concept--called thine!

"Far and wide, North and South, East and West, have dominion

O'er thought, wingèd wonder, O Word! Traverse world

In sun-flash and sphere-song! Each beat of thy pinion

Bursts night, beckons day: once Truth's banner unfurled,

Where 's Falsehood? Sun-smitten, to nothingness hurled!"

More humbly--so, friends, did my fault find redemption.

I sinned, soul-entoiled by the tether of sense:

My captor reigned master: I plead no exemption,

From Satan's award to his servant: defence

From the fiery and final assault would be--whence?

By making--as man might--to truth restitution!

Truth is God: trample lies and lies' father, God's foe!

Fix fact fast: truths change by an hour's revolution:

What deed's very doer, unaided, can show

How 't was done a year--month--week--day--minute ago?

At best, he relates it--another reports it--

A third--nay, a thousandth records it: and still

Narration, tradition, no step but distorts it,

As down from truth's height it goes sliding until

At the low level lie-mark it stops--whence no skill

Of the scribe, intervening too tardily, rescues

--Once fallen--lost fact from lie's fate there. What scribe

--Eyes horny with poring, hands crippled with desk-use,

Brains fretted by fancies--the volatile tribe

That tease weary watchers--can boast that no bribe

Shuts eye and frees hand and remits brain from toiling?

Truth gained--can we stay, at whatever the stage,

Truth a-slide,--save her snow from its ultimate soiling

In mire,--by some process, stamp promptly on page

Fact spoiled by pen's plodding, make truth heritage

Not merely of clerics, but poured out, full measure,

On clowns--every mortal endowed with a mind?

Read, gentle and simple! Let labor win leisure

At last to bid truth do all duty assigned,

Not pause at the noble but pass to the hind!

How bring to effect such swift sure simultaneous

Unlimited multiplication? How spread

By an arm-sweep a hand-throw--no helping extraneous--

Truth broadcast o'er Europe? "The goldsmith," I said,

"Graves limning on gold: why not letters on lead?"

So, Tuscan artificer, grudge not thy pardon

To me who played false, made a furtive descent,

Found the sly secret workshop,--thy genius kept guard on

Too slackly for once,--and surprised thee low-bent

O'er thy labor--some chalice thy tool would indent

With a certain free scroll-work framed round by a border

Of foliage and fruitage: no scratching so fine,

No shading so shy but, in ordered disorder,

Each flourish came clear,--unbewildered by shine,

On the gold, irretrievably right, lay each line.

How judge if thy hand worked thy will? By reviewing,

Revising again and again, piece by piece,

Tool's performance,--this way, as I watched. 'T was through glueing

A paper-like film-stuff--thin, smooth, void of crease,

On each cut of the graver: press hard! at release,

No mark on the plate but the paper showed double:

His work might proceed: as he judged--space or speck

Up he filled, forth he flung--was relieved thus from trouble

Lest wrong--once--were right never more: what could check

Advancement, completion? Thus lay at my beck--

At my call--triumph likewise! "For," cried I, "what hinders

That graving turns Printing? Stamp one word--not one

But fifty such, phœnix-like, spring from death's cinders,--

Since death is word's doom, clerics hide from the sun

As some churl closets up this rare chalice." Go, run

Thy race now, Fust's child! High, O Printing, and holy

Thy mission! These types, see, I chop and I change

Till the words, every letter, a pageful, not slowly

Yet surely lies fixed: last of all, I arrange

A paper beneath, stamp it, loosen it!

_First Friend._ Strange!

* * * * *

_Second Friend._ How simple exceedingly!

_Fust._ Bustle, my Schœffer!

Set type,--quick, Genesheim! Turn screw now!

_Third Friend._ Just that!

_Fourth Friend._ And no such vast miracle!

_Fust._ "Plough with my heifer,

Ye find out my riddle," quoth Samson, and pat

He speaks to the purpose. Grapes squeezed in the vat

Yield to sight and to taste what is simple--a liquid

Mere urchins may sip: but give time, let ferment--

You 've wine, manhood's master! Well, "_rectius si quid_

_Novistis im-per-ti-te!_" Wait the event,

Then weigh the result! But, whate'er Thy intent,

O Thou, the one force in the whole variation

Of visible nature,--at work--do I doubt?--

From Thy first to our last, in perpetual creation--

A film hides us from Thee--'twixt inside and out,

A film, on this earth where Thou bringest about

New marvels, new forms of the glorious, the gracious,

We bow to, we bless for: no star bursts heaven's dome

But Thy finger impels it, no weed peeps audacious

Earth's clay-floor from out, but Thy finger makes room

For one world's-want the more in Thy Cosmos: presume

Shall Man, Microcosmos, to claim the conception

Of grandeur, of beauty, in thought, word or deed?

I toiled, but Thy light on my dubiousest step shone:

If I reach the glad goal, is it I who succeed

Who stumbled at starting tripped up by a reed,

Or Thou? Knowledge only and absolute, glory

As utter be Thine who concedest a spark

Of Thy spheric perfection to earth's transitory

Existences! Nothing that lives, but Thy mark

Gives law to--life's light: what is doomed to the dark?

Where 's ignorance? Answer, creation! What height,

What depth has escaped Thy commandment --to Know?

What birth in the ore-bed but answers aright

Thy sting at its heart which impels--bids "E'en so,

Not otherwise more or be motionless,--grow,

"Decline, disappear!" Is the plant in default

How to bud, when to branch forth? The bird and the beast

--Do they doubt if their safety be found in assault

Or escape? Worm or fly, of what atoms the least

But follows light's guidance,--will famish, not feast?

In such various degree, fly and worm, ore and plant,

All know, none is witless: around each, a wall

Encloses the portion, or ample or scant,

Of Knowledge: beyond which one hair's breadth, for all

Lies blank--not so much as a blackness--a pall

Some sense unimagined must penetrate: plain

Is only old license to stand, walk or sit,

Move so far and so wide in the narrow domain

Allotted each nature for life's use: past it

How immensity spreads does he guess? Not a whit.

Does he care? Just as little. Without? No, within

Concerns him? he Knows. Man Ignores--thanks to Thee

Who madest him know, but--in knowing--begin

To know still new vastness of knowledge must be

Outside him--to enter, to traverse, in fee

Have and hold! "Oh, Man's ignorance!" hear the fool whine!

How were it, for better or worse, didst thou grunt

Contented with sapience--the lot of the swine

Who knows he was born for just truffles to hunt?--

Monks' Paradise--"_Semper sint res uti sunt!_"

No, Man's the prerogative--knowledge once gained--

To ignore,--find new knowledge to press for, to swerve

In pursuit of, no, not for a moment: attained--

Why, onward through ignorance! Dare and deserve!

As still to its asymptote speedeth the curve,

So approximates Man--Thee, who, reachable not,

Hast formed him to yearningly follow Thy whole

Sole and single omniscience!

Such, friends, is my lot:

I am back with the world: one more step to the goal

Thanks for reaching I render--Fust's help to Man's soul!

Mere mechanical help? So the hand gives a toss

To the falcon,--aloft once, spread pinions and fly,

Beat air far and wide, up and down and across!

My Press strains a-tremhle: whose masterful eye

Will be first, in new regions, new truth to descry?

Give chase, soul! Be sure each new capture consigned

To my Types will go forth to the world, like God's bread

--Miraculous food not for body but mind,

Truth's manna! How say you? Put case that, instead

Of old leasing and lies, we superiorly fed

These Heretics, Hussites ...

_First Friend._ First answer my query!

If saved, art thou happy?

_Fust._ I was and I am.

_First Friend._ Thy visage confirms it: how comes, then,

that--weary

And woe-begone late--was it show, was it sham?--

We found thee sunk thiswise?

_Second Friend._ --In need of the dram

From the flask which a provident neighbor might carry!

_Fust._ Ah, friends, the fresh triumph soon flickers, fast fades!

I hailed Word's dispersion: could heartleaps but tarry!

Through me does Print furnish Truth wings? The same aids

Cause Falsehood to range just as widely. What raids

On a region undreamed of does Printing enable

Truth's foe to effect! Printed leasing and lies

May speed to the world's farthest corner-- gross fable

No less than pure fact--to impede, neutralize,

Abolish God's gift and Man's gain!

_First Friend._ Dost surmise

What struck me at first blush? Our Beghards, Waldenses,

Jeronimites, Hussites--does one show his head,

Spout heresy now? Not a priest in his senses

Deigns answer mere speech, but piles fagots instead,

Refines as by fire, and, him silenced, all 's said.

Whereas if in future I pen an opuscule

Defying retort, as of old when rash tongues

Were easy to tame,--straight some knave of the Huss-School

Prints answer forsooth! Stop invisible lungs?

The barrel of blasphemy broached once, who bungs?

* * * * *

_Second Friend._ Does my sermon, next Easter, meet fitting

acceptance?

Each captious disputative boy has his quirk

"_An cuique credendum sit?_" Well, the Church kept "_ans_"

In order till Fust set his engine at work!

What trash will come flying from Jew, Moor, and Turk

When, goosequill, thy reign o'er the world is abolished!

Goose--ominous name! With a goose woe began:

Quoth Huss--which means "goose" in his idiom unpolished--

"Ye burn now a Goose: there succeeds me a Swan

Ye shall find quench your fire!"

_Fust._ I foresee such a man.

ASOLANDO

TO MRS. ARTHUR BRONSON

To whom but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses--some few

written, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your presence, and

with yet another experience of the gracious hospitality now bestowed

on me since so many a year,--adding a charm even to my residences at

Venice, and leaving me little regret for the surprise and delight at my

visits to Asolo in bygone days?

I unite, you will see, the disconnected poems by a title-name popularly

ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient secretary of Queen Cornaro

whose palace-tower still overlooks us: _Asolare_--"to disport in the

open air, amuse one's self at random." The objection that such a word

nowhere occurs in the works of the Cardinal is hardly important--Bembo

was too thorough a purist to conserve in print a term which in talk

he might possibly toy with: but the word is more likely derived from

a Spanish source. I use it for love of the place, and in requital of

your pleasant assurance that an early poem of mine first attracted

you thither--where and elsewhere, at La Mura as Cà Alvisi, may all

happiness attend you!

Gratefully and affectionately yours,

R. B.

ASOLO: _October_ 15, 1889.

* * * * *

The greater part of _Asolando_ was written in 1888-89, though in one

instance at least an early poem was included in the collection. The

title of the volume is explained in the dedication. The book, by a

strange coincidence, was published on the day of Browning's death.

PROLOGUE

"The Poet's age is sad: for why?

In youth, the natural world could show

No common object but his eye

At once involved with alien glow--

His own soul's iris-bow.

"And now a flower is just a flower:

Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man--

Simply themselves, uncinct by dower

Of dyes which, when life's day began,

Round each in glory ran."

Friend, did you need an optic glass,

Which were your choice? A lens to drape

In ruby, emerald, chrysopras,

Each object--or reveal its shape

Clear outlined, past escape,

The naked very thing?--so clear

That, when you had the chance to gaze,

You found its inmost self appear

Through outer seeming--truth ablaze,

Not falsehood's fancy-haze?

How many a year, my Asolo,

Since--one step just from sea to land--

I found you, loved yet feared you so--

For natural objects seemed to stand

Palpably fire-clothed! No--

No mastery of mine o'er these!

Terror with beauty, like the Bush

Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees,

Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush!

Silence 'tis awe decrees.

And now? The lambent flame is--where?

Lost from the naked world: earth, sky,

Hill, vale, tree, flower,--Italia's rare

O'er-running beauty crowds the eye--

But flame? The Bush is bare.

Hill, vale, tree, flower--they stand distinct,

Nature to know and name. What then?

A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked

Fancy from fact: see, all's in ken:

Has once my eyelid winked?

No, for the purged ear apprehends

Earth's import, not the eye late dazed.

The Voice said, "Call my works thy friends!

At Nature dost thou shrink amazed?

God is it who transcends."

ASOLO: _September_ 6, 1889.

ROSNY

Woe, he went galloping into the war,

Clara, Clara!

Let us two dream: shall he 'scape with a scar?

Scarcely disfigurement; rather a grace

Making for manhood which nowise we mar:

See, while I kiss it, the flush on his face--

Rosny, Rosny!

Light does he laugh: "With your love in my soul"--

(Clara, Clara!)

"How could I other than--sound, safe, and whole--

Cleave who opposed me asunder, yet stand

Scatheless beside you, as, touching love's goal,

Who won the race kneels, craves reward at your hand--

Rosny, Rosny?"

Ay, but if certain who envied should see!

Clara, Clara,

Certain who simper: "The hero for me

Hardly of life were so chary as miss

Death--death and fame--that's love's guerdon when She

Boasts, proud bereaved one, her choice fell on this

Rosny, Rosny!"

So,--go on dreaming,--he lies mid a heap

(Clara, Clara,)

Of the slain by his hand: what is death but a sleep?

Dead, with my portrait displayed on his breast:

Love wrought his undoing: "No prudence could keep

The love-maddened wretch from his fate." That is best,

Rosny, Rosny!

DUBIETY

I will be happy if but for once:

Only help me, Autumn weather,

Me and my cares to screen, ensconce

In luxury's sofa-lap of leather!

Sleep? Nay, comfort--with just a cloud

Suffusing day too clear and bright:

Eve's essence, the single drop allowed

To sully, like milk, Noon's water-white.

Let gauziness shade, not shroud--adjust,

Dim and not deaden,--somehow sheathe

Aught sharp in the rough world's busy thrust,

If it reach me through dreaming's vapor-wreath.

Be life so, all things ever the same!

For, what has disarmed the world? Outside,

Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame

Nor want, nor wish whate'er betide.

What is it like that has happened before?

A dream? No dream, more real by much.

A vision? But fanciful days of yore

Brought many: mere musing seems not such.

Perhaps but a memory, after all!

--Of what came once when a woman leant

To feel for my brow where her kiss might fall.

Truth ever, truth only the excellent!

NOW

Out of your whole life give but a moment!

All of your life that has gone before,

All to come after it,--so you ignore,

So you make perfect the present,--condense,

In a rapture of rage, for perfection's endowment,

Thought and feeling and soul and sense--

Merged in a moment which gives me at last

You around me for once, you beneath me, above me--

Me--sure that despite of time future, time past,--

This tick of our life-time's one moment you love me!

How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet--

The moment eternal--just that and no more--

When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core

While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!

HUMILITY

What girl but, having gathered flowers,

Stript the beds and spoilt the bowers,

From the lapful light she carries

Drops a careless bud?--nor tarries

To regain the waif and stray:

"Store enough for home"--she'll say.

So say I too: give your lover

Heaps of loving--under, over,

Whelm him--make the one the wealthy!

Am I all so poor who--stealthy

Work it was!--picked up what fell:

Not the worst bud--who can tell?

POETICS

"So say the foolish!" Say the foolish so, Love?

"Flower she is, my rose"--or else, "My very swan is she"--

Or perhaps, "Yon maid-moon, blessing earth below, Love,

That art thou!"--to them, belike: no such vain words from me.

"Hush, rose, blush! no balm like breath," I chide it:

"Bend thy neck its best, swan,--hers the whiter curve!"

Be the moon the moon: my Love I place beside it:

What is she? Her human self,--no lower word will serve.

SUMMUM BONUM

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:

All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:

In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:

Breath and bloom, shade and shine,--wonder, wealth, and--how far

above them--

Truth, that's brighter than gem,

Trust, that's purer than pearl,--

Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me

In the kiss of one girl.

A PEARL, A GIRL

A simple ring with a single stone,

To the vulgar eye no stone of price:

Whisper the right word, that alone--

Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice,

And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll)

Of heaven and earth, lord whole and sole

Through the power in a pearl.

A woman ('tis I this time that say)

With little the world counts worthy praise;

Utter the true word--out and away

Escapes her soul: I am wrapt in blaze,

Creation's lord, of heaven and earth

Lord whole and sole--by a minute's birth--

Through the love in a girl!

SPECULATIVE

Others may need new life in Heaven--

Man, Nature, Art--made new, assume!

Man with new mind old sense to leaven,

Nature,--new light to clear old gloom,

Art that breaks bounds, gets soaring-room.

I shall pray: "Fugitive as precious--

Minutes which passed,--return, remain!

Let earth's old life once more enmesh us,

You with old pleasure, me--old pain,

So we but meet nor part again!"

WHITE WITCHCRAFT

When a boy Browning had a humble friend in the person of a toad. "He

visited it daily where it burrowed under a white rosetree, announcing

himself by a pinch of gravel dropped into its hole; and the creature

would crawl forth, allow its head to be gently tickled, and reward the

act with a loving glance of its soft full eyes." MRS. ORR.

If you and I could change to beasts, what beast should either be?

Shall you and I play Jove for once? Turn fox then, I decree!

Shy wild sweet stealer of the grapes! Now do your worst on me!

And thus you think to spite your friend--turned loathsome? What, a

toad?

So, all men shrink and shun me! Dear men, pursue your road!

Leave but my crevice in the stone, a reptile's fit abode!

Now say your worst, Canidia! "He 's loathsome, I allow:

There may or may not lurk a pearl beneath his puckered brow:

But see his eyes that follow mine--love lasts there, anyhow."

BAD DREAMS

I

Last night I saw you in my sleep:

And how your charm of face was changed!

I asked, "Some love, some faith you keep?"

You answered, "Faith gone, love estranged."

Whereat I woke--a twofold bliss:

Waking was one, but next there came

This other: "Though I felt, for this,

My heart break, I loved on the same."

BAD DREAMS

II

You in the flesh and here--

Your very self! Now, wait!

One word! May I hope or fear?

Must I speak in love or hate?

Stay while I ruminate!

The fact and each circumstance

Dare you disown? Not you!

That vast dome, that huge dance,

And the gloom which overgrew

A--possibly festive crew!

For why should men dance at all--

Why women--a crowd of both--

Unless they are gay? Strange ball--

Hands and feet plighting troth,

Yet partners enforced and loth!

Of who danced there, no shape

Did I recognize: thwart, perverse,

Each grasped each, past escape

In a whirl or weary or worse;

Man's sneer met woman's curse,

While he and she toiled as if

Their guardian set galley-slaves

To supple chained limbs grown stiff;

Unmanacled trulls and knaves--

The lash for who misbehaves!

And a gloom was, all the while,

Deeper and deeper yet

O'ergrowing the rank and file

Of that army of haters--set

To mimic love's fever-fret.

By the wall-side close I crept,

Avoiding the livid maze,

And, safely so far, outstepped

On a chamber--a chapel, says

My memory or betrays--

Closet-like, kept aloof

From unseemly witnessing

What sport made floor and roof

Of the Devil's palace ring

While his Damned amused their king.

Ay, for a low lamp burned,

And a silence lay about

What I, in the midst, discerned

Though dimly till, past doubt,

'T was a sort of throne stood out--

High seat with steps, at least:

And the topmost step was filled

By--whom? What vestured priest?

A stranger to me,--his guild,

His cult, unreconciled

To my knowledge how guild and cult

Are clothed in this world of ours:

I pondered, but no result

Came to--unless that Giaours

So worship the Lower Powers.

When suddenly who entered?

Who knelt--did you guess I saw?

Who--raising that face were centred

Allegiance to love and law

So lately--off-casting awe,

Down-treading reserve, away

Thrusting respect ... but mine

Stands firm--firm still shall stay!

Ask Satan! for I decline

To tell--what I saw, in fine!

Yet here in the flesh you come--

Your same self, form and face,--

In the eyes, mirth still at home!

On the lips, that commonplace

Perfection of honest grace!

Yet your errand is--needs must be--

To palliate--well, explain,

Expurgate in some degree

Your soul of its ugly stain.

Oh, you--the good in grain--

How was it your white took tinge?

"A mere dream"--never object!

Sleep leaves a door on hinge

Whence soul, ere our flesh suspect,

Is off and away: detect

Her vagaries when loose, who can!

Be she pranksome, be she prude,

Disguise with the day began:

With the night--ah, what ensued

From draughts of a drink hell-brewed?

Then She: "What a queer wild dream!

And perhaps the best fun is--

Myself had its fellow--I seem

Scarce awake from yet. 'T was this--

Shall I tell you? First, a kiss!

"For the fault was just your own,--

'T is myself expect apology:

You warned me to let alone

(Since our studies were mere philology)

That ticklish (you said) Anthology.

"So I dreamed that I passed _exam_

Till a question posed me sore:

'Who translated this epigram

By--an author we best ignore?'

And I answered, 'Hannah More'!"

BAD DREAMS

III

This was my dream: I saw a Forest

Old as the earth, no track nor trace

Of unmade man. Thou, Soul, explorest--

Though in a trembling rapture--space

Immeasurable! Shrubs, turned trees,

Trees that touch heaven, support its freize

Studded with sun and moon and star:

While--oh, the enormous growths that bar

Mine eye from penetrating past

Their tangled twine where lurks--nay, lives

Royally lone, some brute-type cast

I' the rough, time cancels, man forgives.

On, Soul! I saw a lucid City

Of architectural device

Every way perfect. Pause for pity,

Lightning! nor leave a cicatrice

On those bright marbles, dome and spire,

Structures palatial,--streets which mire

Dares not defile, paved all too fine

For human footstep's smirch, not thine--

Proud solitary traverser,

My Soul, of silent lengths of way--

With what ecstatic dread, aver,

Lest life start sanctioned by thy stay!

Ah, but the last sight was the hideous!

A City, yes,--a Forest, true,--

But each devouring each. Perfidious

Snake-plants had strangled what I knew

Was a pavilion once: each oak

Held on his horns some spoil he broke

By surreptitiously beneath

Upthrusting: pavements, as with teeth,

Griped huge weed widening crack and split

In squares and circles stone-work erst.

Oh, Nature--good! Oh, Art--no whit

Less worthy! Both in one--accurst!

BAD DREAMS

IV

It happened thus: my slab, though new,

Was getting weather-stained,--beside,

Herbage, balm, peppermint o'ergrew

Letter and letter: till you tried

Somewhat, the Name was scarce descried.

That strong stern man my lover came:

--Was he my lover? Call him, pray,

My life's cold critic bent on blame

Of all poor I could do or say

To make me worth his love one day--

One far day when, by diligent

And dutiful amending faults,

Foibles, all weaknesses which went

To challenge and excuse assaults

Of culture wronged by taste that halts--

Discrepancies should mar no plan

Symmetric of the qualities

Claiming respect from--say--a man

That 's strong and stern. "Once more he pries

Into me with those critic eyes!"

No question! so--"Conclude, condemn

Each failure my poor self avows!

Leave to its fate all you contemn!

There 's Solomon's selected spouse:

Earth needs must hold such maids--choose them!"

Why, he was weeping! Surely gone

Sternness and strength: with eyes to ground

And voice a broken monotone--

"Only be as you were! Abound

In foibles, faults,--laugh, robed and crowned

"As Folly's veriest queen,--care I

One feather-fluff? Look pity, Love,

On prostrate me--your foot shall try

This forehead's use--mount thence above,

And reach what Heaven you dignify!"

Now, what could bring such change about?

The thought perplexed: till, following

His gaze upon the ground,--why, out

Came all the secret! So, a thing

Thus simple has deposed my king!

For, spite of weeds that strove to spoil

Plain reading on the lettered slab,

My name was clear enough--no soil

Effaced the date when one chance stab

Of scorn ... if only ghosts might blab!

INAPPREHENSIVENESS

We two stood simply friend-like side by side,

Viewing a twilight country far and wide,

Till she at length broke silence. "How it towers

Yonder, the ruin o'er this vale of ours!

The West's faint flare behind it so relieves

Its rugged outline--sight perhaps deceives,

Or I could almost fancy that I see

A branch wave plain--belike some wind-sown tree

Chance-rooted where a missing turret was.

What would I give for the perspective glass

At home, to make out if 't is really so!

Has Ruskin noticed here at Asolo

That certain weed-growths on the ravaged wall

Seem" ... something that I could not say at all,

My thought being rather--as absorbed she sent

Look onward after look from eyes distent

With longing to reach Heaven's gate left ajar--

"Oh, fancies that might be, oh, facts that are!

What of a wilding? By you stands, and may

So stand unnoticed till the Judgment Day,

One who, if once aware that your regard

Claimed what his heart holds,--woke, as from its sward

The flower, the dormant passion, so to speak--

Then what a rush of life would startling wreak

Revenge on your inapprehensive stare

While, from the ruin and the West's faint flare,

You let your eyes meet mine, touch what you term

Quietude--that 's an universe in germ--

The dormant passion needing but a look

To burst into immense life!"

"No, the book

Which noticed how the wall-growths wave," said she,

"Was not by Ruskin."

I said, "Vernon Lee."

WHICH?

So, the three Court-ladies began

Their trial of who judged best

In esteeming the love of a man:

Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed

Boy-Cupid's exemplary catcher and eager;

An Abbé crossed legs to decide on the wager.

First the Duchesse: "Mine for me--

Who were it but God's for Him,

And the King's for--who but he?

Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim

His cup with perfection: a lady's true lover,

He holds--save his God and his king--none above her."

"I require"--outspoke the Marquise--

"Pure thoughts, ay, but also fine deeds:

Play the paladin must he, to please

My whim, and--to prove my knight's service exceeds

Your saint's and your loyalist's praying and kneeling--

Show wounds, each wide mouth to my mercy appealing."

Then the Comtesse: "My choice be a wretch,

Mere losel in body and soul,

Thrice accurst! What care I, so he stretch

Arms to me his sole savior, love's ultimate goal,

Out of earth and men's noise--names of 'infidel,' 'traitor,'

Cast up at him? Crown me, crown's adjudicator!"

And the Abbé uncrossed his legs,

Took snuff, a reflective pinch,

Broke silence: "The question begs

Much pondering ere I pronounce. Shall I flinch?

The love which to one and one only has reference

Seems terribly like what perhaps gains God's preference."

THE CARDINAL AND THE DOG

This poem was written in May, 1842, at the same time as the _Pied

Piper_, both having been written at the request of Macready's little

son, who was confined to the house by illness and wanted Browning to

write him some poems for which he could make pictures.

Crescenzio, the Pope's Legate at the High Council, Trent,

--Year Fifteen hundred twenty-two, March Twenty-five--intent

On writing letters to the Pope till late into the night,

Rose, weary, to refresh himself, and saw a monstrous sight:

(I give mine Author's very words: he penned, I reindite.)

A black Dog of vast bigness, eyes flaming, ears that hung

Down to the very ground almost, into the chamber sprung

And made directly for him, and laid himself right under

The table where Crescenzio wrote--who called in fear and wonder

His servants in the ante-room, commanded every one

To look for and find out the beast: but, looking, they found none.

The Cardinal fell melancholy, then sick, soon after died:

And at Verona, as he lay on his death-bed, he cried

Aloud to drive away the Dog that leapt on his bedside.

Heaven keep us Protestants from harm: the rest ... no ill betide!

THE POPE AND THE NET

What, he on whom our voices unanimously ran,

Made Pope at our last Conclave? Full low his life began:

His father earned the daily bread as just a fisherman.

So much the more his boy minds book, givesproof of mother-wit,

Becomes first Deacon, and then Priest, then Bishop: see him sit

No less than Cardinal erelong, while no one cries "Unfit!"

But some one smirks, some other smiles, jogs elbow and nods head:

Each winks at each: "I'-faith, a rise! Saint Peter's net, instead

Of sword and keys, is come in vogue!" You think he blushes red?

Not he, of humble holy heart! "Unworthy me!" he sighs:

"From fisher's drudge to Church's prince--it is indeed a rise:

So, here 's my way to keep the fact forever in my eyes!"

And straightway in his palace-hall, where commonly is set

Some coat-of-arms, some portraiture ancestral, lo, we met

His mean estate's reminder in his fisher-father's net!

Which step conciliates all and some, stops cavil in a trice:

"The humble holy heart that holds of newborn pride no spice!

He 's just the saint to choose for Pope!" Each adds, "'T is my

advice."

So, Pope he was: and when we flocked--its sacred slipper on--

To kiss his foot, we lifted eyes, alack, the thing was gone--

That guarantee of lowlihead,--eclipsed that star which shone!

Each eyed his fellow, one and all kept silence. I cried, "Pish!

I 'll make me spokesman for the rest, express the common wish.

Why, Father, is the net removed?" "Son, it hath caught the fish."

THE BEAN-FEAST

He was the man--Pope Sixtus, that Fifth, that swineherd's son:

He knew the right thing, did it, and thanked God when 't was done:

But of all he had to thank for, my fancy somehow leans

To thinking, what most moved him was a certain meal on beans.

For one day, as his wont was, in just enough disguise

As he went exploring wickedness,--to see with his own eyes

If law had due observance in the city's entrail dark

As well as where, i' the open, crime stood an obvious mark,--

He chanced, in a blind alley, on a tumble-down once house

Now hovel, vilest structure in Rome the ruinous:

And, as his tact impelled him, Sixtus adventured bold,

To learn how lowliest subjects bore hunger, toil, and cold.

There sat they at high-supper--man and wife, lad and lass,

Poor as you please, but cleanly all and carefree: pain that was

--Forgotten, pain as sure to be let bide aloof its time,--

Mightily munched the brave ones--what mattered gloom or grime?

Said Sixtus, "Feast, my children! who works hard needs eat well.

I 'm just a supervisor, would hear what you can tell.

Do any wrongs want righting? The Father tries his best,

But, since he 's only mortal, sends such as I to test

The truth of all that 's told him--how folk like you may fare:

Come!--only don't stop eating--when mouth has words to spare--

"You"--smiled he--"play the spokesman, bell-wether of the flock!

Are times good, masters gentle? Your grievances unlock!

How of your work and wages?--pleasures, if such may be--

Pains, as such are for certain." Thus smiling questioned he.

But somehow, spite of smiling, awe stole upon the group--

An inexpressible surmise: why should a priest thus stoop--

Pry into what concerned folk? Each visage fell. Aware,

Cries Sixtus interposing: "Nay, children, have no care!

"Fear nothing! Who employs me requires the plain truth. Pelf

Beguiles who should inform me: so, I inform myself.

See!" And he drew his hood back, let the close vesture ope,

Showed face, and where on tippet the cross lay: 't was the Pope.

Imagine the joyful wonder! "How shall the like of us--

Poor souls--requite such blessing of our rude bean-feast?" "Thus--

Thus amply!" laughed Pope Sixtus. "I early rise, sleep late:

Who works may eat: they tempt me, your beans there: spare a plate!"

Down sat he on the door-step: 't was they this time said grace:

He ate up the last mouthful, wiped lips, and then, with face

Turned heavenward, broke forth thankful: "Not now, that earth obeys

Thy word in mine, that through me the peoples know Thy ways--

"But that Thy care extendeth to Nature's homely wants,

And, while man's mind is strengthened, Thy goodness nowise scants

Man's body of its comfort,--that I whom kings and queens

Crouch to, pick crumbs from off my table, relish beans!

The thunders I but seem to launch, there plain Thy hand all see:

That I have appetite, digest, and thrive--that boon 's for me."

MUCKLE-MOUTH MEG

Frowned the Laird on the Lord: "So, red-handed I catch thee?

Death-doomed by our Law of the Border!

We 've a gallows outside and a chiel to dispatch thee:

Who trespasses--hangs: all 's in order."

He met frown with smile, did the young English gallant:

Then the Laird's dame: "Nay, Husband, I beg!

He 's comely: be merciful! Grace for the callant

--If he marries our Muckle-mouth Meg!"

"No mile-wide-mouthed monster of yours do I marry:

Grant rather the gallows!" laughed he.

"Foul fare kith and kin of you--why do you tarry?"

"To tame your fierce temper!" quoth she.

"Shove him quick in the Hole, shut him fast for a week:

Cold, darkness, and hunger work wonders:

Who lion-like roars now, mouse-fashion will squeak,

And 'it rains' soon succeed to 'it thunders.'"

A week did he bide in the cold and the dark

--Not hunger: for duly at morning

In flitted a lass, and a voice like a lark

Chirped, "Muckle-mouth Meg still ye 're scorning?

"Go hang, but here 's parritch to hearten ye first!"

"Did Meg's muckle-mouth boast within some

Such music as yours, mine should match it or burst:

No frog-jaws! So tell folk, my Winsome!"

Soon week came to end, and, from Hole's door set wide,

Out he marched, and there waited the lassie:

"Yon gallows, or Muckle-mouth Meg for a bride!

Consider! Sky 's blue and turf 's grassy:

"Life 's sweet: shall I say ye wed Muckle-mouth Meg?"

"Not I," quoth the stout heart: "too eerie

The mouth that can swallow a bubblyjock's egg;

Shall I let it munch mine? Never, Dearie!"

"Not Muckle-mouth Meg? Wow, the obstinate man!

Perhaps he would rather wed me!"

"Ay, would he--with just for a dowry your can!"

"I 'm Muckle-mouth Meg," chirruped she.

"Then so--so--so--so--" as he kissed her apace--

"Will I widen thee out till thou turnest

From Margaret Minnikin--mou', by God's grace,

To Muckle-mouth Meg in good earnest!"

ARCADES AMBO

_A._ You blame me that I ran away?

Why, Sir, the enemy advanced:

Balls flew about, and--who can say

But one, if I stood firm, had glanced

In my direction? Cowardice?

I only know we don't live twice,

Therefore--shun death, is my advice.

_B._ Shun death at all risks? Well, at some!

True, I myself, Sir, though I scold

The cowardly, by no means come

Under reproof as overbold

--I, who would have no end of brutes

Cut up alive to guess what suits

My case and saves my toe from shoots.

THE LADY AND THE PAINTER

_She._ Yet womanhood you reverence,

So you profess!

_He._ With heart and soul.

_She._ Of which fact this is evidence!

To help Art-study,--for some dole

Of certain wretched shillings,--you

Induce a woman--virgin too--

To strip and stand stark-naked?

_He._ True.

_She._ Nor feel you so degrade her?

_He._ What

--(Excuse the interruption)--clings

Half-savage-like around your hat?

_She._ Ah, do they please you? Wild-bird-wings!

Next season,--Paris-prints assert,--

We must go feathered to the skirt:

My modiste keeps on the alert.

Owls, hawks, jays--swallows most approve.

_He._ Dare I speak plainly?

_She._ Oh, I trust!

_He._ Then, Lady Blanche, it less would move

In heart and soul of me disgust

Did you strip off those spoils you wear,

And stand--for thanks, not shillings--bare

To help Art like my Model there.

_She_ well knew what absolved her--praise

In me for God's surpassing good,

Who granted to my reverent gaze

A type of purest womanhood.

_You_--clothed with murder of his best

Of harmless beings--stand the test!

What is it _you_ know?

_She._ That you jest!

PONTE DELL' ANGELO, VENICE

Stop rowing! This one of our bye-canals

O'er a certain bridge you have to cross

That 's named, "Of the Angel:" listen why!

The name "Of the Devil" too much appalls

Venetian acquaintance, so--his the loss,

While the gain goes ... look on high!

An angel visibly guards, yon house:

Above each scutcheon--a pair--stands he,

Enfolds them with droop of either wing:

The family's fortune were perilous

Did he thence depart--you will soon agree,

If I hitch into verse the thing.

For, once on a time, this house belonged

To a lawyer of note, with law and to spare,

But also with overmuch lust of gain:

In the matter of law you were nowise wronged,

But alas for the lucre! He picked you bare

To the bone. Did folk complain?

"I exact," growled he, "work's rightful due:

'T is folk seek me, not I seek them.

Advice at its price! They succeed or fail,

Get law in each case--and a lesson too:

Keep clear of the Courts--is advice _ad rem:_

They 'll remember, I 'll be bail!"

So, he pocketed fee without a qualm.

What reason for squeamishness? Labor done,

To play he betook him with lightened heart,

Ate, drank, and made merry with song or psalm,

Since the yoke of the Church is an easy one--

Fits neck nor causes smart.

Brief: never was such an extortionate

Rascal--the word has escaped my teeth!

And yet--(all 's down in a book no ass

Indited, believe me!)--this reprobate

Was punctual at prayer-time: gold lurked beneath

Alloy of the rankest brass.

For, play the extortioner as he might,

Fleece folk each day and all day long,

There was this redeeming circumstance:

He never lay down to sleep at night

But he put up a prayer first, brief yet strong,

"Our Lady avert mischance!"

Now it happened at close of a fructuous week

"I must ask," quoth he, "some Saint to dine:

I want that widow well out of my ears

With her ailing and wailing. Who bade her seek

Redress at my hands? 'She was wronged!' Folk whine

If to Law wrong right appears.

"Matteo da Bascio--he 's my man!

No less than Chief of the Capucins:

His presence will surely suffumigate

My house--fools think lies under a ban

If somebody loses what somebody wins.

Hark, there he knocks at the grate!

"Come in, thou blessed of Mother Church!

I go and prepare--to bid, that is,

My trusty and diligent servitor

Get all things in readiness. Vain the search

Through Venice for one to compare with this

My model of ministrants: for--

"For--once again, nay, three times over,

My helpmate 's an ape! so intelligent,

I train him to drudge at household work:

He toils and he moils, I live in clover:

Oh, you shall see! There 's a goodly scent--

From his cooking, or I 'm a Turk!

"Scarce need to descend and supervise:

I 'll do it, however: wait here awhile!"

So, down to the kitchen gayly scuttles

Our host, nor notes the alarmed surmise

Of the holy man. "O depth of guile!

He blindly guzzles and guttles,

"While--who is it dresses the food and pours

The liquor? Some fiend--I make no doubt--

In likeness of--which of the loathly brutes?

An ape! Where hides he? No bull that gores,

No bear that hugs--'t is the mock and flout

Of an ape, fiend's face that suits.

"So--out with thee, creature, wherever thou hidest!

I charge thee, by virtue of ... right do I judge!

There skulks he perdue, crouching under the bed.

Well done! What, forsooth, in beast's shape thou confidest?

I know and would name thee but that I begrudge

Breath spent on such carrion. Instead--

"I adjure thee by----" "Stay!" laughed the portent that rose

From floor up to ceiling: "No need to adjure!

See Satan in person, late ape by command

Of Him thou adjurest in vain. A saint's nose

Scents brimstone though incense be burned for a lure.

Yet, hence! for I 'm safe, understand!

"'T is my charge to convey to fit punishment's place

This lawyer, my liegeman, for cruelty wrought

On his clients, the widow and orphan, poor souls

He has plagued by exactions which proved law's disgrace,

Made equity void and to nothingness brought

God's pity. Fiends, on with fresh coals!"

"Stay!" nowise confounded, withstands Hell its match:

"How comes it, were truth in this story of thine,

God's punishment suffered a minute's delay?

Weeks, months have elapsed since thou squattedst at watch

For a spring on thy victim: what caused thee decline

Advantage till challenged to-day?"

"That challenge I meet with contempt," quoth the fiend.

"Thus much I acknowledge: the man 's armed in mail:

I wait till a joint 's loose, then quick ply my claws.

Thy friend's one good custom--he knows not--has screened

His flesh hitherto from what else would assail:

At 'Save me, Madonna!' I pause.

"That prayer did the losel but once pretermit,

My pounce were upon him. I keep me attent:

He 's in safety but till he 's caught napping. Enough!"

"Ay, enough!" smiles the Saint--"for the biter is bit,

The spy caught in somnolence. Vanish! I'm sent

To smooth up what fiends do in rough."

"I vanish? Through wall or through roof?" the ripost

Grinned gayly. "My orders were--'Leave not unharmed

The abode of this lawyer! Do damage to prove

'T was for something thou quittedst the land of the lost--

To add to their number this unit!' Though charmed

From descent there, on earth that 's above

"I may haply amerce him." "So do, and begone,

I command thee! For, look! Though there 's doorway behind

And window before thee, go straight through the wall,

Leave a breach in the brickwork, a gap in the stone

For who passes to stare at!" "Spare speech! I 'm resigned:

Here goes!" roared the goblin, as all--

Wide bat-wings, spread arms and legs, tail out a-stream,

Crash obstacles went, right and left, as he soared

Or else sank, was clean gone through the hole anyhow.

The Saint returned thanks: then a satisfied gleam

On the bald polished pate showed that triumph was scored.

"To dinner with appetite now!"

Down he trips. "In good time!" smirks the host. "Didst thou scent

Rich savor of roast meat? Where hides he, my ape?

Look alive, be alert! He 's away to wash plates.

Sit down, Saint! What 's here? Dost examine a rent

In the napkin thou twistest and twirlest? Agape ...

Ha, blood is it drips nor abates

"From thy wringing a cloth, late was lavendered fair?

What means such a marvel?" "Just this does it mean:

I convince and convict thee of sin!" answers straight

The Saint, wringing on, wringing ever--oh, rare!--

Blood--blood from a napery snow not more clean.

"A miracle shows thee thy state!

"See--blood thy extortions have wrung from the flesh

Of thy clients who, sheep-like, arrived to be shorn,

And left thee--or fleeced to the quick or so flayed

That, behold, their blood gurgles and grumbles afresh

To accuse thee! Ay, down on thy knees, get up sworn

To restore! Restitution once made,

"Sin no more! Dost thou promise? Absolved, then, arise!

Upstairs follow me! Art amazed at yon breach?

Who battered and shattered and scattered, escape

From thy purlieus obtaining? That Father of Lies

Thou wast wont to extol for his feats, all and each

The Devil 's disguised as thine ape!"

Be sure that our lawyer was torn by remorse,

Shed tears in a flood, vowed and swore so to alter

His ways that how else could our Saint but declare

He was cleansed of past sin? "For sin future--fare worse

Thou undoubtedly wilt," warned the Saint, "shouldst thou falter

One whit!" "Oh, for that have no care!

"I am firm in my purposed amendment. But, prithee,

Must ever affront and affright me yon gap?

Who made it for exit may find it of use

For entrance as easy. If, down in his smithy

He forges me fetters--when heated, mayhap,

He 'll up with an armful! Broke loose--

"How bar him out henceforth?" "Judiciously urged!"

Was the good man's reply. "How to balk him is plain.

There 's nothing the Devil objects to so much,

So speedily flies from, as one of those purged

Of his presence, the angels who erst formed his train--

His, their emperor. Choose one of such!

"Get fashioned his likeness and set him on high

At back of the breach thus adroitly filled up:

Display him as guard of two scutcheons, thy arms:

I warrant no devil attempts to get by

And disturb thee so guarded. Eat, drink, dine, and sup,

In thy rectitude, safe from alarms!"

So said and so done. See, the angel has place

Where the Devil has passage! All 's down in a book.

Gainsay me? Consult it! Still faithless? Trust _me?_

Trust Father Boverio who gave me the case

In his Annals--gets of it, by hook or by crook,

Two confirmative witnesses: three

Are surely enough to establish an act:

And thereby we learn--would we ascertain truth--

To trust wise tradition which took, at the time,

Note that served till slow history ventured on fact,

Though folk have their fling at tradition forsooth!

Row, boys, fore and aft, rhyme and chime!

BEATRICE SIGNORINI

This strange thing happened to a painter once:

Viterbo boasts the man among her sons

Of note, I seem to think: his ready tool

Picked up its precepts in Cortona's school--

That 's Pietro Berretini, whom they call

Cortona, these Italians: greatish-small,

Our painter was his pupil, by repute

His match if not his master absolute,

Though whether he spoiled fresco more or less,

And what 's its fortune, scarce repays your guess.

Still, for one circumstance, I save his name

--Francesco Romanelli: do the same!

He went to Rome and painted: there he knew

A wonder of a woman painting too--

For she, at least, was no Cortona's drudge:

Witness that ardent fancy-shape--I judge

A semblance of her soul--she called, "Desire"

With starry front for guide, where sits the fire

She left to brighten Buonarroti's house.

If you see Florence, pay that piece your vows,

Though blockhead Baldinucci's mind, imbued

With monkish morals, bade folk "Drape the nude

And stop the scandal!" quoth the record prim

I borrow this of: hang his book and him!

At Rome, then, where these fated ones met first,

The blossom of his life had hardly burst

While hers was blooming at full beauty's stand:

No less Francesco--when half-ripe he scanned

Consummate Artemisia--grew one want

To have her his and make her ministrant

With every gift of body and of soul

To him. In vain. Her sphery self was whole--

Might only touch his orb at Art's sole point.

Suppose he could persuade her to enjoint

Her life--past, present, future--all in his

At Art's sole point by some explosive kiss

Of love through lips, would love's success defeat

Artistry's haunting curse--the Incomplete?

Artists no doubt they both were,--what beside

Was she? who long had felt heart, soul spread wide

Her life out, knowing much and loving well,

On either side Art's narrow space where fell

Reflection from his own speck: but the germ

Of individual genius--what we term

The very self, the God-gift whence had grown

Heart's life and soul's life--how make that his own?

Vainly his Art, reflected, smiled in small

On Art's one facet of her ampler ball;

The rest, touch-free, took in, gave back heaven, earth,

All where he was not. Hope, well-nigh ere birth

Came to Desire, died off all-unfulfilled.

"What though in Art I stand the abler-skilled,"

(So he conceited: mediocrity

Turns on itself the self-transforming eye)

"If only Art were suing, mine would plead

To purpose: man--by nature I exceed

Woman the bounded: but how much beside

She boasts, would sue in turn and be denied!

Love her? My own wife loves me in a sort

That suits us both: she takes the world's report

Of what my work is worth, and, for the rest,

Concedes that, while his consort keeps her nest,

The eagle soars a licensed vagrant, lives

A wide free life which she at least forgives--

Good Beatricé Signorini! Well

And wisely did I choose her. But the spell

To subjugate this Artemisia--where?

She passionless?--she resolute to care

Nowise beyond the plain sufficiency

Of fact that she is she and I am I

--Acknowledged arbitrator for us both

In her life as in mine which she were loth

Even to learn the laws of? No, and no,

Twenty times over! Ay, it must be so:

I for myself, alas!"

Whereon, instead

Of the checked lover's-utterance--why, he said

--Leaning over her easel: "Flesh is red"

(Or some such just remark)--"by no means white

As Guido's practice teaches: you ate right."

Then came the better impulse: "What if pride

Were wisely trampled on, whate'er betide?

If I grow hers, not mine--join lives, confuse

Bodies and spirits, gain her not but lose

Myself to Artemisia? That were love!

Of two souls--one must bend, one rule above:

If I crouch under proudly, lord turned slave,

Were it not worthier both than if she gave

Herself--in treason to herself--to me?"

And, all the while, he felt it could not be.

Such love was true love: love that way who can!

Some one that 's born half woman, not whole man:

For man, prescribed man better or man worse,

Why, whether microcosm or universe,

What law prevails alike through great and small,

The world and man--world's miniature we call?

Male is the master. "That way" smiled and sighed

Our true male estimator--"puts her pride

My wife in making me the outlet whence

She learns all Heaven allows: 't is my pretence

To paint: her lord should do what else but paint?

Do I break brushes, cloister me turned saint?

Then, best of all suits sanctity her spouse

Who acts for Heaven, allows and disallows

At pleasure, past appeal, the right, the wrong

In all things. That 's my wife's way. But this strong

Confident Artemisia--an adept

In Art does she conceit herself? 'Except

In just this instance,' tell her, 'no one draws

More rigidly observant of the laws

Of right design: yet here,--permit me hint.--

If the acromion had a deeper dint,

That shoulder were perfection.' What surprise

--Nay scorn, shoots black fire from those startled eyes!

She to be lessoned in design forsooth!

I 'm doomed and done for, since I spoke the truth.

Make my own work the subject of dispute--

Fails it of just perfection absolute

Somewhere? Those motors, flexors,--don't I know

Ser Santi, styled 'Tirititototo

The pencil-prig,' might blame them? Yet my wife--

Were he and his nicknamer brought to life,

Tito and Titian, to pronounce again--

Ask her who knows more--I or the great Twain,

Our colorist and draughtsman!

"I help her,

Not she helps me; and neither shall demur

Because my portion is"--he chose to think--

"Quite other than a woman's: I may drink

At many waters, must repose by none--

Rather arise and fare forth, having done

Duty to one new excellence the more,

Abler thereby, though impotent before

So much was gained of knowledge. Best depart,

From this last lady I have learned by heart!"

Thus he concluded of himself--resigned

To play the man and master: "Man boasts mind:

Woman, man's sport calls mistress, to the same

Does body's suit and service. Would she claim

--My placid Beatricé-wife--pretence

Even to blame her lord if, going hence,

He wistfully regards one whom--did fate

Concede--he might accept queen, abdicate

Kingship because of?--one of no meek sort

But masterful as he: man's match in short?

Oh, there 's no secret I were best conceal!

Bicé shall know; and should a stray tear steal

From out the blue eye, stain the rose cheek--bah!

A smile, a word's gay reassurance--ah,

With kissing interspersed,--shall make amends,

Turn pain to pleasure."

"What, in truth so ends

Abruptly, do you say, our intercourse?"

Next day, asked Artemisia: "I 'll divorce

Husband and wife no longer. Go your ways,

Leave Rome! Viterbo owns no equal, says

The by-word, for fair women: you, no doubt,

May boast a paragon all specks without,

Using the painter's privilege to choose

Among what 's rarest. Will your wife refuse

Acceptance from--no rival--of a gift?

You paint the human figure I make shift

Humbly to reproduce: but, in my hours

Of idlesse, what I fain would paint is--flowers.

Look now!"

She twitched aside a veiling cloth.

"Here is my keepsake--frame and picture both:

For see, the frame is all of flowers festooned

About an empty space,--left thus, to wound

No natural susceptibility:

How can I guess? 'T is you must fill, not I,

The central space with--her whom you like best!

That is your business, mine has been the rest.

But judge!"

How judge them? Each of us, in flowers,

Chooses his love, allies it with past hours,

Old meetings, vanished forms and faces: no--

Here let each favorite unmolested blow

For one heart's homage, no tongue's banal praise,

Whether the rose appealingly bade "Gaze

Your fill on me, sultana who dethrone

The gaudy tulip!" or 't was "Me alone

Rather do homage to, who lily am,

No unabashed rose!" "Do I vainly cram

My cup with sweets, your jonquil?" "Why forget

Vernal endearments with the violet?"

So they contested yet concerted, all

As one, to circle round about, enthral

Yet, self-forgetting, push to prominence

The midmost wonder, gained no matter whence.

There 's a tale extant, in a book I conned

Long years ago, which treats of things beyond

The common, antique times and countries queer

And customs strange to match. "'T is said, last year,"

(Recounts my author) "that the King had mind

To view his kingdom--guessed at from behind

A palace-window hitherto. Announced

No sooner was such purpose than 't was pounced

Upon by all the ladies of the land--

Loyal but light of life: they formed a band

Of loveliest ones but lithest also, since

Proudly they all combined to bear their prince.

Backs joined to breasts,--arms, legs,--nay, ankles, wrists,

Hands, feet, I know not by what turns and twists,

So interwoven lay that you believed

'T was one sole beast of burden which received

The monarch on its back, of breadth not scant,

Since fifty girls made one white elephant."

So with the fifty flowers which shapes and hues

Blent, as I tell, and made one fast yet loose

Mixture of beauties, composite, distinct

No less in each combining flower that linked

With flower to form a fit environment

For--whom might be the painter's heart's intent

Thus, in the midst enhaloed, to enshrine?

"This glory-guarded middle space--is mine?

For me to fill?"

"For you, my Friend! We part,

Never perchance to meet again. Your Art--

What if I mean it--so to speak--shall wed

My own, be witness of the life we led

When sometimes it has seemed our souls near found

Each one the other as its mate--unbound

Had yours been haply from the better choice

--Beautiful Bicé: 't is the common voice,

The crowning verdict. Make whom you like best

Queen of the central space, and manifest

Your predilection for what flower beyond

All flowers finds favor with you. I am fond

Of--say--yon rose's rich predominance,

While you--what wonder?--more affect the glance

The gentler violet from its leafy screen

Ventures: so--choose your flower and paint your queen!"

Oh, but the man was ready, head as hand,

Instructed and adroit. "Just as you stand,

Stay and be made--would Nature but relent--

By Art immortal!"

Every implement

In tempting reach--a palette primed, each squeeze

Of oil-paint in its proper patch--with these,

Brushes, a veritable sheaf to grasp!

He worked as he had never dared.

"Unclasp

My Art from yours who can!"--he cried at length,

As down he threw the pencil--"Grace from Strength

Dissociate, from your flowery fringe detach

My face of whom it frames,--the feat will match

With that of Time should Time from me extract

Your memory, Artemisia!" And in fact,--

What with the pricking impulse, sudden glow

Of soul--head, hand coöperated so

That face was worthy of its frame, 't is said--

Perfect, suppose!

They parted. Soon instead

Of Rome was home,--of Artemisia--well,

The placid-perfect wife. And it befell

That after the first incontestably

Blessedest of all blisses (--wherefore try

Your patience with embraceings and the rest

Due from Calypso's all-unwilling guest

To his Penelope?)--there somehow came

The coolness which as duly follows flame.

So, one day, "What if we inspect the gifts

My Art has gained us?"

Now the wife uplifts

A casket-lid, now tries a medal's chain

Round her own lithe neck, fits a ring in vain

--Too loose on the fine finger,--vows and swears

The jewel with two pendent pearls like pears

Betters a lady's bosom--witness else!

And so forth, while Ulysses smiles.

"Such spells

Subdue such natures--sex must worship toys

--Trinkets and trash: yet, ah, quite other joys

Must stir from sleep the passionate abyss

Of--such an one as her I know--not this

My gentle consort with the milk for blood!

Why, did it chance that in a careless mood

(In those old days, gone--never to return--

When we talked--she to teach and I to learn)

I dropped a word, a hint which might imply

Consorts exist--how quick flashed fire from eye,

Brow blackened, lip was pinched by furious lip!

I needed no reminder of my slip:

One warning taught me wisdom. Whereas here ...

Aha, a sportive fancy! Eh, what fear

Of harm to follow? Just a whim indulged!

"My Beatricé, there 's an undivulged

Surprise in store for you: the moment 's fit

For letting loose a secret: out with it!

Tributes to worth, you rightly estimate

These gifts of Prince and Bishop, Church and State:

Yet, may I tell you? Tastes so disagree!

There 's one gift, preciousest of all to me,

I doubt if you would value as well worth

The obvious sparkling gauds that men unearth

For toy-cult mainly of you womankind;

Such make you marvel, I concede: while blind

The sex proves to the greater marvel here

I veil to balk its envy. Be sincere!

Say, should you search creation far and wide,

Was ever face like this?"

He drew aside

The veil, displayed the flower-framed portrait kept

For private delectation.

No adept

In florist's lore more accurately named

And praised or, as appropriately, blamed

Specimen after specimen of skill,

Than Bicé. "Rightly placed the daffodil--

Scarcely so right the blue germander. Gray

Good mouse-ear! Hardly your auricula

Is powdered white enough. It seems to me

Scarlet not crimson, that anemone:

But there 's amends in the pink saxifrage.

O darling dear ones, let me disengage

You innocents from what your harmlessness

Clasps lovingly! Out thou from their caress,

Serpent!"

Whereat forth-flashing from her coils

On coils of hair, the _spilla_ in its toils

Of yellow wealth, the dagger-plaything kept

To pin its plaits together, life-like leapt

And--woe to all inside the coronal!

Stab followed stab,--cut, slash, she ruined all

The masterpiece. Alack for eyes and mouth

And dimples and endearment--North and South,

East, West, the tatters in a fury flew:

There yawned the circlet. What remained to do?

She flung the weapon, and, with folded arms

And mien defiant of such low alarms

As death and doom beyond death, Bicé stood

Passively statuesque, in quietude

Awaiting judgment.

And out judgment burst

With frank unloading of love's laughter, first

Freed from its unsuspected source. Some throe

Must needs unlock love's prison-bars, let flow

The joyance.

"Then you ever were, still are,

And henceforth shall be--no occulted star

But my resplendent Bicé, sun-revealed,

Full-rondure! Woman-glory unconcealed,

So front me, find and claim and take your own--

My soul and body yours and yours alone.

As you are mine, mine wholly! Heart's love, take--

Use your possession--stab or stay at will

Here--hating, saving--woman with the skill

To make man beast or god!"

And so it proved:

For, as beseemed new godship, thus he loved,

Past power to change, until his dying-day,--

Good fellow! And I fain would hope--some say

Indeed for certain--that our painter's toils

At fresco-splashing, finer stroke in oils,

Were not so mediocre after all;

Perhaps the work appears unduly small

From having loomed too large in old esteem,

Patronized by late Papacy. I seem

Myself to have cast eyes on certain work

In sundry galleries, no judge needs shirk

From moderately praising. He designed

Correctly, nor in color lagged behind

His age: but both in Florence and in Rome

The elder race so make themselves at home

That scarce we give a glance to ceilingfuls

Of such like as Francesco. Still, one culls

From out the heaped laudations of the time

The pretty incident I put in rhyme.

FLUTE-MUSIC, WITH AN ACCOMPANIMENT

_He._ Ah, the bird-like fluting

Through the ash-tops yonder--

Bullfinch-bubblings, soft sounds suiting

What sweet thoughts, I wonder?

Fine-pearled notes that surely

Gather, dewdrop-fashion,

Deep-down in some heart which purely

Secretes globuled passion--

Passion insuppressive--

Such is piped, for certain;

Love, no doubt, nay, love excessive

'T is, your ash-tops curtain.

Would your ash-tops open

We might spy the player--

Seek and find some sense which no pen

Yet from singer, sayer,

Ever has extracted:

Never, to my knowledge,

Yet has pedantry enacted

That, in Cupid's College,

Just this variation

Of the old, old yearning

Should by plain speech have salvation,

Yield new men new learning.

"Love!" but what love, nicely

New from old disparted,

Would the player teach precisely?

First of all, he started

In my brain Assurance--

Trust--entire Contentment--

Passion proved by much endurance;

Then came--not resentment,

No, but simply Sorrow:

What was seen had vanished:

Yesterday so blue! To-morrow

Blank, all sunshine banished.

Hark! 'T is Hope resurges,

Struggling through obstruction--

Forces a poor smile which verges

On Joy's introduction.

Now, perhaps, mere Musing:

"Holds earth such a wonder?

Fairy-mortal, soul-sense-fusing

Past thought's power to sunder!"

What? calm Acquiescence?

"Daisied turf gives room to

Trefoil, plucked once in her presence--

Growing by her tomb too!"

_She._ All 's your fancy-spinning!

Here 's the fact: a neighbor

Never-ending, still beginning,

Recreates his labor:

Deep o'er desk he drudges.

Adds, divides, subtracts and

Multiplies, until he judges

Noonday-hour's exact sand

Shows the hour-glass emptied:

Then comes lawful leisure,

Minutes rare from toil exempted,

Fit to spend in pleasure.

Out then with--what treatise?

_Youth's Complete Instructor_

_How to play the Flute. Quid petis?_

Follow Youth's conductor

On and on, through _Easy_,

Up to _Harder_, _Hardest_

_Flute-piece_, till thou, flautist wheezy,

Possibly discardest

Tootlings hoarse and husky,

Mayst expend with courage

Breath--on tunes once bright, now dusky--

Meant to cool thy porridge.

That 's an air of Tulou's

He maltreats persistent,

Till as lief I 'd hear some Zulu's

Bone-piped bag, breath-distent,

Madden native dances.

I 'm the man's familiar:

Unexpectedness enhances

What your ear's auxiliar

--Fancy--finds suggestive.

Listen! That 's _legato_

Rightly played, his fingers restive

Touch as if _staccato_.

_He._ Ah, you trick-betrayer!

Telling tales, unwise one?

So the secret of the player

Was--he could surprise one

Well-nigh into trusting

Here was a musician

Skilled consummately, yet lusting

Through no vile ambition

After making captive

All the world,--rewarded

Amply by one stranger's rapture,

Common praise discarded.

So, without assistance

Such as music rightly

Needs and claims,--defying distance,

Overleaping lightly

Obstacles which hinder,

He, for my approval,

All the same and all the kinder

Made mine what might move all

Earth to kneel adoring:

Took--while he piped Gounod's

Bit of passionate imploring--

Me for Juliet: who knows?

No! as you explain things,

All 's mere repetition,

Practise-pother: of all vain things

Why waste pooh or pish on

Toilsome effort--never

Ending, still beginning

After what should pay endeavor

--Right-performance? winning

Weariness from you who,

Ready to admire some

Owl's fresh hooting--Tu-whit, tu-who--

Find stale thrush-songs tiresome.

_She_. Songs, Spring thought perfection,

Summer criticises:

What in May escaped detection,

August, past surprises,

Notes, and names each blunder.

You, the just-initiate,

Praise to heart's content (what wonder?)

Tootings I hear vitiate

Romeo's serenading--

I who, times full twenty,

Turned to ice--no ash-tops aiding--

At his _caldamente_.

So, 't was distance altered

Sharps to flats? The missing

Bar when syncopation faltered

(You thought--paused for kissing!)

Ash-tops too felonious

Intercepted? Rather

Say--they well-nigh made euphonious

Discord, helped to gather

Phrase, by phrase, turn patches

Into simulated

Unity which botching matches,--

Scraps redintegrated.

_He_. Sweet, are you suggestive

Of an old suspicion

Which has always found me restive

To its admonition

When it ventured whisper

"Fool, the strifes and struggles

Of your trembler--blusher--lisper

Were so many juggles,

Tricks tried--oh, so often!--

Which once more do duty,

Find again a heart to soften,

Soul to snare with beauty."

Birth-blush of the briar-rose,

Mist-bloom of the hedge-sloe,

Some one gains the prize: admire rose

Would he, when noon's wedge--slow--

Sure, has pushed, expanded

Rathe pink to raw redness?

Would he covet sloe when sanded

By road-dust to deadness?

So--restore their value!

Ply a water-sprinkle!

Then guess sloe is fingered, shall you?

Find in rose a wrinkle?

Here what played Aquarius?

Distance--ash-tops aiding,

Reconciled scraps else contrarious,

Brightened stuff fast fading.

Distance--call your shyness:

Was the fair one peevish?

Coyness softened out of slyness.

Was she cunning, thievish,

All-but-proved impostor?

Bear but one day's exile,

Ugly traits were wholly lost or

Screened by fancies flexile--

Ash-tops these, you take me?

Fancies' interference

Changed ...

But since I sleep, don't wake me:

What if all's appearance?

Is not outside seeming

Real as substance inside?

Both are facts, so leave me dreaming:

If who loses wins I'd

Ever lose,--conjecture,

From one phrase trilled deftly,

All the piece. So, end your lecture,

Let who lied be left lie!

"IMPERANTE AUGUSTO NATUS EST--"

What it was struck the terror into me?

This, Publius: closer! while we wait our turn

I'll tell you. Water's warm (they ring inside)

At the eighth hour, till when no use to bathe.

Here in the vestibule where now we sit,

One scarce stood yesterday, the throng was such

Of loyal gapers, folk all eye and ear

While Lucius Varius Rufus in their midst

Read out that long-planned late-completed piece,

His Panegyric on the Emperor.

"Nobody like him," little Flaccus laughed,

"At leading forth an Epos with due pomp!

Only, when godlike Cæsar swells the theme,

How should mere mortals hope to praise aright?

Tell me, thou offshoot of Etruscan kings!"

Whereat Mæcenas smiling sighed assent.

I paid my quadrans, left the Thermæ's roar

Of rapture as the poet asked, "What place

Among the godships Jove, for Cæsar's sake,

Would bid its actual occupant vacate

In favor of the new divinity?"

And got the expected answer, "Yield thine own!"--

Jove thus dethroned, I somehow wanted air,

And found myself a-pacing street and street,

Letting the sunset, rosy over Rome,

Clear my head dizzy with the hubbub--say,

As if thought's dance therein had kicked up dust

By trampling on all else: the world lay prone,

As--poet-propped, in brave hexameters--

Their subject triumphed up from man to God.

Caius Octavius Cæsar the August--

Where was escape from his prepotency?

I judge I may have passed--how many piles

Of structure dropt like doles from his free hand

To Rome on every side? Why, right and left,

For temples you've the Thundering Jupiter,

Avenging Mars, Apollo Palatine:

How count Piazza, Forum--there's a third

All but completed. You've the Theatre

Named of Marcellus--all his work, such work!--

One thought still ending, dominating all--

With warrant Varius sang, "Be Cæsar God!"

By what a hold arrests he Fortune's wheel,

Obtaining and retaining heaven and earth

Through Fortune, if you like, but favor--no!

For the great deeds flashed by me, fast and thick

As stars which storm the sky on autumn nights--

Those conquests! but peace crowned them,--so, of peace

Count up his titles only--these, in few--

Ten years Triumvir, Consul thirteen times,

Emperor, nay--the glory topping all--Hailed

Father of his Country, last and best

Of titles, by himself accepted so:

And why not? See but feats achieved in Rome--

Not to say, Italy--he planted there

Some thirty colonies--but Rome itself

All new-built, "marble now, brick once," he boasts:

This Portico, that Circus. Would you sail?

He has drained Tiber for you: would you walk?

He straightened out the long Flaminian Way.

Poor? Profit by his score of donatives!

Rich--that is, mirthful? Half-a-hundred games

Challenge your choice! There's Rome--for you and me

Only? The centre of the world besides!

For, look the wide world over, where ends Rome?

To sunrise? There's Euphrates--all between!

To sunset? Ocean and immensity:

North, stare till Danube stops you: South, see Nile,

The Desert and the earth-upholding Mount.

Well may the poet-people each with each

Vie in his praise, our company of swans,

Virgil and Horace, singers--in their way--

Nearly as good as Varius, though less famed:

Well may they cry, "No mortal, plainly God!"

Thus to myself myself said, while I walked:

Or would have said, could thought attain to speech,

Clean baffled by enormity of bliss

The while I strove to scale its heights and sound

Its depths--this masterdom o'er all the world

Of one who was but born--like you, like me,

Like all the world he owns--of flesh and blood.

But he--how grasp, how gauge his own conceit

Of bliss to me near inconceivable?

Or, since such flight too much makes reel the brain,

Let's sink--and so take refuge, as it were,

From life's excessive altitude--to life's

Breathable wayside shelter at its base!

If looms thus large this Cæsar to myself

--Of senatorial rank and somebody--

How must he strike the vulgar nameless crowd,

Innumerous swarm that 's nobody at all?

Why,--for an instance,--much as yon gold shape

Crowned, sceptred, on the temple opposite--

Fulgurant Jupiter--must daze the sense

Of--say, yon outcast begging from its step!

"What, Anti-Cæsar, monarch in the mud,

As he is pinnacled above thy pate?

Ay, beg away! thy lot contrasts full well

With his whose bounty yields thee this support--

Our Holy and Inviolable One,

Cæsar, whose bounty built the fane above!

Dost read my thought? Thy garb, alack, displays

Sore usage truly in each rent and stain--

Faugh! Wash though in Suburra! 'Ware the dogs

Who may not so disdain a meal on thee!

What, stretchest forth a palm to catch my alms?

Aha, why yes: I must appear--who knows?--

I, in my toga, to thy rags and thee--

Quæstor--nay, Ædile, Censor--Pol! perhaps

The very City-Prætor's noble self!

As to me Cæsar, so to thee am I?

Good: nor in vain shall prove thy quest, poor rogue!

Hither--hold palm out--take this quarter-as!"

And who did take it? As he raised his head,

(My gesture was a trifle--well--abrupt,)

Back fell the broad flap of the peasant's-hat,

The homespun cloak that muffled half his cheek

Dropped somewhat, and I had a glimpse--just one!

One was enough. Whose--whose might be the face?

That unkempt careless hair--brown, yellowish--

Those sparkling eyes beneath their eyebrows' ridge

(Each meets each, and the hawk-nose rules between)

--That was enough, no glimpse was needed more!

And terrifyingly into my mind

Came that quick-hushed report was whispered us,

"They do say, once a year in sordid garb

He plays the mendicant, sits all day long,

Asking and taking alms of who may pass,

And so averting, if submission help,

Fate's envy, the dread chance and change of things

When Fortune--for a word, a look, a naught--

Turns spiteful and--the petted lioness--

Strikes with her sudden paw, and prone falls each

Who patted late her neck superiorly,

Or trifled with those claw-tips velvet-sheathed."

"He's God!" shouts Lucius Varius Rufus: "Man

And worms'-meat any moment!" mutters low

Some Power, admonishing the mortal-born.

Ay, do you mind? There 's meaning in the fact

That whoso conquers, triumphs, enters Rome,

Climbing the Capitolian, soaring thus

To glory's summit,--Publius, do you mark--

Ever the same attendant who, behind,

Above the Conqueror's head supports the crown

All-too-demonstrative for human wear,

--One hand's employment--all the while reserves

Its fellow, backward flung, to point how, close

Appended from the car, beneath the foot

Of the up-borne exulting Conqueror,

Frown--half-descried--the instruments of shame,

The malefactor's due. Crown, now--Cross, when?

Who stands secure? Are even Gods so safe?

Jupiter that just now is dominant--

Are not there ancient dismal tales how once

A predecessor reigned ere Saturn came,

And who can say if Jupiter be last?

Was it for nothing the gray Sibyl wrote

"Cæsar Augustus regnant, shall be born

In blind Judæa"--one to master him,

Him and the universe? An old-wife's tale?

Bath-drudge! Here, slave! No cheating! Our turn next.

No loitering, or be sure you taste the lash!

Two strigils, two oil-drippers, each a sponge!

DEVELOPMENT

My Father was a scholar and knew Greek.

When I was five years old, I asked him once

"What do you read about?"

"The siege of Troy."

"What is a siege, and what is Troy?"

Whereat

He piled up chairs and tables for a town,

Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat

--Helen, enticed away from home (he said)

By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close

Under the footstool, being cowardly,

But whom--since she was worth the pains, poor puss--

Towzer and Tray,--our dogs, the Atreidai,--sought

By taking Troy to get possession of

--Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk,

(My pony in the stable)--forth would prance

And put to flight Hector--our page-boy's self.

This taught me who was who and what was what:

So far I rightly understood the case

At five years old; a huge delight it proved

And still proves--thanks to that instructor sage

My Father, who knew better than turn straight

Learning's full flare on weak-eyed ignorance,

Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind,

Content with darkness and vacuity.

It happened, two or three years afterward,

That--I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege--

My Father came upon our make-believe.

"How would you like to read yourself the tale

Properly told, of which I gave you first

Merely such notion as a boy could bear?

Pope, now, would give you the precise account

Of what, some day, by dint of scholarship,

You'll hear--who knows?--from Homer's very mouth.

Learn Greek by all means, read the 'Blind Old Man,

Sweetest of Singers'--_tuphlos_ which means 'blind,'

_Hedistos_ which means 'sweetest.' Time enough!

Try, anyhow, to master him some day;

Until when, take what serves for substitute,

Read Pope, by all means!"

So I ran through Pope,

Enjoyed the tale--what history so true?

Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged,

Grew fitter thus for what was promised next--

The very thing itself, the actual words,

When I could turn--say, Buttmann to account.

Time passed, I ripened somewhat: one fine day,

"Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less?

There 's Heine, where the big books block the shelf:

Don't skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon!"

I thumbed well and skipped nowise till I learned

Who was who, what was what, from Homer's tongue,

And there an end of learning. Had you asked

The all-accomplished scholar, twelve years old,

"Who was it wrote the Iliad?"--what a laugh!

"Why, Homer, all the world knows: of his life

Doubtless some facts exist: it's everywhere:

We have not settled, though, his place of birth:

He begged, for certain, and was blind beside:

Seven cities claimed him--Scio, with best right,

Thinks Byron. What he wrote? Those Hymns we have.

Then there 's the 'Battle of the Frogs and Mice,'

That's all--unless they dig 'Margites' up

(I'd like that) nothing more remains to know."

Thus did youth spend a comfortable time;

Until--"What's this the Germans say in fact

That Wolf found out first? It's unpleasant work

Their chop and change, unsettling one's belief:

All the same, where we live, we learn, that 's sure."

So, I bent brow o'er _Prolegomena_.

And after Wolf, a dozen of his like

Proved there was never any Troy at all,

Neither Besiegers nor Besieged,--nay, worse,--

No actual Homer, no authentic text,

No warrant for the fiction I, as fact,

Had treasured in my heart and soul so long--

Ay, mark you! and as fact held still, still hold,

Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of hearts

And soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixed

From accidental fancy's guardian sheath.

Assuredly thenceforward--thank my stars!--

However it got there, deprive who could--

Wring from the shrine my precious tenantry,

Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his Spouse,

Achilles and his Friend?--though Wolf--ah, Wolf!

Why must he needs come doubting, spoil a dream?

But then, "No dream's worth waking"--Browning says:

And here's the reason why I tell thus much.

I, now mature man, you anticipate,

May blame my Father justifiably

For letting me dream out my nonage thus,

And only by such slow and sure degrees

Permitting me to sift the grain from chaff,

Get truth and falsehood known and named as such.

Why did he ever let me dream at all,

Not bid me taste the story in its strength?

Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified

To rightly understand mythology,

Silence at least was in his power to keep:

I might have--somehow--correspondingly--

Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains,

Been taught, by forthrights not meanderings,

My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus' son,

A lie as Hell's Gate, love my wedded wife,

Like Hector, and so on with all the rest.

Could not I have excogitated this

Without believing such man really were?

That is--he might have put into my hand

The "Ethics"? In translation, if you please,

Exact, no pretty lying that improves,

To suit the modern taste: no more, no less--

The "Ethics:" 't is a treatise I find hard

To read aright now that my hair is gray,

And I can manage the original.

At five years old--how ill had fared its leaves!

Now, growing double o'er the Stagirite,

At least I soil no page with bread and milk,

Nor crumple, dogs-ear and deface--boys' way.

REPHAN

Suggested by a very early recollection of a prose story by the noble

woman and imaginative writer, Jane Taylor, of Norwich, [more correctly,

of Ongar]. R. B.

How I lived, ere my human life began

In this world of yours,--like you, made man,--

When my home was the Star of my God Rephan?

Come then around me, close about,

World-weary earth-born ones! Darkest doubt

Or deepest despondency keeps you out?

Nowise! Before a word I speak,

Let my circle embrace your worn, your weak,

Brow-furrowed old age, youth's hollow cheek--

Diseased in the body, sick in soul,

Pinched poverty, satiate wealth,--your whole

Array of despairs! Have I read the roll?

All here? Attend, perpend! O Star

Of my God Rephan, what wonders are

In thy brilliance fugitive, faint and far!

Far from me, native to thy realm,

Who shared its perfections which o'erwhelm

Mind to conceive. Let drift the helm,

Let drive the sail, dare uuconfined

Embark for the vastitude, O Mind,

Of an absolute bliss! Leave earth behind!

Here, by extremes, at a mean you guess:

There, all 's at most--not more, not less:

Nowhere deficiency nor excess.

No want--whatever should be, is now:

No growth--that 's change, and change comes--how

To royalty born with crown on brow?

Nothing begins--so needs to end:

Where fell it short at first? Extend

Only the same, no change can mend!

I use your language: mine--no word

Of its wealth would help who spoke, who heard,

To a gleam of intelligence. None preferred,

None felt distaste when better and worse

Were uncontrastable: bless or curse

What--in that uniform universe?

Can your world's phrase, your sense of things

Forth-figure the Star of my God? No springs,

No winters throughout its space. Time brings

No hope, no fear: as to-day, shall be

To-morrow: advance or retreat need we

At our stand-still through eternity?

All happy: needs must we so have been,

Since who could be otherwise? All serene:

What dark was to banish, what light to screen?

Earth's rose is a bud that 's checked or grows

As beams may encourage or blasts oppose:

Our lives leapt forth, each a full-orbed rose--

Each rose sole rose in a sphere that spread

Above and below and around--rose-red:

No fellowship, each for itself instead.

One better than I--would prove I lacked

Somewhat: one worse were a jarring fact

Disturbing my faultlessly exact.

How did it come to pass there lurked

Somehow a seed of change that worked

Obscure in my heart till perfection irked?--

Till out of its peace at length grew strife--

Hopes, fears, loves, hates,--obscurely rife,--

My life grown a-tremble to turn your life?

Was it Thou, above all lights that are,

Prime Potency, did Thy hand unbar

The prison-gate of Rephan my Star?

In me did such potency wake a pulse

Could trouble tranquillity that lulls

Not lashes inertion till throes convulse

Soul's quietude into discontent?

As when the completed rose bursts, rent

By ardors till forth from its orb are sent

New petals that mar--unmake the disk--

Spoil rondure: what in it ran brave risk,

Changed apathy's calm to strife, bright, brisk,

Pushed simple to compound, sprang and spread

Till, fresh-formed, faceted, floreted,

The flower that slept woke a star instead?

No mimic of Star Rephan! How long

I stagnated there where weak and strong,

The wise and the foolish, right and wrong,

Are merged alike in a neutral Best,

Can I tell? No more than at whose behest

The passion arose in my passive breast,

And I yearned for no sameness but difference

In thing and thing, that should shock my sense

With a want of worth in them all, and thence

Startle me up, by an Infinite

Discovered above and below me--height

And depth alike to attract my flight,

Repel my descent: by hate taught love.

Oh, gain were indeed to see above

Supremacy ever--to move, remove,

Not reach--aspire yet never attain

To the object aimed at! Scarce in vain,--

As each stage I left nor touched again.

To suffer, did pangs bring the loved one bliss,

Wring knowledge from ignorance,--just for this--

To add one drop to a love-abyss!

Enough: for you doubt, you hope, O men,

You fear, you agonize, die: what then?

Is an end to your life's work out of ken?

Have you no assurance that, earth at end,

Wrong will prove right? Who made shall mend

In the higher sphere to which yearnings tend?

Why should I speak? You divine the test.

When the trouble grew in my pregnant breast

A voice said, "So wouldst thou strive, not rest?

"Burn and not smoulder, win by worth,

Not rest content with a wealth that's dearth?

Thou art past Rephan, thy place be Earth!"

REVERIE

I know there shall dawn a day

--Is it here on homely earth?

Is it yonder, worlds away,

Where the strange and new have birth,

That Power comes full in play?

Is it here, with grass about,

Under befriending trees,

When shy buds venture out,

And the air by mild degrees

Puts winter's death past doubt?

Is it up amid whirl and roar

Of the elemental flame

Which star-flecks heaven's dark floor,

That, new yet still the same,

Full in play comes Power once more?

Somewhere, below, above,

Shall a day dawn--this I know--

When Power, which vainly strove

My weakness to o'erthrow,

Shall triumph. I breathe, I move,

I truly am, at last!

For a veil is rent between

Me and the truth which passed

Fitful, half-guessed, half-seen,

Grasped at--not gained, held fast.

I for my race and me

Shall apprehend life's law:

In the legend of man shall see

Writ large what small I saw

In my life's; tale both agree.

As the record from youth to age

Of my own, the single soul--

So the world's wide book: one page

Deciphered explains the whole

Of our common heritage.

How but from near to far

Should knowledge proceed, increase?

Try the clod ere test the star!

Bring our inside strife to peace

Ere we wage, on the outside, war!

So, my annals thus begin:

With body, to life awoke

Soul, the immortal twin

Of body which bore soul's yoke

Since mortal and not akin.

By means of the flesh, grown fit,

Mind, in surview of things,

Now soared, anon alit

To treasure its gatherings

From the ranged expanse--to-wit,

Nature,--earth's, heaven's wide show

Which taught all hope, all fear:

Acquainted with joy and woe,

I could say, "Thus much is clear,

Doubt annulled thus much: I know.

"All is effect of cause:

As it would, has willed and done

Power: and my mind's applause

Goes, passing laws each one,

To Omnipotence, lord of laws."

Head praises, but heart refrains

From loving's acknowledgment.

Whole losses outweigh half-gains:

Earth's good is with evil blent:

Good struggles but evil reigns.

Yet since Earth's good proved good--

Incontrovertibly

Worth loving--I understood

How evil--did mind descry

Power's object to end pursued--

Were haply as cloud across

Good's orb, no orb itself:

Mere mind--were it found at loss

Did it play the tricksy elf

And from life's gold purge the dross?

Power is known infinite:

Good struggles to be--at best

Seems--scanned by the human sight,

Tried by the senses' test--

Good palpably: but with right

Therefore to mind's award

Of loving, as power claims praise?

Power--which finds naught too hard,

Fulfilling itself all ways

Unchecked, unchanged: while barred,

Baffled, what good began

Ends evil on every side.

To Power submissive man

Breathes, "E'en as Thou art, abide!"

While to good "Late-found, long-sought,

"Would Power to a plenitude

But liberate, but enlarge

Good's strait confine,--renewed

Were ever the heart's discharge

Of loving!" Else doubts intrude.

For you dominate, stars all!

For a sense informs you--brute,

Bird, worm, fly, great and small,

Each with your attribute

Or low or majestical!

Thou earth that embosomest

Offspring of land and sea--

How thy hills first sank to rest,

How thy vales bred herb and tree

Which dizen thy mother-breast--

Do I ask? "Be ignorant

Ever!" the answer clangs:

Whereas if I plead world's want,

Soul's sorrows and body's pangs,

Play the human applicant,--

Is a remedy far to seek?

I question and find response:

I--all men, strong or weak,

Conceive and declare at once

For each want its cure. "Power, speak!

"Stop change, avert decay

Fix life fast, banish death,

Eclipse from the star bid stay,

Abridge of no moment's breath

One creature! Hence, Night, hail, Day!"

What need to confess again

No problem this to solve

By impotence? Power, once plain

Proved Power--let on Power devolve

Good's right to co-equal reign!

Past mind's conception--Power!

Do I seek how star, earth, beast,

Bird, worm, fly, gain their dower

For life's use, most and least?

Back from the search I cower.

Do I seek what heals all harm,

Nay, hinders the harm at first,

Saves earth? Speak, Power, the charm!

Keep the life there unamerced

By chance, change, death's alarm!

As promptly as mind conceives,

Let Power in its turn declare

Some law which wrong retrieves,

Abolishes everywhere

What thwarts, what irks, what grieves!

Never to be! and yet

How easy it seems--to sense

Like man's--if somehow met

Power with its match--immense

Love, limitless, unbeset

By hindrance on every side!

Conjectured, nowise known,

Such may be: could man confide

Such would match--were Love but shown

Stript of the veils that hide--

Power's self now manifest!

So reads my record: thine,

O world, how runs it? Guessed

Were the purport of that prime line,

Prophetic of all the rest!

"In a beginning God

Made heaven and earth." Forth flashed

Knowledge: from star to clod

Man knew things: doubt abashed

Closed its long period.

Knowledge obtained Power praise.

Had Good been manifest,

Broke out in cloudless blaze,

Unchequered as unrepressed,

In all things Good at best--

Then praise--all praise, no blame--

Had hailed the perfection. No!

As Power's display, the same

Be Good's--praise forth shall flow

Unisonous in acclaim!

Even as the world its life,

So have I lived my own--

Power seen with Love at strife,

That sure, this dimly shown,

--Good rare and evil rife.

Whereof the effect be--faith

That, some far day, were found

Ripeness in things now rathe,

Wrong righted, each chain unbound,

Renewal born out of scathe.

Why faith--but to lift the load,

To leaven the lump, where lies

Mind prostrate through knowledge owed

To the loveless Power it tries

To withstand, how vain! In flowed

Ever resistless fact:

No more than the passive clay

Disputes the potter's act,

Could the whelmed mind disobey

Knowledge the cataract.

But, perfect in every part,

Has the potter's moulded shape,

Leap of man's quickened heart,

Throe of his thought's escape,

Stings of his soul which dart

Through the barrier of flesh, till keen

She climbs from the calm and clear,

Through turbidity all between,

From the known to the unknown here,

Heaven's "Shall be," from Earth's "Has been"?

Then life is--to wake not sleep,

Rise and not rest, but press

From earth's level where blindly creep

Things perfected, more or less,

To the heaven's height, far and steep,

Where, amid what strifes and storms

May wait the adventurous quest,

Power is Love--transports, transforms

Who aspired from worst to best,

Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms'.

I have faith such end shall be:

From the first, Power was--I knew,

Life has made clear to me

That, strive but for closer view,

Love were as plain to see.

When see? When there dawns a day,

If not on the homely earth,

Then yonder, worlds away,

Where the strange and new have birth,

And Power comes full in play.

EPILOGUE

In regard to the third verse of this poem the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of

February 1, 1890, related this incident: "One evening, just before

his death-illness, the poet was reading this from a proof to his

daughter-in-law and sister. He said: 'It almost looks like bragging to

say this, and as if I ought to cancel it; but it's the simple truth;

and as it's true, it shall stand.'"

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,

When you set your fancies free,

Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--

Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,

--Pity me?

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!

What had I on earth to do

With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?

Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel

--Being--who?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,

Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time

Greet the unseen with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,

"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,--fight on, fare ever

There as here!"

APPENDIX

I. AN ESSAY ON SHELLEY

Shelley's influence on Browning is so frequently referred to, that it

seems best, inasmuch as this _Essay_ is the only distinct piece of

prose in Browning's writings, to print it here in the Appendix to his

_Complete Poetic and Dramatic Writings_. The paper was written in 1852

at the request of Mr. Moxon, the publisher, under the circumstances

named in the first paragraph of the _Essay_. Before the book was

actually published, it was discovered to be a fabrication and was

immediately suppressed. A very few copies only escaped the publisher's

hands; apparently, those only which went to the depositories of

copyright matter. The present copy is taken from the one issued in 1888

by the Shelley Society, London, under the editorship of W. Tyas Harden.

* * * * *

An opportunity having presented itself for the acquisition of a series

of unedited letters by Shelley, all more or less directly supplementary

to and illustrative of the collection already published by Mr. Moxon,

that gentleman has decided on securing them. They will prove an

acceptable addition to a body of correspondence, the value of which,

towards a right understanding of its author's purpose and work, may be

said to exceed that of any similar contribution exhibiting the worldly

relations of a poet whose genius has operated by a different law.

Doubtless we accept gladly the biography of an objective poet, as

the phrase now goes; one whose endeavor has been to reproduce things

external (whether the phenomena of the scenic universe, or the

manifested action of the human heart and brain), with an immediate

reference, in every case, to the common eye and apprehension of

his fellow-men, assumed capable of receiving and profiting by this

reproduction. It has been obtained through the poet's double faculty

of seeing external objects more clearly, widely, and deeply than

is possible to the average mind, at the same time that he is so

acquainted and in sympathy with its narrower comprehension as to be

careful to supply it with no other materials than it can combine into

an intelligible whole. The auditory of such a poet will include, not

only the intelligences which, save for such assistance, would have

missed the deeper meaning and enjoyment of the original objects, but

also the spirits of a like endowment with his own, who, by means of

his abstract, can forthwith pass to the reality it was made from, and

either corroborate their impressions of things known already, or supply

themselves with new from whatever shows in the inexhaustible variety

of existence may have hitherto escaped their knowledge. Such a poet is

properly the ποιητής, the fashioner; and the thing fashioned, his

poetry, will of necessity be substantive, projected from himself and

distinct. We are ignorant what the inventor of _Othello_ conceived

of that fact as he beheld it in completeness, how he accounted for

it, under what known law he registered its nature, or to what unknown

law he traced its coincidence. We learn only what he intended we

should learn by that particular exercise of his power,--the fact

itself,--which, with its infinite significances, each of us receives

for the first time as a creation, and is hereafter left to deal

with, as, in proportion to his own intelligence, he best may. We are

ignorant, and would fain be otherwise.