They call me proud: but England had no right,
When she encountered me--her strength to mine--
To find the chosen foe a craven. Girl,
I fought her to the utterance, I fell,
I am hers now, and I will die. Beside,
The lookers-on! Eliot is all about
This place, with his most uncomplaining brow.
_Lady Carlisle._ Strafford!
_Strafford._ I think if you could know how much
I love you, you would be repaid, my friend!
_Lady Carlisle._ Then, for my sake!
_Strafford._ Even for your sweet sake,
I stay.
_Hollis._ For _their_ sake!
_Strafford._ To bequeath a stain?
Leave me! Girl, humor me and let me die!
_Lady Carlisle._ Bid him escape--wake, King! Bid him escape!
_Strafford._ True, I will go! Die, and forsake the King?
I'll not draw back from the last service.
_Lady Carlisle._ Strafford!
_Strafford._ And, after all, what is disgrace to me?
Let us come, child! That it should end this way!
Lead them! but I feel strangely: it was not
To end this way.
_Lady Carlisle._ Lean--lean on me!
_Strafford._ My King!
Oh, had he trusted me--his friend of friends!
_Lady Carlisle._ I can support him, Hollis!
_Strafford._ Not this way!
This gate--I dreamed of it, this very gate.
_Lady Carlisle._ It opens on the river: our good boat
Is moored below, our friends are there.
_Strafford._ The same:
Only with something ominous and dark,
Fatal, inevitable.
_Lady Carlisle._ Strafford! Strafford!
_Strafford._ Not by this gate! I feel what will be there!
I dreamed of it, I tell you: touch it not!
_Lady Carlisle._ To save the King,--Strafford, to save the King!
[_As STRAFFORD opens the door, PYM is discovered with HAMPDEN, VANE,
etc. STRAFFORD falls back; PYM follows slowly and confronts him._
_Pym._ Have I done well? Speak, England! Whose sole sake
I still have labored for, with disregard
To my own heart,--for whom my youth was made
Barren, my manhood waste, to offer up
Her sacrifice--this friend, this Wentworth here--
Who walked in youth with me, loved me, it may be,
And whom, for his forsaking England's cause,
I hunted by all means (trusting that she
Would sanctify all means) even to the block
Which waits for him. And saying this, I feel
No bitterer pang than first I felt, the hour
I swore that Wentworth might leave us, but I
Would never leave him: I do leave him now.
I render up my charge (be witness, God!)
To England who imposed it. I have done
Her bidding--poorly, wrongly,--it may be,
With ill effects--for I am weak, a man:
Still, I have done my best, my human best,
Not faltering for a moment. It is done.
And this said, if I say ... yes, I will say
I never loved but one man--David not
More Jonathan! Even thus, I love him now:
And look for my chief portion in that world
Where great hearts led astray are turned again,
(Soon it may be, and, certes, will be soon:
My mission over, I shall not live long,)--
Ay, here I know I talk--I dare and must,
Of England, and her great reward, as all
I look for there; but in my inmost heart,
Believe, I think of stealing quite away
To walk once more with Wentworth--my youth's friend
Purged from all error, gloriously renewed,
And Eliot shall not blame us. Then indeed....
This is no meeting, Wentworth! Tears increase
Too hot. A thin mist--is it blood?--enwraps
The face I loved once. Then, the meeting be!
_Strafford._ I have loved England too; we'll meet then, Pym.
As well die now! Youth is the only time
To think and to decide on a great course:
Manhood with action follows; but 'tis dreary,
To have to alter our whole life in age--
The time past, the strength gone! As well die now.
When we meet, Pym, I'd be set right--not now!
Best die. Then if there's any fault, fault too
Dies, smothered up. Poor grey old little Laud
May dream his dream out, of a perfect Church,
In some blind corner. And there's no one left.
I trust the King now wholly to you, Pym!
And yet, I know not: I shall not be there:
Friends fail--if he have any. And he's weak,
And loves the Queen, and.... Oh, my fate is nothing--
Nothing! But not that awful head--not that!
_Pym._ If England shall declare such will to me....
_Strafford._ Pym, you help England! I, that am to die,
What I must see! 'tis here--all here! My God,
Let me but gasp out, in one word of fire,
How thou wilt plague him, satiating hell!
What? England that you help, become through you
A green and putrefying charnel, left
Our children ... some of us have children, Pym--
Some who, without that, still must ever wear
A darkened brow, an over-serious look,
And never properly be young! No word?
What if I curse you? Send a strong curse forth
Clothed from my heart, lapped round with horror till
She's fit with her white face to walk the world
Scaring kind natures from your cause and you--
Then to sit down with you at the board-head,
The gathering for prayer.... O speak, but speak!
... Creep up, and quietly follow each one home,
You, you, you, be a nestling care for each
To sleep with,--hardly moaning in his dreams.
She gnaws so quietly,--till, lo he starts,
Gets off with half a heart eaten away!
Oh, shall you 'scape with less if she's my child?
You will not say a word--to me--to Him?
_Pym._ If England shall declare such will to me....
_Strafford._ No, not for England now, not for Heaven now,--
See, Pym, for my sake, mine who kneel to you!
There, I will thank you for the death, my friend!
This is the meeting: let me love you well!
_Pym._ England,--I am thine own! Dost thou exact
That service? I obey thee to the end.
_Strafford._ O God, I shall die first--I shall die first!
* * * * *
A lively picture of Cavalier sentiment is given in the "Cavalier
Tunes"--which ought to furnish conclusive proof that Browning does not
always put himself into his work. They may be compared with the words
set to Avison's march given in the last chapter which presents just as
sympathetically "Roundhead" sentiment.
I. MARCHING ALONG
I
Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:
And, pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,
Marched them along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.
[Illustration: The Tower: Traitors' Gate]
II
God for King Charles! Pym and such carles
To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!
Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,
Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup
Till you're--
CHORUS.--_Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song._
III
Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell
Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well!
England, good cheer! Rupert is near!
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here
CHORUS.--_Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song?_
IV
Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls
To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles!
Hold by the right, you double your might;
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight,
CHORUS.--_March we along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!_
II. GIVE A ROUSE
I
King Charles, and who'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!
II
Who gave me the goods that went since?
Who raised me the house that sank once?
Who helped me to gold I spent since?
Who found me in wine you drank once?
CHORUS.--_King Charles, and who'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!_
III
To whom used my boy George quaff else,
By the old fool's side that begot him?
For whom did he cheer and laugh else,
While Noll's damned troopers shot him?
CHORUS.--_King Charles, and who'll do him right now?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,
King Charles!_
III. BOOT AND SADDLE
I
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!
Rescue my castle before the hot day
Brightens to blue from its silvery grey,
CHORUS.--"_Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!_"
II
Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say;
Many's the friend there, will listen and pray
"God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay--"
CHORUS.--"_Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!_"
III
Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array:
Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay,"
CHORUS.--"_Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!_"
IV
Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!
I've better counsellors; what counsel they?"
CHORUS.--"_Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!_"
Though not illustrative of the subject in hand, "Martin Relph" is
included here on account of the glimpse it gives of an episode,
interesting in English History, though devoid of serious consequences,
since it marked the final abortive struggle of a dying cause.
An imaginary incident of the rebellion in the time of George II., forms
the background of "Martin Relph," the point of the story being the
life-long agony of reproach suffered by Martin who let his envy and
jealousy conquer him at a crucial moment. The history of the attempt of
Charles Edward to get back the crown of England, supported by a few
thousand Highlanders, of his final defeat at the Battle of Culloden, and
of the decay henceforth of Jacobitism, needs no telling. The treatment
of spies as herein shown is a common-place of war-times, but that a
reprieve exonerating the accused should be prevented from reaching its
destination in time through the jealousy of the only person who saw it
coming gives the episode a tragic touch lifting it into an atmosphere of
peculiar individual pathos.
MARTIN RELPH
_My grandfather says he remembers he saw, when a youngster long ago,
On a bright May day, a strange old man, with a beard as white as snow,
Stand on the hill outside our town like a monument of woe,
And, striking his bare bald head the while, sob out the reason--so!_
If I last as long at Methuselah I shall never forgive myself:
But--God forgive me, that I pray, unhappy Martin Relph,
As coward, coward I call him--him, yes, him! Away from me!
Get you behind the man I am now, you man that I used to be!
What can have sewed my mouth up, set me a-stare, all eyes, no tongue?
People have urged "You visit a scare too hard on a lad so young!
You were taken aback, poor boy," they urge, "no time to regain
your wits:
Besides it had maybe cost you life." Ay, there is the cap which fits!
So, cap me, the coward,--thus! No fear! A cuff on the brow does good:
The feel of it hinders a worm inside which bores at the brain
for food.
See now, there certainly seems excuse: for a moment, I trust, dear
friends,
The fault was but folly, no fault of mine, or if mine, I have made
amends!
For, every day that is first of May, on the hill-top, here stand I,
Martin Relph, and I strike my brow, and publish the reason why,
When there gathers a crowd to mock the fool. No fool, friends,
since the bite
Of a worm inside is worse to bear: pray God I have balked him quite!
I'll tell you. Certainly much excuse! It came of the way they cooped
Us peasantry up in a ring just here, close huddling because
tight-hooped
By the red-coats round us villagers all: they meant we should see
the sight
And take the example,--see, not speak, for speech was the Captain's
right.
"You clowns on the slope, beware!" cried he: "This woman about to die
Gives by her fate fair warning to such acquaintance as play the spy.
Henceforth who meddle with matters of state above them perhaps will
learn
That peasants should stick to their plough-tail, leave to the King
the King's concern.
"Here's a quarrel that sets the land on fire, between King George
and his foes:
What call has a man of your kind--much less, a woman--to interpose?
Yet you needs must be meddling, folk like you, not foes--so much
the worse!
The many and loyal should keep themselves unmixed with the few
perverse.
"Is the counsel hard to follow? I gave it you plainly a month ago,
And where was the good? The rebels have learned just all that they
need to know.
Not a month since in we quietly marched: a week, and they had the
news,
From a list complete of our rank and file to a note of our caps and
shoes.
"All about all we did and all we were doing and like to do!
Only, I catch a letter by luck, and capture who wrote it, too.
Some of you men look black enough, but the milk-white face demure
Betokens the finger foul with ink: 'tis a woman who writes, be sure!
"Is it 'Dearie, how much I miss your mouth!'--good natural stuff,
she pens?
Some sprinkle of that, for a blind, of course: with talk about
cocks and hens,
How 'robin has built on the apple-tree, and our creeper which came
to grief
Through the frost, we feared, is twining afresh round casement in
famous leaf.'
"But all for a blind! She soon glides frank into 'Horrid the place
is grown
With Officers here and Privates there, no nook we may call our own:
And Farmer Giles has a tribe to house, and lodging will be to seek
For the second Company sure to come ('tis whispered) on Monday week.'
"And so to the end of the chapter! There! The murder you see, was out:
Easy to guess how the change of mind in the rebels was brought about!
Safe in the trap would they now lie snug, had treachery made no sign:
But treachery meets a just reward, no matter if fools malign!
"That traitors had played us false, was proved--sent news which fell
so pat:
And the murder was out--this letter of love, the sender of this sent
that!
'Tis an ugly job, though, all the same--a hateful, to have to deal
With a case of the kind, when a woman's in fault: we soldiers need
nerves of steel!
"So, I gave her a chance, despatched post-haste a message to
Vincent Parkes
Whom she wrote to; easy to find he was, since one of the King's
own clerks,
Ay, kept by the King's own gold in the town close by where the
rebels camp:
A sort of a lawyer, just the man to betray our sort--the scamp!
"'If her writing is simple and honest and only the lover-like stuff
it looks,
And if you yourself are a loyalist, nor down in the rebels' books,
Come quick,' said I, 'and in person prove you are each of you clear
of crime,
Or martial law must take its course: this day next week's the time!'
"Next week is now: does he come? Not he! Clean gone, our clerk, in
a trice!
He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch: no need of a warning
twice!
His own neck free, but his partner's fast in the noose still, here
she stands
To pay for her fault. 'Tis an ugly job: but soldiers obey commands.
"And hearken wherefore I make a speech! Should any acquaintance share
The folly that led to the fault that is now to be punished, let fools
beware!
Look black, if you please, but keep hands white: and, above all else,
keep wives--
Or sweethearts or what they may be--from ink! Not a word now, on your
lives!"
Black? but the Pit's own pitch was white to the Captain's face--the
brute
With the bloated cheeks and the bulgy nose and the bloodshot eyes
to suit!
He was muddled with wine, they say: more like, he was out of his
wits with fear;
He had but a handful of men, that's true,--a riot might cost him
dear.
And all that time stood Rosamund Page, with pinioned arms and face
Bandaged about, on the turf marked out for the party's firing-place.
I hope she was wholly with God: I hope 'twas His angel stretched
a hand
To steady her so, like the shape of stone you see in our
church-aisle stand.
I hope there was no vain fancy pierced the bandage to vex her eyes,
No face within which she missed without, no questions and no replies--
"Why did you leave me to die?"--"Because...." Oh, fiends, too soon
you grin
At merely a moment of hell, like that--such heaven as hell ended in!
Let mine end too! He gave the word, up went the guns in a line.
Those heaped on the hill were blind as dumb,--for, of all eyes,
only mine
Looked over the heads of the foremost rank. Some fell on their knees
in prayer,
Some sank to the earth, but all shut eyes, with a sole exception
there.
That was myself, who had stolen up last, had sidled behind the group:
I am highest of all on the hill-top, there stand fixed while the
others stoop!
From head to foot in a serpent's twine am I tightened: _I_ touch
ground?
No more than a gibbet's rigid corpse which the fetters rust around!
Can I speak, can I breathe, can I burst--aught else but see, see,
only see?
And see I do--for there comes in sight--a man, it sure must be!--
Who staggeringly, stumblingly rises, falls, rises, at random flings
his weight
On and on, anyhow onward--a man that's mad he arrives too late!
Else why does he wave a something white high-flourished above his
head?
Why does not he call, cry,--curse the fool!--why throw up his arms
instead?
O take his fist in your own face, fool! Why does not yourself shout
"Stay!
Here's a man comes rushing, might and main, with something he's mad
to say?"
And a minute, only a moment, to have hell-fire boil up in your brain,
And ere you can judge things right, choose heaven,--time's over,
repentance vain!
They level: a volley, a smoke and the clearing of smoke: I see no more
Of the man smoke hid, nor his frantic arms, nor the something white
he bore.
But stretched on the field, some half-mile off, is an object. Surely
dumb,
Deaf, blind were we struck, that nobody heard, not one of us saw him
come!
Has he fainted through fright? One may well believe! What is it he
holds so fast?
Turn him over, examine the face! Heyday! What, Vincent Parkes at last?
Dead! dead as she, by the self-same shot: one bullet has ended both,
Her in the body and him in the soul. They laugh at our plighted troth.
"Till death us do part?" Till death us do join past parting--that
sounds like
Betrothal indeed! O Vincent Parkes, what need has my fist to strike?
I helped you: thus were you dead and wed: one bound, and your soul
reached hers!
There is clenched in your hand the thing, signed, sealed, the paper
which plain avers
She is innocent, innocent, plain as print, with the King's Arms
broad engraved:
No one can hear, but if any one high on the hill can see, she's saved!
And torn his garb and bloody his lips with heart-break--plain it grew
How the week's delay had been brought about: each guess at the end
proved true.
It was hard to get at the folk in power: such waste of time! and
then
Such pleading and praying, with, all the while, his lamb in the
lion's den!
And at length when he wrung their pardon out, no end to the stupid
forms--
The license and leave: I make no doubt--what wonder if passion warms
The pulse in a man if you play with his heart?--he was something
hasty in speech;
Anyhow, none would quicken the work: he had to beseech, beseech!
And the thing once signed, sealed, safe in his grasp,--what followed
but fresh delays?
For the floods were out, he was forced to take such a roundabout of
ways!
And 'twas "Halt there!" at every turn of the road, since he had to
cross the thick
Of the red-coats: what did they care for him and his "Quick, for
God's sake, quick!"
Horse? but he had one: had it how long? till the first knave smirked
"You brag
Yourself a friend of the King's? then lend to a King's friend here
your nag!"
Money to buy another? Why, piece by piece they plundered him still,
With their "Wait you must;--no help: if aught can help you, a guinea
will!"
And a borough there was--I forget the name--whose Mayor must have
the bench
Of Justices ranged to clear a doubt: for "Vincent," thinks he,
sounds French!
It well may have driven him daft, God knows! all man can certainly
know
Is--rushing and falling and rising, at last he arrived in a
horror--so!
When a word, cry, gasp, would have rescued both! Ay bite me! The
worm begins
At his work once more. Had cowardice proved--that only--my sin of
sins!
Friends, look you here! Suppose ... suppose.... But mad I am, needs
must be!
Judas the Damned would never have dared such a sin as I dream! For,
see!
Suppose I had sneakingly loved her myself, my wretched self, and
dreamed
In the heart of me "She were better dead than happy and his!"--while
gleamed
A light from hell as I spied the pair in a perfectest embrace,
He the savior and she the saved,--bliss born of the very murder-place!
No! Say I was scared, friends! Call me fool and coward, but nothing
worse!
Jeer at the fool and gibe at the coward! 'Twas ever the coward's
curse
That fear breeds fancies in such: such take their shadow for
substance still,
--A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes,--loved Vincent, if
you will!
And her--why, I said "Good morrow" to her, "Good even," and nothing
more:
The neighborly way! She was just to me as fifty had been before.
So, coward it is and coward shall be! There's a friend, now!
Thanks! A drink
Of water I wanted: and now I can walk, get home by myself, I think.
This poem, on an incident in Clive's life, is also included on account
of its English historical setting.
The remarkable career of Robert Clive cannot be gone into here. Suffice
it to refresh one's memory with a few principal events of his life. He
was born in Shopshire in 1725. He entered the service of the East India
Company at eighteen and was sent to Madras. Here, on account of his
falling into debt, and being in danger of losing his situation, he twice
tried to shoot himself. The pistol failed to go off, however, and he
became impressed with the idea that some great destiny was awaiting him.
His feeling was fully realized as his subsequent career in India shows.
At twenty-seven, when he returned to England he had made the English the
first military power in India. On his return to India (1755-59) he took
a further step and secured for the English a political supremacy.
Finally, on his last visit, he crowned his earlier exploits by putting
the English dominance on a sounder basis of integrity than it had before
been.
The incident related in the poem by the old man, Browning heard from
Mrs. Jameson, who had shortly before heard it from Macaulay at Lansdowne
House. Macaulay mentions it in his essay: "Of his personal courage he
had, while still a writer [clerk] given signal proof by a desperate duel
with a military bully who was the terror of Fort St. David."
The old gentleman in the poem evidently mixed up his dates slightly, for
he says this incident occurred when Clive was twenty-one, and he
represents him as committing suicide twenty-five years afterwards. Clive
was actually forty-nine when he took his own life.
CLIVE
I and Clive were friends--and why not? Friends! I think you laugh,
my lad.
Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives--egad,
England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak--
"Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades--" with a tongue thrust in
your cheek!
Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world's eyes, Clive was man,
I was, am and ever shall be--mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan
Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen's estimate for fame;
While the man Clive--he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign
game,
Conquered and annexed and Englished!
Never mind! As o'er my punch
(You away) I sit of evenings,--silence, save for biscuit-crunch,
Black, unbroken,--thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old
years,
Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long-past life appears
Like an outspread map of country plodded through, each mile and rood,
Once, and well remembered still: I'm startled in my solitude
Ever and anon by--what's the sudden mocking light that breaks
On me as I slap the table till no rummer-glass but shakes
While I ask--aloud, I do believe, God help me!--"Was it thus?
Can it be that so I faltered, stopped when just one step for us--"
(Us,--you were not born, I grant, but surely some day born would be)
"--One bold step had gained a province" (figurative talk, you see)
"Got no end of wealth and honor,--yet I stood stock still no less?"
--"For I was not Clive," you comment: but it needs no Clive to guess
Wealth were handy, honor ticklish, did no writing on the wall
Warn me "Trespasser, 'ware man-traps!" Him who braves that
notice--call
Hero! none of such heroics suit myself who read plain words,
Doff my hat, and leap no barrier. Scripture says the land's the
Lord's:
Louts them--what avail the thousand, noisy in a smock-frocked ring,
All-agog to have me trespass, clear the fence, be Clive their king?
Higher warrant must you show me ere I set one foot before
T'other in that dark direction, though I stand for evermore
Poor as Job and meek as Moses. Evermore? No! By-and-by
Job grows rich and Moses valiant, Clive turns out less wise than I.
Don't object "Why call him friend, then?" Power is power, my boy,
and still
Marks a man,--God's gift magnific, exercised for good or ill.
You've your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread what was a tiger's skin:
Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in!
True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass;
Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage--ah, the brute he was!
Why, that Clive,--that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving
clerk, in fine,--
He sustained a siege in Arcot.... But the world knows! Pass the wine.
Where did I break off at? How bring Clive in? Oh, you mentioned
"fear"!
Just so: and, said I, that minds me of a story you shall hear.
We were friends then, Clive and I: so, when the clouds, about the orb
Late supreme, encroaching slowly, surely, threatened to absorb
Ray by ray its noontide brilliance,--friendship might, with
steadier eye
Drawing near, bear what had burned else, now no blaze--all majesty.
Too much bee's-wing floats my figure? Well, suppose a castle's new:
None presume to climb its ramparts, none find foothold sure for shoe
'Twixt those squares and squares of granite plating the impervious
pile
As his scale-mail's warty iron cuirasses a crocodile.
Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without
Scrambling up by crack and crevice, every cockney prates about
Towers--the heap he kicks now! turrets--just the measure of his cane!
Will that do? Observe moreover--(same similitude again)--
Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade:
'Tis when foes are foiled and fighting's finished that vile rains
invade,
Grass o'ergrows, o'ergrows till night-birds congregating find no holes
Fit to build in like the topmost sockets made for banner-poles.
So Clive crumbled slow in London--crashed at last.
A week before,
Dining with him,--after trying churchyard-chat of days of yore,--
Both of us stopped, tired as tombstones, head-piece, foot-piece,
when they lean
Each to other, drowsed in fog-smoke, o'er a coffined Past between.
As I saw his head sink heavy, guessed the soul's extinguishment
By the glazing eyeball, noticed how the furtive fingers went
Where a drug-box skulked behind the honest liquor,--"One more throw
Try for Clive!" thought I: "Let's venture some good rattling
question!" So--
"Come, Clive, tell us"--out I blurted--"what to tell in turn,
years hence,
When my boy--suppose I have one--asks me on what evidence
I maintain my friend of Plassy proved a warrior every whit
Worth your Alexanders, CÊsars, Marlboroughs and--what said Pitt?--
Frederick the Fierce himself! Clive told me once"--I want to say--
"Which feat out of all those famous doings bore the bell away
--In his own calm estimation, mark you, not the mob's rough guess--
Which stood foremost as evincing what Clive called courageousness!
Come! what moment of the minute, what speck-center in the wide
Circle of the action saw your mortal fairly deified?
(Let alone that filthy sleep-stuff, swallow bold this wholesome Port!)
If a friend has leave to question,--when were you most brave, in
short?"
Up he arched his brows o' the instant--formidably Clive again.
"When was I most brave? I'd answer, were the instance half as plain
As another instance that's a brain-lodged crystal--curse it!--here
Freezing when my memory touches--ugh!--the time I felt most fear.
Ugh! I cannot say for certain if I showed fear--anyhow,
Fear I felt, and, very likely, shuddered, since I shiver now."
"Fear!" smiled I. "Well, that's the rarer: that's a specimen to seek,
Ticket up in one's museum, _Mind-Freaks_, _Lord Clive's Fear_,
_Unique_!"
Down his brows dropped. On the table painfully he pored as though
Tracing, in the stains and streaks there, thoughts encrusted long ago.
When he spoke 'twas like a lawyer reading word by word some will,
Some blind jungle of a statement,--beating on and on until
Out there leaps fierce life to fight with.
"This fell in my factor-days.
Desk-drudge, slaving at St. David's, one must game, or drink, or
craze.
I chose gaming: and,--because your high-flown gamesters hardly take
Umbrage at a factor's elbow if the factor pays his stake,--
I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice,
Captain This and Major That, men high of color, loud of voice,
Yet indulgent, condescending to the modest juvenile
Who not merely risked but lost his hard-earned guineas with a smile.
"Down I sat to cards, one evening,--had for my antagonist
Somebody whose name's a secret--you'll know why--so, if you list,
Call him Cock o' the Walk, my scarlet son of Mars from head to heel!
Play commenced: and, whether Cocky fancied that a clerk must feel
Quite sufficient honor came of bending over one green baize,
I the scribe with him the warrior,--guessed no penman dared to raise
Shadow of objection should the honor stay but playing end
More or less abruptly,--whether disinclined he grew to spend
Practice strictly scientific on a booby born to stare
At--not ask of--lace-and-ruffles if the hand they hide plays fair,--
Anyhow, I marked a movement when he bade me 'Cut!'
"I rose.
'Such the new manoeuvre, Captain? I'm a novice: knowledge grows.
What, you force a card, you cheat, Sir?'
"Never did a thunder-clap
Cause emotion, startle Thyrsis locked with Chloe in his lap,
As my word and gesture (down I flung my cards to join the pack)
Fired the man of arms, whose visage, simply red before, turned black.
"When he found his voice, he stammered 'That expression once again!'
"'Well, you forced a card and cheated!'
"'Possibly a factor's brain,
Busied with his all-important balance of accounts, may deem
Weighing words superfluous trouble: _cheat_ to clerkly ears may seem
Just the joke for friends to venture: but we are not friends, you see!
When a gentleman is joked with,--if he's good at repartee,
He rejoins, as do I--Sirrah, on your knees, withdraw in full!
Beg my pardon, or be sure a kindly bullet through your skull
Lets in light and teaches manners to what brain it finds! Choose
quick--
Have your life snuffed out or, kneeling, pray me trim yon
candle-wick!'
"'Well, you cheated!'
"Then outbroke a howl from all the friends
around.
To his feet sprang each in fury, fists were clenched and teeth were
ground.
'End it! no time like the present! Captain, yours were our disgrace!
No delay, begin and finish! Stand back, leave the pair a space!
Let civilians be instructed: henceforth simply ply the pen,
Fly the sword! This clerk's no swordsman? Suit him with a pistol,
then!
Even odds! A dozen paces 'twixt the most and least expert
Make a dwarf a giant's equal: nay, the dwarf, if he's alert,
Likelier hits the broader target!'
"Up we stood accordingly.
As they handed me the weapon, such was my soul's thirst to try
Then and there conclusions with this bully, tread on and stamp out
Every spark of his existence, that,--crept close to, curled about
By that toying tempting teasing fool-fore-finger's middle joint,--
Don't you guess?--the trigger yielded. Gone my chance! and at the
point
Of such prime success moreover: scarce an inch above his head
Went my ball to hit the wainscot. He was living, I was dead.
"Up he marched in flaming triumph--'twas his right, mind!--up, within
Just an arm's length. 'Now, my clerkling,' chuckled Cocky with a grin
As the levelled piece quite touched me, 'Now, Sir Counting-House,
repeat
That expression which I told you proved bad manners! Did I cheat?'
"'Cheat you did, you knew you cheated, and, this moment, know as well.
As for me, my homely breeding bids you--fire and go to Hell!'
"Twice the muzzle touched my forehead. Heavy barrel, flurried wrist,
Either spoils a steady lifting. Thrice: then, 'Laugh at Hell who list,
I can't! God's no fable either. Did this boy's eye wink once? No!
There's no standing him and Hell and God all three against me,--so,
I did cheat!'
"And down he threw the pistol, out rushed--by the door
Possibly, but, as for knowledge if by chimney, roof or floor,
He effected disappearance--I'll engage no glance was sent
That way by a single starer, such a blank astonishment
Swallowed up their senses: as for speaking--mute they stood as mice.
"Mute not long, though! Such reaction, such a hubbub in a trice!
'Rogue and rascal! Who'd have thought it? What's to be expected next,
When His Majesty's Commission serves a sharper as pretext
For.... But where's the need of wasting time now? Nought requires
delay:
Punishment the Service cries for: let disgrace be wiped away
Publicly, in good broad daylight! Resignation? No, indeed
Drum and fife must play the Rogue's March, rank and file be free to
speed
Tardy marching on the rogue's part by appliance in the rear
--Kicks administered shall right this wronged civilian,--never fear,
Mister Clive, for--though a clerk--you bore yourself--suppose we say--
Just as would beseem a soldier!'
"'Gentlemen, attention--pray!
First, one word!'
"I passed each speaker severally in review.
When I had precise their number, names and styles, and fully knew
Over whom my supervision thenceforth must extend,--why, then----
"'Some five minutes since, my life lay--as you all saw, gentlemen--
At the mercy of your friend there. Not a single voice was raised
In arrest of judgment, not one tongue--before my powder blazed--
Ventured "Can it be the youngster blundered, really seemed to mark
Some irregular proceeding? We conjecture in the dark,
Guess at random,--still, for sake of fair play--what if for a freak,
In a fit of absence,--such things have been!--if our friend proved
weak
--What's the phrase?--corrected fortune! Look into the case, at
least!"
Who dared interpose between the altar's victim and the priest?
Yet he spared me! You eleven! Whosoever, all or each,
To the disadvantage of the man who spared me, utters speech
--To his face, behind his back,--that speaker has to do with me:
Me who promise, if positions change and mine the chance should be,
Not to imitate your friend and waive advantage!'
"Twenty-five
Years ago this matter happened: and 'tis certain," added Clive,
"Never, to my knowledge, did Sir Cocky have a single breath
Breathed against him: lips were closed throughout his life, or
since his death,
For if he be dead or living I can tell no more than you.
All I know is--Cocky had one chance more; how he used it,--grew
Out of such unlucky habits, or relapsed, and back again
Brought the late-ejected devil with a score more in his train,--
That's for you to judge. Reprieval I procured, at any rate.
Ugh--the memory of that minute's fear makes gooseflesh rise! Why prate
Longer? You've my story, there's your instance: fear I did, you see!"
"Well"--I hardly kept from laughing--"if I see it, thanks must be
Wholly to your Lordship's candor. Not that--in a common case--
When a bully caught at cheating thrusts a pistol in one's face,
I should underrate, believe me, such a trial to the nerve!
'Tis no joke, at one-and-twenty, for a youth to stand nor swerve.
Fear I naturally look for--unless, of all men alive,
I am forced to make exception when I come to Robert Clive.
Since at Arcot, Plassy, elsewhere, he and death--the whole world
knows--
Came to somewhat closer quarters."
Quarters? Had we come to blows,
Clive and I, you had not wondered--up he sprang so, out he rapped
Such a round of oaths--no matter! I'll endeavor to adapt
To our modern usage words he--well, 'twas friendly license--flung
At me like so many fire-balls, fast as he could wag his tongue.
"You--a soldier? You--at Plassy? Yours the faculty to nick
Instantaneously occasion when your foe, if lightning-quick,
--At his mercy, at his malice,--has you, through some stupid inch
Undefended in your bulwark? Thus laid open,--not to flinch
--That needs courage, you'll concede me. Then, look here! Suppose
the man,
Checking his advance, his weapon still extended, not a span
Distant from my temple,--curse him!--quietly had bade me 'There!
Keep your life, calumniator!--worthless life I freely spare:
Mine you freely would have taken--murdered me and my good fame
Both at once--and all the better! Go, and thank your own bad aim
Which permits me to forgive you!' What if, with such words as these,
He had cast away his weapon? How should I have borne me, please?
Nay, I'll spare you pains and tell you. This, and only this,
remained--
Pick his weapon up and use it on myself. I so had gained
Sleep the earlier, leaving England probably to pay on still
Rent and taxes for half India, tenant at the Frenchman's will."
"Such the turn," said I, "the matter takes with you? Then I abate
--No, by not one jot nor tittle,--of your act my estimate.
Fear--I wish I could detect there: courage fronts me, plain enough--
Call it desperation, madness--never mind! for here's in rough
Why, had mine been such a trial, fear had overcome disgrace.
True, disgrace were hard to bear: but such a rush against God's face
--None of that for me, Lord Plassy, since I go to church at times,
Say the creed my mother taught me! Many years in foreign climes
Rub some marks away--not all, though! We poor sinners reach life's
brink,
Overlook what rolls beneath it, recklessly enough, but think
There's advantage in what's left us--ground to stand on, time to call
'Lord, have mercy!' ere we topple over--do not leap, that's all!"
Oh, he made no answer,--re-absorbed into his cloud. I caught
Something like "Yes--courage: only fools will call it fear."
If aught
Comfort you, my great unhappy hero Clive, in that I heard,
Next week, how your own hand dealt you doom, and uttered just the word
"Fearfully courageous!"--this, be sure, and nothing else I groaned.
I'm no Clive, nor parson either: Clive's worst deed--we'll hope
condoned.
CHAPTER IV
SOCIAL ASPECTS OF ENGLISH LIFE
Browning's poetry presents no such complete panorama of phases of social
life in England as it does of those in Italy, perhaps, because there is
a poise and solidity about the English character which does not lend
itself to so great a variety of mood as one may find in the peculiarly
artistic temperament of the Italians, especially those of the
Renaissance period. Even such irregular proceedings as murders have
their philosophical after-claps which show their usefulness in the
divine scheme of things, while unfortunate love affairs work such
beneficent results in character that they are shorn of much of their
tragedy of sorrow. There is quite a group of love-lyrics with no
definite setting that might be put down as English in temper. It does
not require much imagination to think of the lover who sings so lofty a
strain in "One Way of Love" as English:--
I
All June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was they might take her eye.
II
How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music's wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!
III
My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion--heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!
Lose who may--I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!
And is not this treatment of a "pretty woman" more English than not?
A PRETTY WOMAN
I
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!
II
To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And enfold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!
III
You like us for a glance, you know--
For a word's sake
Or a sword's sake,
All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.
IV
And in turn we make you ours, we say--
You and youth too,
Eyes and mouth too,
All the face composed of flowers, we say.
V
All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet--
Sing and say for,
Watch and pray for,
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!
VI
But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,
Though we prayed you,
Paid you, brayed you
In a mortar--for you could not, Sweet!
VII
So, we leave the sweet face fondly there:
Be its beauty
Its sole duty!
Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!
VIII
And while the face lies quiet there,
Who shall wonder
That I ponder
A conclusion? I will try it there.
IX
As,--why must one, for the love foregone,
Scout mere liking?
Thunder-striking
Earth,--the heaven, we looked above for, gone!
X
Why, with beauty, needs there money be,
Love with liking?
Crush the fly-king
In his gauze, because no honey-bee?
XI
May not liking be so simple-sweet,
If love grew there
'Twould undo there
All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?
XII
Is the creature too imperfect, say?
Would you mend it
And so end it?
Since not all addition perfects aye!
XIII
Or is it of its kind, perhaps,
Just perfection--
Whence, rejection
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?
XIV
Shall we burn up, tread that face at once
Into tinder,
And so hinder
Sparks from kindling all the place at once?
XV
Or else kiss away one's soul on her?
Your love-fancies!
--A sick man sees
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!
XVI
Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,--
Plucks a mould-flower
For his gold flower,
Uses fine things that efface the rose:
XVII
Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,
Precious metals
Ape the petals,--
Last, some old king locks it up, morose!
XVIII
Then how grace a rose? I know a way!
Leave it, rather.
Must you gather?
Smell, kiss, wear it--at last, throw away!
"The Last Ride Together" may be cited as another example of the
philosophy which an Englishman, or at any rate a Browning, can evolve
from a more or less painful episode.
THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER
I
I said--Then, dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be--
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave,--I claim
Only a memory of the same,
--And this beside, if you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me.
II
My mistress bent that brow of hers;
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs
When pity would be softening through,
Fixed me a breathing-while or two
With life or death in the balance: right!
The blood replenished me again;
My last thought was at least not vain:
I and my mistress, side by side
Shall be together, breathe and ride,
So, one day more am I deified.
Who knows but the world may end to-night?
III
Hush! if you saw some western cloud
All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed
By many benedictions--sun's--
And moon's and evening-star's at once--
And so, you, looking and loving best,
Conscious grew, your passion drew
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too,
Down on you, near and yet more near,
Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!--
Thus leant she and lingered--joy and fear!
Thus lay she a moment on my breast.
IV
Then we began to ride. My soul
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll
Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
Past hopes already lay behind.
What need to strive with a life awry?
Had I said that, had I done this,
So might I gain, so might I miss.
Might she have loved me? just as well
She might have hated, who can tell!
Where had I been now if the worst befell?
And here we are riding, she and I.
V
Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,
Saw other regions, cities new,
As the world rushed by on either side.
I thought,--All labor, yet no less
Bear up beneath their unsuccess.
Look at the end of work, contrast
The petty done, the undone vast,
This present of theirs with the hopeful past!
I hoped she would love me; here we ride.
VI
What hand and brain went ever paired?
What heart alike conceived and dared?
What act proved all its thought had been?
What will but felt the fleshly screen?
We ride and I see her bosom heave.
There's many a crown for who can reach.
Ten lines, a stateman's life in each!
The flag stuck on a heap of bones,
A soldier's doing! what atones?
They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones.
My riding is better, by their leave.
VII
What does it all mean, poet? Well,
Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell
What we felt only; you expressed
You hold things beautiful the best,
And pace them in rhyme so, side by side.
'Tis something, nay 'tis much: but then,
Have you yourself what's best for men?
Are you--poor, sick, old ere your time--
Nearer one whit your own sublime
Than we who never have turned a rhyme?
Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.
VIII
And you, great sculptor--so, you gave
A score of years to Art, her slave,
And that's your Venus, whence we turn
To yonder girl that fords the burn!
You acquiesce, and shall I repine?
What, man of music, you grown grey
With notes and nothing else to say,
Is this your sole praise from a friend,
"Greatly his opera's strains intend,
But in music we know how fashions end!"
I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.
IX
Who knows what's fit for us? Had fate
Proposed bliss here should sublimate
My being--had I signed the bond--
Still one must lead some life beyond,
Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried.
This foot once planted on the goal,
This glory-garland round my soul,
Could I descry such? Try and test!
I sink back shuddering from the quest.
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best?
Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride.
X
And yet--she has not spoke so long!
What if heaven be that, fair and strong
At life's best, with our eyes upturned
Whither life's flower is first discerned,
We, fixed so, ever should so abide?
What if we still ride on, we two
With life for ever old yet new,
Changed not in kind but in degree,
The instant made eternity,--
And heaven just prove that I and she
Ride, ride together, for ever ride?
"James Lee's Wife" is also English in temper as the English name
indicates sufficiently, though the scene is laid out of England. This
wife has her agony over the faithless husband, but she plans vengeance
against neither him nor the other women who attract him. She realizes
that his nature is not a deep and serious one like her own, and in her
highest reach she sees that her own nature has been lifted up by means
of her true and loyal feeling, that this gain to herself is her reward,
or will be in some future state. The stanzas giving this thought are
among the most beautiful in the poem.
AMONG THE ROCKS
I
Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth,
This autumn morning! How he sets his bones
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet
For the ripple to run over in its mirth;
Listening the while, where on the heap of stones
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.
II
That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;
Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows.
If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:
Make the low nature better by your throes!
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!
Two of the longer poems have distinctly English settings: "A Blot in the
Scutcheon" and "The Inn Album;" while, of the shorter ones, "Ned Bratts"
has an English theme, and "Halbert and Hob" though not founded upon an
English story has been given an English _mis en scËne_ by Browning.
In the "Blot," we get a glimpse of Eighteenth Century aristocratic
England. The estate over which Lord Tresham presided was one of those
typical country kingdoms, which have for centuries been so conspicuous a
feature of English life, and which through the assemblies of the great,
often gathered within their walls, wielded potent influences upon
political life. The play opens with the talk of a group of retainers,
such as formed the household of these lordly establishments. It was not
a rare thing for the servants of the great to be admitted into intimacy
with the family, as was the case with Gerard. They were often people of
a superior grade, hardly to be classed with servants in the sense
unfortunately given to that word to-day.
Besides the house and the park which figure in the play, such an estate
had many acres of land devoted to agriculture--some of it, called the
demesne, which was cultivated for the benefit of the owner, and some
land held in villeinage which the unfree tenants, called villeins, were
allowed to till for themselves. All this land might be in one large
tract, or the demesne might be separate from the other. Mertoun speaks
of their demesnes touching each other. Over the villeins presided the
Bailiff, who kept strict watch to see that they performed their work
punctually. His duties were numerous, for he directed the ploughing,
sowing and reaping, gave out the seed, watched the harvest, gathered and
looked after the stock and horses. A church, a mill and an inn were
often included in such an estate.
[Illustration: An English Manor House]
Pride in their ancient lineage was, of course, common to noble families,
though probably few of them could boast as Tresham did that there was no
blot in their escutcheon. Some writers have even declared that most of
the nobles are descended from tradesmen. According to one of these "The
great bulk of our peerage is comparatively modern, so far as the titles
go; but it is not the less noble that it has been recruited to so large
an extent from the ranks of honorable industry. In olden times, the
wealth and commerce of London, conducted as it was by energetic and
enterprising men was a prolific source of peerages. Thus, the earldom
of Cornwallis was founded by Thomas Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant;
that of Essex by William Capel, the draper; and that of Craven by
William Craven, the merchant tailor. The modern Earl of Warwick is not
descended from 'the King-maker,' but from William Greville, the
woolstapler; whilst the modern Dukes of Northumberland find their head,
not in the Percies, but in Hugh Smithson, a respectable London
apothecary. The founders of the families of Dartmouth, Radnor, Ducie,
and Pomfret were respectively a skinner, a silk manufacturer, a merchant
tailor, and a Calais merchant; whilst the founders of the peerages of
Tankerville, Dormer, and Coventry were mercers. The ancestors of Earl
Romney, and Lord Dudley and Ward, were goldsmiths and jewelers; and Lord
Dacres was a banker in the reign of Charles I., as Lord Overstone is in
that of Queen Victoria. Edward Osborne, the founder of the dukedom of
Leeds, was apprentice to William Hewet, a rich cloth worker on London
Bridge, whose only daughter he courageously rescued from drowning, by
leaping into the Thames after her, and eventually married. Among other
peerages founded by trade are those of Fitzwilliam, Leigh, Petre,
Cowper, Darnley, Hill, and Carrington."
Perhaps the imaginary house of Tresham may be said to find its closest
counterpart in the Sidney family, for many generations owners of
Penshurst, and with a traditional character according to which the men
were all brave and the women were all pure. Sir Philip Sidney was
himself the type of all the virtues of the family, while his father's
care for his proper bringing up was not unlike Tresham's for Mildred. In
the words of a recent writer: "The most famous scion of this Kentish
house was above all things, the moral and intellectual product of
Penshurst Place. In the park may still be seen an avenue of trees, under
which the father, in his afternoon walks with the boy, tested his
recollection of the morning's lessons conned with the tutor. There, too,
it was that he impressed on the lad those maxims for the conduct of
life, afterwards emphasized in the correspondence still extant among the
Penshurst archives.
"Philip was to begin every day with lifting up his mind to the Almighty
in hearty prayer, as well as feelingly digesting all he prayed for. He
was also, early or late, to be obedient to others, so that in due time
others might obey him. The secret of all success lay in a moderate diet
with rare use of wine. A gloomy brow was, however, to be avoided.
Rather should the youth give himself to be merry, so as not to
degenerate from his father. Above all things should he keep his wit from
biting words, or indeed from too much talk of any kind. Had not nature
ramparted up the tongue with teeth and the lips with hair as reins and
bridles against the tongue's loose use. Heeding this, he must be sure to
tell no untruth even in trifles; for that was a naughty custom, nor
could there be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be accounted a
liar. _Noblesse oblige_ formed the keynote of the oral and written
precepts with which the future Sir Philip Sidney was paternally
supplied. By his mother, too, Lady Mary Dudley, the boy must remember
himself to be of noble blood. Let him beware, therefore, through sloth
and vice, of being accounted a blemish on his race."
Furthermore, the brotherly and sisterly relations of Tresham and Mildred
are not unlike those of Sir Philip Sidney and his sister Mary. They
studied and worked together in great sympathy, broken into only by the
tragic fate of Sir Philip. Although the education of women in those days
was chiefly domestic, with a smattering of accomplishments, yet there
were exceptional girls who aspired to learning and who became brilliant
women. Mildred under her brother's tutelage bid fare to be one of this
sort.
The ideals of the Sidneys, it is true, were sixteenth-century ideals.
Eighteenth-century ideals were proverbially low. England, then, had not
recovered from the frivolities inaugurated after the Restoration. The
slackness and unbelief among the clergy, and the looseness of morals in
society were notorious, but this degeneration could not have been
universal. There are always a few Noahs and their families left to
repeople the world with righteousness after a deluge of degeneracy, and
Browning is quite right in his portrayal of an eighteenth-century knight
_sans peur et sans reproche_ who defends the honor of his house with his
sword, because of his high moral ideals. Besides, the Methodist revival
led by the Wesleys gained constantly in power. It affected not only the
people of the middle and lower classes, rescuing them from brutality of
mind and manners, but it affected the established church for the better,
and made its mark upon the upper classes. "Religion, long despised and
contemned by the titled and the great" writes Withrow, "began to receive
recognition and support by men high in the councils of the nation. Many
ladies of high rank became devout Christians. A new element of
restraint, compelling at least some outward respect for the decencies of
life and observances of religion, was felt at court, where too long
corruption and back-stair influence had sway."
Like all of his kind, no matter what the century, Tresham is more than
delighted at the thought of an alliance between his house and the noble
house to which Mertoun belonged. The youth of Mildred was no obstacle,
for marriages were frequently contracted in those days between young
boys and girls. The writer's English grand-father and mother were married
at the respective ages of sixteen and fifteen within the boundaries of
the nineteenth century.
The first two scenes of the play present episodes thoroughly
illustrative of the life lived by the "quality."
ACT I
SCENE I.--_The interior of a lodge in LORD TRESHAM'S park. Many
Retainers crowded at the window, supposed to command a view of the
entrance to his mansion._
_GERARD, the warrener, his back to a table on which are flagons, etc._
_1st Retainer._ Ye, do! push, friends, and then you'll push down me!
--What for? Does any hear a runner's foot
Or a steed's trample or a coach-wheel's cry?
Is the Earl come or his least poursuivant?
But there's no breeding in a man of you
Save Gerard yonder: here's a half-place yet,
Old Gerard!
_Gerard._ Save your courtesies, my friend.
Here is my place.
_2nd Retainer._ Now, Gerard, out with it!
What makes you sullen, this of all the days
I' the year? To-day that young rich bountiful
Handsome Earl Mertoun, whom alone they match
With our Lord Tresham through the country side,
Is coming here in utmost bravery
To ask our master's sister's hand?
_Gerard._ What then?
_2nd Retainer._ What then? Why, you, she speaks to if she meets
Your worship, smiles on as you hold apart
The boughs to let her through her forest walks
You, always favorite for your no deserts
You've heard, these three days, how Earl Mertoun sues
To lay his heart and house and broad lands too
At Lady Mildred's feet: and while we squeeze
Ourselves into a mousehole lest we miss
One congee of the least page in his train,
You sit o' one side--"there's the Earl," say I--
"What then," say you!
_3rd Retainer._ I'll wager he has let
Both swans be tamed for Lady Mildred swim
Over the falls and gain the river!
_Gerard._ Ralph!
Is not to-morrow my inspecting day
For you and for your hawks?
_4th Retainer._ Let Gerard be!
He's coarse-grained, like his carved black cross-bow stock.
Ha, look now, while we squabble with him, look!
Well done, now--is not this beginning, now,
To purpose?
_1st Retainer._ Our retainers look as fine--
That's comfort. Lord, how Richard holds himself
With his white staff! Will not a knave behind
Prick him upright?
_4th Retainer._ He's only bowing, fool!
The Earl's man bent us lower by this much.
_1st Retainer._ That's comfort. Here's a very cavalcade!
_3rd Retainer._ I don't see wherefore Richard, and his troop
Of silk and silver varlets there, should find
Their perfumed selves so indispensable
On high days, holidays! Would it so disgrace
Our family, if I, for instance, stood--
In my right hand a cast of Swedish hawks,
A leash of greyhounds in my left?--
_Gerard._ --With Hugh
The logman for supporter, in his right
The bill-hook, in his left the brushwood-shears!
_3rd Retainer._ Out on you, crab! What next, what next?
The Earl!
_1st Retainer._ Oh Walter, groom, our horses, do they match
The Earl's? Alas, that first pair of the six--
They paw the ground--Ah Walter! and that brute
Just on his haunches by the wheel!
_6th Retainer._ Ay--ay!
You, Philip, are a special hand, I hear,
At soups and sauces: what's a horse to you?
D'ye mark that beast they've slid into the midst
So cunningly?--then, Philip, mark this further;
No leg has he to stand on!
_1st Retainer._ No? That's comfort.
_2nd Retainer._ Peace, Cook! The Earl descends. Well, Gerard, see
The Earl at least! Come, there's a proper man,
I hope! Why, Ralph, no falcon, Pole or Swede,
Has got a starrier eye.
_3rd Retainer._ His eyes are blue:
But leave my hawks alone!
_4th Retainer._ So young, and yet
So tall and shapely!
_5th Retainer._ Here's Lord Tresham's self!
There now--there's what a nobleman should be!
He's older, graver, loftier, he's more like
A House's head.
_2nd Retainer._ But you'd not have a boy
--And what's the Earl beside?--possess too soon
That stateliness?
_1st Retainer._ Our master takes his hand--
Richard and his white staff are on the move--
Back fall our people--(tsh!--there's Timothy
Sure to get tangled in his ribbon-ties,
And Peter's cursed rosette's a-coming off!)
--At last I see our lord's back and his friend's;
And the whole beautiful bright company
Close round them--in they go!
[_Jumping down from the window-bench, and making for the table and its
jugs._]
Good health, long life
Great joy to our Lord Tresham and his House!
_6th Retainer._ My father drove his father first to court,
After his marriage-day--ay, did he!
_2nd Retainer._ God bless
Lord Tresham, Lady Mildred, and the Earl!
Here, Gerard, reach your beaker!
_Gerard._ Drink, my boys!
Don't mind me--all's not right about me--drink!
_2nd Retainer_ [_aside_]. He's vexed, now, that he let the show escape!
[_To GERARD._] Remember that the Earl returns this way.
_Gerard._ That way?
_2nd Retainer._ Just so.
_Gerard._ Then my way's here.
[_Goes._
_2nd Retainer._ Old Gerard
Will die soon--mind, I said it! He was used
To care about the pitifullest thing
That touched the House's honor, not an eye
But his could see wherein: and on a cause
Of scarce a quarter this importance, Gerard
Fairly had fretted flesh and bone away
In cares that this was right, nor that was wrong,
Such point decorous, and such square by rule--
He knew such niceties, no herald more:
And now--you see his humor: die he will!
_2nd Retainer._ God help him! Who's for the great servant's hall
To hear what's going on inside? They'd follow
Lord Tresham into the saloon.
_3rd Retainer._ I!--
_4th Retainer._ I!--
Leave Frank alone for catching, at the door,
Some hint of how the parley goes inside!
Prosperity to the great House once more!
Here's the last drop!
_1st Retainer._ Have at you! Boys, hurrah!
SCENE II.--_A Saloon in the Mansion._
_Enter LORD THESHAM, LORD MERTOUN, AUSTIN, and GUENDOLEN._
_Tresham._ I welcome you, Lord Mertoun, yet once more,
To this ancestral roof of mine. Your name
--Noble among the noblest in itself,
Yet taking in your person, fame avers,
New price and lustre,--(as that gem you wear,
Transmitted from a hundred knightly breasts,
Fresh chased and set and fixed by its last lord,
Seems to re-kindle at the core)--your name
Would win you welcome!--
_Mertoun._ Thanks!
_Tresham._ --But add to that,
The worthiness and grace and dignity
Of your proposal for uniting both
Our Houses even closer than respect
Unites them now--add these, and you must grant
One favor more, nor that the least,--to think
The welcome I should give;--'tis given! My lord,
My only brother, Austin: he's the king's.
Our cousin, Lady Guendolen--betrothed
To Austin: all are yours.
_Mertoun._ I thank you--less
For the expressed commendings which your seal,
And only that, authenticates--forbids
My putting from me ... to my heart I take
Your praise ... but praise less claims my gratitude,
Than the indulgent insight it implies
Of what must needs be uppermost with one
Who comes, like me, with the bare leave to ask,
In weighed and measured unimpassioned words,
A gift, which, if as calmly 'tis denied,
He must withdraw, content upon his cheek,
Despair within his soul. That I dare ask
Firmly, near boldly, near with confidence
That gift, I have to thank you. Yes, Lord Tresham,
I love your sister--as you'd have one love
That lady ... oh more, more I love her! Wealth,
Rank, all the world thinks me, they're yours, you know,
To hold or part with, at your choice--but grant
My true self, me without a rood of land,
A piece of gold, a name of yesterday,
Grant me that lady, and you ... Death or life?
_Guendolen_ [_apart to AUSTIN_]. Why, this is loving, Austin!
_Austin._ He's so young!
_Guendolen._ Young? Old enough, I think, to half surmise
He never had obtained an entrance here,
Were all this fear and trembling needed.
_Austin._ Hush!
He reddens.
_Guendolen._ Mark him, Austin; that's true love!
Ours must begin again.
_Tresham._ We'll sit, my lord.
Ever with best desert goes diffidence.
I may speak plainly nor be misconceived.
That I am wholly satisfied with you
On this occasion, when a falcon's eye
Were dull compared with mine to search out faults,
Is somewhat. Mildred's hand is hers to give
Or to refuse.
_Mertoun._ But you, you grant my suit?
I have your word if hers?
_Tresham._ My best of words
If hers encourage you. I trust it will.
Have you seen Lady Mildred, by the way?
_Mertoun._ I ... I ... our two demesnes, remember, touch;
I have been used to wander carelessly
After my stricken game: the heron roused
Deep in my woods, has trailed its broken wing
Thro' thicks and glades a mile in yours,--or else
Some eyass ill-reclaimed has taken flight
And lured me after her from tree to tree,
I marked not whither. I have come upon
The lady's wondrous beauty unaware,
And--and then ... I have seen her.
_Guendolen_ [_aside to AUSTIN_]. Note that mode
Of faltering out that, when a lady passed,
He, having eyes, did see her! You had said--
"On such a day I scanned her, head to foot;
Observed a red, where red should not have been,
Outside her elbow; but was pleased enough
Upon the whole." Let such irreverent talk
Be lessoned for the future!
_Tresham._ What's to say
May be said briefly. She has never known
A mother's care; I stand for father too.
Her beauty is not strange to you, it seems--
You cannot know the good and tender heart,
Its girl's trust and its woman's constancy,
How pure yet passionate, how calm yet kind,
How grave yet joyous, how reserved yet free
As light where friends are--how imbued with lore
The world most prizes, yet the simplest, yet
The ... one might know I talked of Mildred--thus
We brothers talk!
_Mertoun._ I thank you.
_Tresham._ In a word,
Control's not for this lady; but her wish
To please me outstrips in its subtlety
My power of being pleased: herself creates
The want she means to satisfy. My heart
Prefers your suit to her as 'twere its own.
Can I say more?
_Mertoun._ No more--thanks, thanks--no more!
_Tresham._ This matter then discussed....
_Mertoun._ --We'll waste no breath
On aught less precious. I'm beneath the roof
Which holds her: while I thought of that, my speech
To you would wander--as it must not do,
Since as you favor me I stand or fall.
I pray you suffer that I take my leave!
_Tresham._ With less regret 't is suffered, that again
We meet, I hope, so shortly.
_Mertoun._ We? again?--
Ah yes, forgive me--when shall ... you will crown
Your goodness by forthwith apprising me
When ... if ... the lady will appoint a day
For me to wait on you--and her.
_Tresham._ So soon
As I am made acquainted with her thoughts
On your proposal--howsoe'er they lean--
A messenger shall bring you the result.
_Mertoun._ You cannot bind me more to you, my lord.
Farewell till we renew ... I trust, renew
A converse ne'er to disunite again.
_Tresham._ So may it prove!
_Mertoun._ You, lady, you, sir, take
My humble salutation!
_Guendolen and Austin._ Thanks!
_Tresham._ Within there!
[_+Servants+ enter. TRESHAM conducts MERTOUN to the door. Meantime
AUSTIN remarks_,
Here I have an advantage of the Earl,
Confess now! I'd not think that all was safe
Because my lady's brother stood my friend!
Why, he makes sure of her--"do you say, yes"--
"She'll not say, no,"--what comes it to beside?
I should have prayed the brother, "speak this speech,
For Heaven's sake urge this on her--put in this--
Forget not, as you'd save me, t'other thing,--
Then set down what she says, and how she looks,
And if she smiles, and" (in an under breath)
"Only let her accept me, and do you
And all the world refuse me, if you dare!"
_Guendolen._ That way you'd take, friend Austin? What a shame
I was your cousin, tamely from the first
Your bride, and all this fervor's run to waste!
Do you know you speak sensibly to-day?
The Earl's a fool.
_Austin._ Here's Thorold. Tell him so!
_Tresham_ [_returning_]. Now, voices, voices! 'St! the lady's first!
How seems he?--seems he not ... come, faith give fraud
The mercy-stroke whenever they engage!
Down with fraud, up with faith! How seems the Earl?
A name! a blazon! if you knew their worth,
As you will never! come--the Earl?
_Guendolen._ He's young.
_Tresham._ What's she? an infant save in heart and brain.
Young! Mildred is fourteen, remark! And you ...
Austin, how old is she?
_Guendolen._ There's tact for you!
I meant that being young was good excuse
If one should tax him....
_Tresham._ Well?
_Guendolen._ --With lacking wit.
_Tresham._ He lacked wit? Where might he lack wit, so please you?
_Guendolen._ In standing straighter than the steward's rod
And making you the tiresomest harangue,
Instead of slipping over to my side
And softly whispering in my ear, "Sweet lady,
Your cousin there will do me detriment
He little dreams of: he's absorbed, I see,
In my old name and fame--be sure he'll leave
My Mildred, when his best account of me
Is ended, in full confidence I wear
My grandsire's periwig down either cheek.
I'm lost unless your gentleness vouchsafes"....
_Tresham._ ... "To give a best of best accounts, yourself,
Of me and my demerits." You are right!
He should have said what now I say for him.
Yon golden creature, will you help us all?
Here's Austin means to vouch for much, but you
--You are ... what Austin only knows! Come up,
All three of us: she's in the library
No doubt, for the day's wearing fast. Precede!
_Guendolen._ Austin, how we must--!
_Tresham._ Must what? Must speak truth,
Malignant tongue! Detect one fault in him!
I challenge you!
_Guendolen._ Witchcraft's a fault in him,
For you're bewitched.
_Tresham._ What's urgent we obtain
Is, that she soon receive him--say, to-morrow--
Next day at furthest.
_Guendolen._ Ne'er instruct me!
_Tresham._ Come!
--He's out of your good graces, since forsooth,
He stood not as he'd carry us by storm
With his perfections! You're for the composed
Manly assured becoming confidence!
--Get her to say, "to-morrow," and I'll give you ...
I'll give you black Urganda, to be spoiled
With petting and snail-paces. Will you? Come!
The story of the love of Mildred and Mertoun is the universally human
one, and belongs to no one country or no one period of civilization more
than another, but the attitude of all the actors in the tragedy belongs
distinctively to the phase of moral culture which we saw illustrated in
the youth of Sir Philip Sidney, and is characteristic of English ways of
thinking whenever their moral force comes uppermost, as for example in
the Puritan thought of the Cromwellian era.
The play is in a sense a problem play, though to most modern readers the
tragedy of its ending is all too horrible a consequence of the sin.
Dramatically and psychically, however, the tragedy is much more
inevitable than that of Romeo and Juliet, whose love one naturally
thinks of in the same connection. The catastrophe in the Shakespeare
play is almost mechanically pushed to its conclusion through mere
external blundering, easily to have been prevented. Juliet saw clearly
where Mildred does not, that loyalty to a deep and true love should
triumph over all minor considerations, so that in her case the tragedy
is, in no sense, due to her blindness of vision. In the "Blot," lack of
perception of the true values in life makes it impossible for Mildred or
Tresham to act otherwise than they did. But having worked out their
problem according to their lights, a new light of a more glorious day
dawns upon them.
The ideal by which Tresham lives and moves and has his being is that of
pride of birth, with honor and chastity as its watchwords. At the same
time the idol of his life is his sister Mildred, over whom he has
watched with a father's and mother's care. When the blow to his ideal
comes at the hands of this much cherished sister, it is not to be
wondered at that his reason almost deserts him. The greatest agony
possible to the human soul is to have its ideals, the very food which
has been the sustenance of its being, utterly ruined. The ideal may be a
wrong one, or an impartial one, and through the wrack and ruin may dawn
larger vision, but, unless the nature be a marvelously developed one the
storm that breaks when an ideal is shattered is overwhelming.
It would be equally true of Mildred that, nurtured as she had been and
as young English girls usually are, in great purity, even ignorance of
all things pertaining to life, the sense of her sin would be so
overwhelming as to blind her to any possible means of expiation except
the most extreme. And indeed may it not be said that only those who can
see as Mertoun and Guendolen did that genuine and loyal love is no less
love because, in a conventional sense, it has sinned,--only those would
acknowledge, as Tresham, indeed, does after he has murdered Mertoun, how
perfect the love of Mildred and Mertoun was. Sin flourishes only when
insincerity tricks itself out in the garb of love, and on the whole it
is well that human beings should have an abiding sense of their own and
others insincerity, and test themselves by their willingness to
acknowledge their love before God and man. There are many Mildreds but
few Mertouns. It is little wonder that Dickens wrote with such
enthusiasm of this play that he knew no love like that of Mildred and
Mertoun, no passion like it.
[Illustration: An English Park]
One does not need to discuss whether murders were possible in English
social life. They are possible in all life at all times as long as men
and women allow their passions to overthrow their reason. The last act,
however, illustrates the English poise already referred to; Tresham
regains his equilibrium with enlarged vision, his salvation is
accomplished, his soul awakened.
ACT III
SCENE I.--_The end of the Yew-tree Avenue under MILDRED'S window. A
light seen through a central red pane._
_Enter TRESHAM through the trees._
Again here! But I cannot lose myself.
The heath--the orchard--I have traversed glades
And dells and bosky paths which used to lead
Into green wild-wood depths, bewildering
My boy's adventurous step. And now they tend
Hither or soon or late; the blackest shade
Breaks up, the thronged trunks of the trees ope wide,
And the dim turret I have fled from, fronts
Again my step: the very river put
Its arm about me and conducted me
To this detested spot. Why then, I'll shun
Their will no longer: do your will with me!
Oh, bitter! To have reared a towering scheme
Of happiness, and to behold it razed,
Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes
Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew.
But I ... to hope that from a line like ours
No horrid prodigy like this would spring,
Were just as though I hoped that from these old
Confederates against the sovereign day,
Children of older and yet older sires,
Whose living coral berries dropped, as now
On me, on many a baron's surcoat once,
On many a beauty's wimple--would proceed
No poison-tree, to thrust, from hell its root,
Hither and thither its strange snaky arms.
Why came I here? What must I do? [_A bell strikes._] A bell?
Midnight! and 'tis at midnight.... Ah, I catch
--Woods, river, plains, I catch your meaning now,
And I obey you! Hist! This tree will serve.
[_He retires behind one of the trees. After a pause, enter MERTOUN
cloaked as before._
_Mertoun._ Not time! Beat out thy last voluptuous beat
Of hope and fear, my heart! I thought the clock
I' the chapel struck as I was pushing through
The ferns. And so I shall no more see rise
My love-star! Oh, no matter for the past!
So much the more delicious task to watch
Mildred revive: to pluck out, thorn by thorn,
All traces of the rough forbidden path
My rash love lured her to! Each day must see
Some fear of hers effaced, some hope renewed:
Then there will be surprises, unforeseen
Delights in store. I'll not regret the past.
[_The light is placed above in the purple pane._
And see, my signal rises, Mildred's star!
I never saw it lovelier than now
It rises for the last time. If it sets,
'Tis that the re-assuring sun may dawn.
[_As he prepares to ascend the last tree of the avenue, TRESHAM arrests
his arm._
Unhand me--peasant, by your grasp! Here's gold.
'Twas a mad freak of mine. I said I'd pluck
A branch from the white-blossomed shrub beneath
The casement there. Take this, and hold your peace.
_Tresham._ Into the moonlight yonder, come with me!
Out of the shadow!
_Mertoun._ I am armed, fool!
_Tresham._ Yes,
Or no? You'll come into the light, or no?
My hand is on your throat--refuse!--
_Mertoun._ That voice!
Where have I heard ... no--that was mild and slow.
I'll come with you.
[_They advance._
_Tresham._ You're armed: that's well. Declare
Your name: who are you?
_Mertoun._ (Tresham!--she is lost!)
_Tresham._ Oh, silent? Do you know, you bear yourself
Exactly as, in curious dreams I've had
How felons, this wild earth is full of, look
When they're detected, still your kind has looked!
The bravo holds an assured countenance,
The thief is voluble and plausible,
But silently the slave of lust has crouched
When I have fancied it before a man.
Your name!
_Mertoun._ I do conjure Lord Tresham--ay,
Kissing his foot, if so I might prevail--
That he for his own sake forbear to ask
My name! As heaven's above, his future weal
Or woe depends upon my silence! Vain!
I read your white inexorable face.
Know me, Lord Tresham!
[_He throws off his disguises._
_Tresham._ Mertoun!
[_After a pause._] Draw now!
_Mertoun._ Hear me
But speak first!
_Tresham._ Not one least word on your life!
Be sure that I will strangle in your throat
The least word that informs me how you live
And yet seem what you seem! No doubt 'twas you
Taught Mildred still to keep that face and sin.
We should join hands in frantic sympathy
If you once taught me the unteachable,
Explained how you can live so, and so lie.
With God's help I retain, despite my sense,
The old belief--a life like yours is still
Impossible. Now draw!
_Mertoun._ Not for my sake,
Do I entreat a hearing--for your sake,
And most, for her sake!
_Tresham._ Ha ha, what should I
Know of your ways? A miscreant like yourself,
How must one rouse his ire? A blow?--that's pride
No doubt, to him! One spurns him, does one not?
Or sets the foot upon his mouth, or spits
Into his face! Come! Which, or all of these?
_Mertoun._ 'Twixt him and me and Mildred, Heaven be judge!
Can I avoid this? Have your will, my lord!
[_He draws and, after a few passes, falls._
_Tresham._ You are not hurt?
_Mertoun._ You'll hear me now!
_Tresham._ But rise!
_Mertoun._ Ah, Tresham, say I not "you'll hear me now!"
And what procures a man the right to speak
In his defense before his fellow man,
But--I suppose--the thought that presently
He may have leave to speak before his God
His whole defense?
_Tresham._ Not hurt? It cannot be!
You made no effort to resist me. Where
Did my sword reach you? Why not have returned
My thrusts? Hurt where?
_Mertoun._ My lord--
_Tresham._ How young he is!
_Mertoun._ Lord Tresham, I am very young, and yet
I have entangled other lives with mine.
Do let me speak, and do believe my speech!
That when I die before you presently,--
_Tresham._ Can you stay here till I return with help?
_Mertoun._ Oh, stay by me! When I was less than boy
I did you grievous wrong and knew it not--
Upon my honor, knew it not! Once known,
I could not find what seemed a better way
To right you than I took: my life--you feel
How less than nothing were the giving you
The life you've taken! But I thought my way
The better--only for your sake and hers:
And as you have decided otherwise,
Would I had an infinity of lives
To offer you! Now say--instruct me--think!
Can you, from the brief minutes I have left,
Eke out my reparation? Oh think--think!
For I must wring a partial--dare I say,
Forgiveness from you, ere I die?
_Tresham._ I do
Forgive you.
_Mertoun._ Wait and ponder that great word!
Because, if you forgive me, I shall hope
To speak to you of--Mildred!
_Tresham._ Mertoun, haste
And anger have undone us. 'Tis not you
Should tell me for a novelty you're young,
Thoughtless, unable to recall the past.
Be but your pardon ample as my own!
_Mertoun._ Ah, Tresham, that a sword-stroke and a drop
Of blood or two, should bring all this about!
Why, 'twas my very fear of you, my love
Of you--(what passion like a boy's for one
Like you?)--that ruined me! I dreamed of you--
You, all accomplished, courted everywhere,
The scholar and the gentleman. I burned
To knit myself to you: but I was young,
And your surpassing reputation kept me
So far aloof! Oh, wherefore all that love?
With less of love, my glorious yesterday
Of praise and gentlest words and kindest looks,
Had taken place perchance six months ago.
Even now, how happy we had been! And yet
I know the thought of this escaped you, Tresham!
Let me look up into your face; I feel
'Tis changed above me: yet my eyes are glazed.
Where? where?
[_As he endeavors to raise himself, his eye catches the lamp._
Ah, Mildred! What will Mildred do?
Tresham, her life is bound up in the life
That's bleeding fast away! I'll live--must live,
There, if you'll only turn me I shall live
And save her! Tresham--oh, had you but heard!
Had you but heard! What right was yours to set
The thoughtless foot upon her life and mine,
And then say, as we perish, "Had I thought,
All had gone otherwise?" We've sinned and die:
Never you sin, Lord Tresham! for you'll die,
And God will judge you.
_Tresham._ Yes, be satisfied!
That process is begun.
_Mertoun._ And she sits there
Waiting for me! Now, say you this to her--
You, not another--say, I saw him die
As he breathed this, "I love her"--you don't know
What those three small words mean! Say, loving her
Lowers me down the bloody slope to death
With memories ... I speak to her, not you,
Who had no pity, will have no remorse,
Perchance intend her.... Die along with me,
Dear Mildred! 'tis so easy, and you'll 'scape
So much unkindness! Can I lie at rest,
With rude speech spoken to you, ruder deeds
Done to you?--heartless men shall have my heart,
And I tied down with grave-clothes and the worm,
Aware, perhaps, of every blow--oh God!--
Upon those lips--yet of no power to tear
The felon stripe by stripe! Die, Mildred! Leave
Their honorable world to them! For God
We're good enough, though the world casts us out.
[_A whistle is heard._
_Tresham._ Ho, Gerard!
_Enter GERARD, AUSTIN and GUENDOLEN, with lights._
No one speak! You see what's done.
I cannot bear another voice.
_Mertoun._ There's light--
Light all about me, and I move to it.
Tresham, did I not tell you--did you not
Just promise to deliver words of mine
To Mildred?
_Tresham._ I will bear these words to her.
_Mertoun._ Now?
_Tresham._ Now. Lift you the body, and leave me
The head.
[_As they half raise MERTOUN, he turns suddenly._
_Mertoun._ I knew they turned me: turn me not from her!
There! stay you! there!
[_Dies._
_Guendolen_ [_after a pause_]. Austin, remain you here
With Thorold until Gerard comes with help:
Then lead him to his chamber. I must go
To Mildred.
_Tresham._ Guendolen, I hear each word
You utter. Did you hear him bid me give
His message? Did you hear my promise? I,
And only I, see Mildred.
_Guendolen._ She will die.
_Tresham._ Oh no, she will not die! I dare not hope
She'll die. What ground have you to think she'll die?
Why, Austin's with you!
_Austin._ Had we but arrived
Before you fought!
_Tresham._ There was no fight at all.
He let me slaughter him--the boy! I'll trust
The body there to you and Gerard--thus!
Now bear him on before me.
_Austin._ Whither bear him?
_Tresham._ Oh, to my chamber! When we meet there next,
We shall be friends.
[_They bear out the body of MERTOUN._
Will she die, Guendolen?
_Guendolen._ Where are you taking me?
_Tresham._ He fell just here.
Now answer me. Shall you in your whole life
--You who have nought to do with Mertoun's fate,
Now you have seen his breast upon the turf,
Shall you e'er walk this way if you can help?
When you and Austin wander arm-in-arm
Through our ancestral grounds, will not a shade
Be ever on the meadow and the waste--
Another kind of shade than when the night
Shuts the woodside with all its whispers up?
But will you ever so forget his breast
As carelessly to cross this bloody turf
Under the black yew avenue? That's well!
You turn your head: and I then?--
_Guendolen._ What is done
Is done. My care is for the living. Thorold,
Bear up against this burden: more remains
To set the neck to!
_Tresham._ Dear and ancient trees
My fathers planted, and I loved so well!
What have I done that, like some fabled crime
Of yore, lets loose a Fury leading thus
Her miserable dance amidst you all?
Oh, never more for me shall winds intone
With all your tops a vast antiphony,
Demanding and responding in God's praise!
Hers ye are now, not mine! Farewell--farewell!
SCENE II.--_MILDRED'S chamber._
_MILDRED alone._
He comes not! I have heard of those who seemed
Resourceless in prosperity,--you thought
Sorrow might slay them when she listed; yet
Did they so gather up their diffused strength
At her first menace, that they bade her strike,
And stood and laughed her subtlest skill to scorn.
Oh, 'tis not so with me! The first woe fell,
And the rest fall upon it, not on me:
Else should I bear that Henry comes not?--fails
Just this first night out of so many nights?
Loving is done with. Were he sitting now,
As so few hours since, on that seat, we'd love
No more--contrive no thousand happy ways
To hide love from the loveless, any more.
I think I might have urged some little point
In my defense, to Thorold; he was breathless
For the least hint of a defense: but no,
The first shame over, all that would might fall.
No Henry! Yet I merely sit and think
The morn's deed o'er and o'er. I must have crept
Out of myself. A Mildred that has lost
Her lover--oh, I dare not look upon
Such woe! I crouch away from it! 'Tis she,
Mildred, will break her heart, not I! The world
Forsakes me: only Henry's left me--left?
When I have lost him, for he does not come,
And I sit stupidly.... Oh Heaven, break up
This worse than anguish, this mad apathy,
By any means or any messenger!
_Tresham_ [_without_]. Mildred!
_Mildred._ Come in! Heaven hears me!
[_Enter TRESHAM._] You? alone?
Oh, no more cursing!
_Tresham._ Mildred, I must sit.
There--you sit!
_Mildred._ Say it, Thorold--do not look
The curse! deliver all you come to say!
What must become of me? Oh, speak that thought
Which makes your brow and cheeks so pale!
_Tresham._ My thought?
_Mildred._ All of it!
_Tresham._ How we waded--years ago--
After those water-lilies, till the plash,
I know not how, surprised us; and you dared
Neither advance nor turn back: so, we stood
Laughing and crying until Gerard came--
Once safe upon the turf, the loudest too,
For once more reaching the relinquished prize!
How idle thoughts are, some men's, dying men's!
Mildred,--
_Mildred._ You call me kindlier by my name
Than even yesterday: what is in that?
_Tresham._ It weighs so much upon my mind that I
This morning took an office not my own!
I might ... of course, I must be glad or grieved,
Content or not, at every little thing
That touches you. I may with a wrung heart
Even reprove you, Mildred; I did more:
Will you forgive me?
_Mildred._ Thorold? do you mock?
Or no ... and yet you bid me ... say that word!
_Tresham._ Forgive me, Mildred!--are you silent, Sweet?
_Mildred_ [_starting up_]. Why does not Henry Mertoun come to-night?
Are you, too, silent?
[_Dashing his mantle aside, and pointing to his scabbard, which is
empty._
Ah, this speaks for you!
You've murdered Henry Mertoun! Now proceed!
What is it I must pardon? This and all?
Well, I do pardon you--I think I do.
Thorold, how very wretched you must be!
_Tresham._ He bade me tell you....
_Mildred._ What I do forbid
Your utterance of! So much that you may tell
And will not--how you murdered him ... but, no!
You'll tell me that he loved me, never more
Than bleeding out his life there: must I say
"Indeed," to that? Enough! I pardon you.
_Tresham._ You cannot, Mildred! for the harsh words, yes:
Of this last deed Another's judge: whose doom
I wait in doubt, despondency and fear.
_Mildred._ Oh, true! There's nought for me to pardon! True!
You loose my soul of all its cares at once.
Death makes me sure of him for ever! You
Tell me his last words? He shall tell me them,
And take my answer--not in words, but reading
Himself the heart I had to read him late,
Which death....
_Tresham._ Death? You are dying too? Well said
Of Guendolen! I dared not hope you'd die:
But she was sure of it.
_Mildred._ Tell Guendolen
I loved her, and tell Austin....
_Tresham._ Him you loved:
And me?
_Mildred._ Ah, Thorold! Was't not rashly done
To quench that blood, on fire with youth and hope
And love of me--whom you loved too, and yet
Suffered to sit here waiting his approach
While you were slaying him? Oh, doubtlessly
You let him speak his poor boy's speech
--Do his poor utmost to disarm your wrath
And respite me!--you let him try to give
The story of our love and ignorance,
And the brief madness and the long despair--
You let him plead all this, because your code
Of honor bids you hear before you strike:
But at the end, as he looked up for life
Into your eyes--you struck him down!
_Tresham._ No! No!
Had I but heard him--had I let him speak
Half the truth--less--had I looked long on him
I had desisted! Why, as he lay there,
The moon on his flushed cheek, I gathered all
The story ere he told it: I saw through
The troubled surface of his crime and yours
A depth of purity immovable,
Had I but glanced, where all seemed turbidest
Had gleamed some inlet to the calm beneath;
I would not glance: my punishment's at hand.
There, Mildred, is the truth! and you--say on--
You curse me?
_Mildred._ As I dare approach that Heaven
Which has not bade a living thing despair,
Which needs no code to keep its grace from stain,
But bids the vilest worm that turns on it
Desist and be forgiven,--I--forgive not,
But bless you, Thorold, from my soul of souls!
[_Falls on his neck._
There! Do not think too much upon the past!
The cloud that's broke was all the same a cloud
While it stood up between my friend and you;
You hurt him 'neath its shadow: but is that
So past retrieve? I have his heart, you know;
I may dispose of it: I give it you!
It loves you as mine loves! Confirm me, Henry!
[_Dies._
_Tresham._ I wish thee joy, Beloved! I am glad
In thy full gladness!
_Guendolen_ [_without_]. Mildred! Tresham!
[_Entering with AUSTIN._] Thorold,
I could desist no longer. Ah, she swoons!
That's well.
_Tresham._ Oh, better far than that!
_Guendolen._ She's dead!
Let me unlock her arms!
_Tresham._ She threw them thus
About my neck, and blessed me, and then died:
You'll let them stay now, Guendolen!
_Austin._ Leave her
And look to him! What ails you, Thorold?
_Guendolen._ White
As she, and whiter! Austin! quick--this side!
_Austin._ A froth is oozing through his clenched teeth;
Both lips, where they're not bitten through, are black:
Speak, dearest Thorold!
_Tresham._ Something does weigh down
My neck beside her weight: thanks: I should fall
But for you, Austin, I believe!--there, there,
'Twill pass away soon!--ah,--I had forgotten:
I am dying.
_Guendolen._ Thorold--Thorold--why was this?
_Tresham._ I said, just as I drank the poison off,
The earth would be no longer earth to me,
The life out of all life was gone from me.
There are blind ways provided, the foredone
Heart-weary player in this pageant-world
Drops out by, letting the main masque defile
By the conspicuous portal: I am through--
Just through!
_Guendolen._ Don't leave him, Austin! Death is close.
_Tresham._ Already Mildred's face is peacefuller.
I see you, Austin--feel you: here's my hand,
Put yours in it--you, Guendolen, yours too!
You're lord and lady now--you're Treshams; name
And fame are yours: you hold our 'scutcheon up.
Austin, no blot on it! You see how blood
Must wash one blot away: the first blot came
And the first blood came. To the vain world's eye
All's gules again: no care to the vain world,
From whence the red was drawn!
_Austin._ No blot shall come!
_Tresham._ I said that: yet it did come. Should it come,
Vengeance is God's, not man's. Remember me!
[_Dies._
_Guendolen_ [_letting fall the pulseless arm_].
Ah, Thorold, we can but--remember you!
In "Ned Bratts," Browning has given a striking picture of the influence
exerted by Bunyan upon some of his wicked contemporaries. The poet took
his hints for the story from Bunyan himself, who tells it as follows in
the "Life and Death of Mr. Badman."
"At a summer assizes holden at Hertford, while the judge was sitting
upon the bench, comes this old Tod into the Court, clothed in a green
suit, with his leathern girdle in his hand, his bosom open, and all on a
dung sweat, as if he had run for his life; and being come in, he spake
aloud, as follows: 'My lord,' said he, 'here is the veriest rogue that
breathes upon the face of the earth. I have been a thief from a child:
when I was but a little one, I gave myself to rob orchards and to do
other such like wicked things, and I have continued a thief ever since.
My lord, there has not been a robbery committed these many years, within
so many miles of this place, but I have either been at it, or privy to
it.' The judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference
with some of the justices, they agreed to indict him; and so they did of
several felonious actions; to all of which he heartily confessed guilty,
and so was hanged, with his wife at the same time."
Browning had the happy thought of placing this episode in Bedford amid
the scenes of Bunyan's labors and imprisonment. Bunyan, himself, was
tried at the Bedford Assizes upon the charge of preaching things he
should not, or according to some accounts for preaching without having
been ordained, and was sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment in the
Bedford Jail. At one time it was thought that he wrote "Pilgrim's
Progress" during this imprisonment, but Dr. Brown, in his biography of
Bunyan conjectured that this book was not begun until a later and
shorter imprisonment of 1675-76, in the town prison and toll-house on
Bedford Bridge. Dr. Brown supposes that the portion of the book written
in prison closes where Christian and Hopeful part from the shepherds on
the Delectable Mountains. "At that point a break in the narrative is
indicated--'So I awoke from my dream;' it is resumed with the
words--'And I slept and dreamed again, and saw the same two pilgrims
going down the mountains along the highway towards the city.' Already
from the top of an high hill called 'Clear,' the Celestial City was in
view; dangers there were still to be encountered; but to have reached
that high hill and to have seen something like a gate, and some of the
glory of the place, was an attainment and an incentive." There Bunyan
could pause. Several years later the pilgrimage of Christiana was
written.
Browning, however, adopts the tradition that the book was written during
the twelve years' imprisonment, and makes use of the story of Bunyan's
having supported himself during this time by making tagged shoe-laces.
He brings in, also, the little blind daughter to whom Bunyan was said to
be devoted. The Poet was evidently under the impression also that the
assizes were held in a courthouse, but there is good authority for
thinking that at that time they were held in the chapel of Herne.
Nothing remains of this building now, but it was situated at the
southwest corner of the churchyard of St. Paul, and was spoken of
sometimes as the School-house chapel.
Ned Bratts and his wife did not know, of course, that they actually
lived in the land of the "Pilgrim's Progress." This has been pointed out
only recently in a fascinating little book by A. J. Foster of Wootton
Vicarage, Bedfordshire. He has been a pilgrim from Elstow, the village
where Bunyan was born near Bedford, through all the surrounding country,
and has fixed upon many spots beautiful and otherwise which he believes
were transmuted in Bunyan's imagination into the House Beautiful, The
Delectable Mountains, Vanity Fair and so on through nearly all the
scenes of Christian's journey.
The House Beautiful he identifies with Houghton House in the manor of
Dame Ellen's Bury. This is one of the most interesting of the country
houses of England, because of its connection with Sir Philip Sidney's
sister, Mary Sidney. After the death of her husband, Lord Pembroke,
James I. presented her with the royal manor of Dame Ellen's Bury, and
under the guidance of Inigo Jones, it is generally supposed, Houghton
House was built. It is in ruins now and covered with ivy. Trees have
grown within the ruins themselves. Still it is one of the most beautiful
spots in Bedfordshire. "In Bunyan's time," Mr. Foster writes, "we may
suppose the northern slope of Houghton Park was a series of terraces
rising one above another, and laid out in the stiff garden fashion of
the time. A flight of steps, or maybe a steep path, would lead from one
terrace to the next, and gradually the view over the plain of Bedford
would reveal itself to the traveler as he mounted higher and higher."
From Houghton House there is a view of the Chiltern Hills. Mr. Foster is
of the opinion that Bunyan had this view in mind when he described
Christian as looking from the roof of the House Beautiful southwards
towards the Delectable Mountains. He writes, "One of the main roads to
London from Bedford, and the one, moreover, which passes through Elstow,
crosses the hills only a little more than a mile east of Houghton House,
and Bunyan, in his frequent journeys to London, no doubt often passed
along this road. All in this direction was, therefore, to him familiar
ground. Many a pleasant walk or ride came back to him through memory, as
he took pen in hand to describe Hill Difficulty with its steep path and
its arbor, and the House Beautiful with its guest-chamber, its large
upper room looking eastward, its study and its armory.
"Many a time did Bunyan, as he journeyed, look southwards to the blue
Chilterns, and when the time came he placed together all that he had
seen, as the frame in which he should set his way-faring pilgrim."
Pleasant as it would be to follow with Mr. Foster his journey through
the real scenes of the "Pilgrim's Progress," our main interest at
present is to observe how Browning's facile imagination has presented
the conversion, through the impression made upon them by Bunyan's book,
of Ned and his wife.
NED BRATTS
'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day:
A broiling blasting June,--was never its like, men say.
Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that;
Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.
Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer
While the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes--but queer:
Queer--for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a hand
To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand
That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways,
And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze.
Midsummer's Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair,
With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.
But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide,
High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side.
There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small,
And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all,
Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why?
Because their lungs breathed flame--the regular crowd forbye--
From gentry pouring in--quite a nosegay, to be sure!
How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endure
Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend?
Meanwhile no bad resource was--watching begin and end
Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space,
And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort
of face.
So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done
(I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sun
As this and t'other lout, struck dumb at the sudden show
Of red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!"
When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not--because Jack Nokes
Had stolen the horse--be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes,
And louts must make allowance--let's say, for some blue fly
Which punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry--
Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and done
Was the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun,
As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayer
In a cow-house and laid by the heels,--have at 'em, devil may care!--
And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek,
And five a slit of the nose--just leaving enough to tweak.
Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire,
While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire,
The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh,
One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its mesh
Entoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte
--Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate--
Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air?
Jurymen,--Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!"
--Things at this pitch, I say,--what hubbub without the doors?
What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?
Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast!
Thumps, kicks,--no manner of use!--spite of them rolls at last
Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view
Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too:
Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift
At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils--snouts that sniffed
Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame!
Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same,
Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style--mirth
The desperate grin of the guest that, could they break from earth,
Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotence
Below the saved, the saved!
"Confound you! (no offence!)
Out of our way,--push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!"
Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he,
"A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land,
Constables, javelineers,--all met, if I understand,
To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or Joan
Robbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with
a stone,
Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch,
Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church!
What a pother--do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip,
More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,--
When, in our Public, plain stand we--that's we stand here,
I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer,
--Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade!
Wife of my bosom--that's the word now! What a trade
We drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his life
So little as wag a tongue against us,--did they, wife?
Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are
--Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged--search near and far!
Eh, Tab? The pedler, now--o'er his noggin--who warned a mate
To cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weight
Was the least to dread,--aha, how we two laughed a-good
As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood
With billet poised and raised,--you, ready with the rope,--
Ah, but that's past, that's sin repented of, we hope!
Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we!
The lily-livered knaves knew too (I've balked a d----)
Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence:
Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence!
There's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year,
No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer,
Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse
To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od's curse!
When Gipsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due,
--Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to--
I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time!
He danced the jig that needs no floor,--and, here's the prime,
'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!
"Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays,
Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head
--Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said--
Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife?
Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life!
See, sirs, here's life, salvation! Here's--hold but out my breath--
When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath,
No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yet
All yesterday I had to keep my whistle wet
While reading Tab this Book: book? don't say 'book'--they're plays,
Songs, ballads and the like: here's no such strawy blaze,
But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare!
Tab, help and tell! I'm hoarse. A mug! or--no, a prayer!
Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail
--He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I'll be bail!
"I've got my second wind. In trundles she--that's Tab.
'Why, Gammer, what's come now, that--bobbing like a crab
On Yule-tide bowl--your head's a-work and both your eyes
Break loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise!
Say--Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-cap
Stuffed in his mouth: to choke's a natural mishap!'
'Gaffer, be--blessed,' cries she, 'and Bagman Dick as well!
I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell:
We live in fire: live coals don't feel!--once quenched, they learn--
Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!'
"'If you don't speak straight out,' says I--belike I swore--
'A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more,
Teach you to talk, my maid!' She ups with such a face,
Heart sunk inside me. 'Well, pad on, my prate-apace!'
"'I've been about those laces we need for ... never mind!
If henceforth they tie hands, 't is mine they'll have to bind.
You know who makes them best--the Tinker in our cage,
Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no age
To try another trade,--yet, so he scorned to take
Money he did not earn, he taught himself the make
Of laces, tagged and tough--Dick Bagman found them so!
Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must know
His girl,--the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares,--
She takes it in her head to come no more--such airs
These hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace,--
"I'll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!"
So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then,
Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den--
_Patmore_--they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catch
My heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch--
Both arms a-kimbo, in bounce with a good round oath
Ready for rapping out: no "Lawks" nor "By my troth!"
"'There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels
When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!
He raised his hand.... Hast seen, when drinking out the night,
And in the day, earth grow another something quite
Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone.
"'"Woman!" (a fiery tear he put in every tone),
"How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport,
Violence--trade? Too true! I trust no vague report.
Her angel's hand, which stops the sight of sin, leaves clear
The other gate of sense, lets outrage through the ear.
What has she heard!--which, heard shall never be again.
Better lack food than feast, a Dives in the--wain
Or reign or train--of Charles!" (His language was not ours:
'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.)
"Bread, only bread they bring--my laces: if we broke
Your lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!"
"'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he:
His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see:
Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul!
So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole,
Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-bound
With dreriment about, within may life be found,
A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before,
Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core,
Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found?
Who says 'How save it?'--nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?'
Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf,
Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf!
Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl
Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marle
Satan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof!
And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof,
Lover and friend stand far, the mocking ones pass by,
Tophet gapes wide for prey: lost soul, despair and die!
What then? 'Look unto me and be ye saved!' saith God:
'I strike the rock, outstreats the life-stream at my rod!
Be your sins scarlet, wool shall they seem like,--although
As crimson red, yet turn white as the driven snow!'"