Robert Browning[1812-1889}Prospice
¶FEAR death ?—to feel the fog in my throat,The mist in my face,When the snows begin, and the blasts denoteI am nearing the place,The power of the night, the press of the storm,The post of the foe;Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,Yet the strong man must go :For the journey is done and the summit attained,And the barriers fall,Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,The reward of it all.I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,The best and the last!I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,And bade me creep past.No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peersThe heroes of old,Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrearsOf pain, darkness and cold.For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,The black minute's at end,And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,Shall dwindle, shall blend,Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,Then a light, then thy breast,O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,And with God be the rest!
p. 1066¶659 'How THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM
Ghent to a IX ' [ 1 6 — ]
¶I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;'Good speed!' cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;'Speed!' echoed the wall to us galloping through;Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
¶Not a word to each other; we kept the great paceNeck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
¶' T was moonset at starting; but while we drew nearLokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;At Diiffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,So Joris broke silence with ' Yet there is time!'
¶At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,And against him the cattle stood black every one,To stare through the mist at us galloping past,And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,With resolute shoulders, each butting awayThe haze, as some bluff river headland its spray.
¶And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent backFor my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glanceO'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anonHis fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.
¶By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, 'Stay spur!Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,We ' l l remember at Aix'—for one heard the quick wheeze[1067]Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.
¶So we were left galloping, Joris and I,Past Loo z and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,"Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,And 'Gallop,' gasped Joris, 'for A ix is in sight!'
¶' How they'll greet us!'—and all in a moment his roanRolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;And there was my Roland to bear the whole weightOf the news which alone could save A ix from her fate,With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.
¶Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,Till at length into A ix Roland galloped and stood.
¶And all I remember is, friends flocking roundAs I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.
The Lost Leader
¶JUST for a handful of silver he left us,Just for a riband to stick in his coat—Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,Lost all the others she lets us devote;They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,So much was theirs whoso little allowed:[1068]How all our copper had gone for his service!Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,Made him our pattern to live and to die!Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,Burns, Shelley, Were with us,—they watch from their graves!He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves 1
¶We shall march prospering,—not through his presence;Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,One more triumph for devils and sorrow for angels,One wrong more to man, one more insult to God !Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,Never glad confident morning again!Best fight on well, for we taught him,—strike gallantly,Menace our heart ere we master his own ;Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne 1
66/ Home - Thoughts, from Abroad
¶O , TO be in EnglandNow that April's there,And whoever wakes in EnglandSees, some morning, unaware,That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheafRound the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,While the chaffinch sings on the orchard boughIn England—now!
¶And after April, when May follows,And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows![1069]Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedgeLeans to the field and scatters on the cloverBlossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,Lest you should think he never could recaptureThe first fine careless rapture!And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,All will be gay when noontide wakes anewThe buttercups, the little children's dower—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
Home - Thoughts, from These a
¶NOBLY , nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
¶In the dimmest North-east distance dawn'd Gibraltar grand and
¶gray;
¶'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'
¶—say,
¶Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
Parting at Morning
¶ROUND the cape of a sudden came the sea,And the sun look'd over the mountain's rim:And straight was a path of gold for him,And the need of a world of men for me.
The Lost Mistress
¶ALL ' S over, then: does truth sound bitterAs one at first believes?Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitterAbout your cottage eaves!
¶And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,I noticed that, to-day;One day more bursts them open fully— You know the red turns gray.[1070]To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?May I take your hand in mine?Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merestKeep much that I resign:
¶For each glance of the eye so bright and black,Though I keep with heart's endeavour,—Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,Though it stay in my soul for ever!—
¶Yet I will but say what mere friends say,Or only a thought stronger;I will hold your hand but as long as all may,Or so very little longer!
665 the Last Ride Together
¶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 seem'd meant for, fails,Since this was written and needs must be—My whole heart rises up to blessYour name in pride and thankfulness!Take back the hope you gave,—I claimOnly a memory of the same,— And this beside, if you will not blame;Your leave for one more last ride with me.
¶My mistress bent that brow of hers,Those deep dark eyes where pride demursWhen pity would be softening through,Fix'd me a breathing-while or twoWith life or death in the balance: right!The blood replenish'd me again;My last thought was at least not vain:I and my mistress, side by sideShall be together, breathe and ride,So, one day more am I deified.Who knows but the world may end to-night?[1071]Hush! if you saw some western cloudAll billowy-bosom'd, over-bow'dBy many benedictions—sun'sAnd moon's and evening-star's at once—And so, you, looking and loving best,Conscious grew, your passion drewCloud, 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 linger'd—joy and fear!Thus lay she a moment on my breast.
¶Then we began to ride. My soulSmooth'd itself out, a long-cramp'd scrollFreshening 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 wellShe might have hated, who can tell!Where had I been now if the worst befell?And here we are riding, she and I.
¶Fail I alone, in words and deeds?Why , all men strive and who succeeds?We rode; it seem'd my spirit flew,Saw other regions, cities new,As the world rush'd by on either side.I thought,—All labour, yet no lessBear up beneath their unsuccess.Look at the end of work, contrastThe petty done, the undone vast,This present of theirs with the hopeful past!I hoped she would love me; here we ride.
¶What hand and brain went ever pair'd?What heart alike conceived and dared?What act proved all its thought had been?What will but felt the fleshly screen?[1072]We ride and I see her bosom heave.There's many a crown for who can reach.Ten lines, a statesman'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.
¶What does it all mean, poet? Well ,Your brains beat into rhythm, you tellWhat we felt only; you express'dYou 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 sublimeThan we who never have turn'd a rhyme?Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride.
¶And you, great sculptor—so, you gaveA score of years to Art, her slave,And that's your Venus, whence we turnTo yonder girl that fords the burn!You acquiesce, and shall I repine?What , man of music, you grown grayWith notes and nothing else to say,Is this your sole praise from a friend,'Greatly his opera's strains intend,Put in music we know how fashions end!'I gave my youth: but we ride, in fine.
¶Who knows what's fit for us? Had fateProposed bliss here should sublimateMy being—had I sign'd 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![1073]I sink back shuddering from the questEarth being so good, would heaven seem best?Now , heaven and she are beyond this ride.
¶And yet—she has not spoke so long!What if heaven be that, fair and strongAt life's best, with our eyes upturn'dWhither life's flower is first discern'd,We , fix'd so, ever should so abide?What if we still ride on, we twoWith life for ever old yet new,Changed not in kind but in degree,The instant made eternity,—And heaven just prove that I and sheRide, ride together, for ever ride?
666 Pi Pp A's Song
¶THE year's at the spring,And day's at the morn;Morning's at seven;The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;The lark's on the wing ;The snail's on the thorn;God's in His heaven—All's right with the world!
667 You'll Love Me Yet
¶YOU ' L L love me yet!—and I can tarryYour love's protracted growing:June rear'd that bunch of flowers you carry,From seeds of April's sowing.
¶I plant a heartful now : some seedAt least is sure to strike,And yield—what you'll not pluck indeed,Not love, but, may be, like.
¶You'll look at least on love's remains,A grave's one violet:Your look?—that pays a thousand pains.What's death? You'll love me yet!
668 My Last DuchessFerrara
¶THAT ' S my last Duchess painted on the wall,Looking as if she were alive. I callThat piece a wonder, now : Fra Pandolf's handsWorked busily a day, and there she stands.Will't please you sit and look at her? I said"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never readStrangers like you that pictured countenance,The depth and passion of its earnest glance,But to myself they turned (since none puts byThe curtain I have drawn for you, but I)And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,How such a glance came there; so, not the firstAre you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas notHer husband's presence only, called that spotOf joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhapsFra Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle lapsOver my lady's wrist too much," or "PaintMust never hope to reproduce the faintHalf-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuffWas courtesy, she thought, and cause enoughFor calling up that spot of joy. She hadA heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad.Too easily impressed: she liked whate'erShe looked on, and her looks went everywhere.Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,The dropping of the daylight in the West,The bough of cherries some officious foolBroke in the orchard for her, the white muleShe rode with round the terrace—all and eachWould draw from her alike the approving speech,Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thankedSomehow—I know not how—as if she rankedMy gift of a nine-hundred-years-old nameWith anybody's gift. Who ' d stoop to blameThis sort of trifling? Even had you skillIn speech—(which I have not)—to make your will[1075]Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just thisOr that in you disgusts me; here you miss,Or there exceed the mark"—and if she letHerself be lessoned so, nor plainly setHer wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,—E'en then would be some stooping; and I chooseNever to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,Whene'er I passed her; but who passed withoutMuch the same smile? This grew; I gave command;Then all smiles stopped together. There she standsAs if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meetThe company below, then. I repeat,The Count your master's known munificenceIs ample warrant that no just pretenceOf mine for dowry will be disallowed;Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowedAt starting, is my object. Nay , we'll goTogether down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
The Bishop Orders His Tomb atSaint Pr Axe D's ChurchRome, 75—
¶VANITY , saith the preacher, vanity!Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?Nephews—sons mine . . . ah God , I know not! Well-She, men would have to be your mother once,Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!What's done is done, and she is dead beside,Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,And as she died so must we die ourselves,And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.Life, how and what is it? As here I lieIn this state-chamber, dying by degrees,Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask" Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought[1076]With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know :— Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner SouthHe graced his carrion with, God curse the same!Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thenceOne sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,And up into the very dome where liveThe angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,With those nine columns round me, two and two,The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripeAs fresh poured red wine of a mighty pulse— Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,Put me where I may look at him! True peach,Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!Draw close: that conflagration of my church— What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!My sons, ye would not be my death? Go digThe white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,Drop water gently till the surface sink,And if ye find . . . Ah God , I know not, I! . . .Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,And corded up in a tight olive-frail,Some lump, ah God , of lapis lazuli,Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breastSons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,That brave Frascati villa with its bath,So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,Like God the Father's globe on both his handsYe worship in the Jesu Church so gay,For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—' T was ever antique-black I meant! How elseShall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?[1077]The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me.Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchanceSome tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,Saint Praxed in a glory, and one PanReady to twitch the Nymph ' s last garment off,And Moses with the tables . . . but I knowYe mark me not! What do they whisper thee,Child of my bowels, Anselm ? Ah , ye hopeTo revel down my villas while I gaspBricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertineWhich Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!Nay , boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.My bath must needs be left behind, alas!One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world—And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to prayHorses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?—That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!And then how I shall lie through centuries,And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,And see God made and eaten all day long,And feel the steady candle-flame, and tasteGood strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,Dying in state and by such slow degrees,I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, dropInto great laps and folds of sculptor's work :And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughtsGrow , with a certain humming in my ears,About the life before I lived this life,And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,[1078]Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
¶— Ah a , E LUCES C E B AT quoth our friend?
¶No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the PopeMy villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,They glitter like your mother's for my soul,Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,Piece out its starved design, and fill my vaseWith grapes, and add a visor and a Term ,And to the tripod ye would tie a lynxThat in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,To comfort me on my entablatureWhereon I am to lie till I must ask" Do I live, am I dead ? " There, leave me, there!For ye have stabbed me with ingratitudeTo death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweatAs if the corpse they keep were oozing through—And no more lapis to delight the world!Well, go ! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,But in a row: and, going, turn your backs— Ay , like departing altar-ministrants,And leave me in my church, the church for peace,That I may watch at leisure if he leers—Old Gandolf—at me, from his onion-stone,As still he envied me, so fair she was!
Evelyn Hope
¶BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead!
¶Sit and watch by her side an hour.That is her book-shelf, this her bed;She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,Beginning to die too, in the glass;Little has yet been changed, I think:The shutters are shut, no light may passSave two long rays through the hinge's chink.[1079]Sixteen years old when she died!Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;It was not her time to love; beside,Her life had many a hope and aim,Duties enough and little cares,And now was quiet, now astir,Till God's hand beckoned unawares,—And the sweet white brow is all of her.
¶Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope ?What, your soul was pure and true,The good stars met in your horoscope,Made you of spirit, fire and dew —And , just because I was thrice as oldAnd our paths in the world diverged so wide,Each was naught to each, must I be told?We were fellow mortals, naught beside?
¶No , indeed! for God aboveIs great to grant, as mighty to make,And creates the love to reward the love:I claim you still, for my own love's sake!Delayed it may be for more lives yet,Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few :Much is to learn, much to forgetEre the time be come for taking you.
¶But the time will come—at last it will,When , Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)In the lower earth, in the years long still,That body and soul so pure and gay?Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,And your mouth of your own geranium's red—And what you would do with me, in fine,In the new life come in the old life's stead.
¶I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,Given up myself so many times,Gained me the gains of various men,Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;[1080]Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,Either I missed or itself missed me:And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!What is the issue? Let us see!
¶I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!My heart seemed full as it could hold;There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep:See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!There, that is our secret: go to sleep!You will wake, and remember, and understand.
67/ a Toccata of Gal Up Pi's
¶O H Galuppi, Baldassare, this is very sad to find!I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!
¶Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.What , they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used towed the sea with rings?
¶Ay , because the sea's the street there, and 'tis arched by . . . what youcall. . . Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:I was never out of England—it's as if I saw it all.
¶Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May ?Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?
¶Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,—On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?
¶Well, and it was graceful of them—they'd break talk off and afford—-She, to bite her mask's black velvet—he, to finger on his sword,While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord ?[1081]What ? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions—"Must wedie?"Those commiserating sevenths—"Life might last! we can but try!"
¶" Were you happy ? " — " Yes . " — " And are you still as happy ? " — " Yes .And you ? "— " Then , more kisses!"—"Did / stop them, when a million seemed sofew ?"Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!
¶So, an octave struck the answer. Oh , they praised you, I dare say!"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"
¶Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,Death stepped tacidy and took them where they never see the sun.
¶But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,In you come with your cold music till I creep through every nerve.
¶Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.
¶"Yours for instance: you know physics, something of geology,Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;Butterflies may dread extinction,—you'll not die, it cannot be!
¶" As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
¶"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.Dear dear women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the goldUsed to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
672 Memorabilia
¶A H , did you once see Shelley plain,And did he stop and speak to you,And did you speak to him again?How strange it seems and newl
¶But you were living before that,And also you are living after;And the memory I started at—My starting moves your laughter!
¶I crossed a moor, with a name of its ownAnd a certain use in the world no doubt,Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone'Mid the blank miles round about:
¶For there I picked up on the heatherAnd there I put inside my breastA moulted feather, an eagle-feather!Well, I forget the rest.
67j the PatriotAn Old Story
¶I T was roses, roses, all the way,With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,A year ago on this very day.
¶The air broke into a mist with bells,The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels—But give me your sun from yonder skies!"They had answered, " And afterward, what else?"
¶Alack, it was I who leaped at the sunTo give it my loving friends to keep!Naught man could do, have I left undone:And you see my harvest, what I reapThis very day, now a year is run.[1083]There's nobody on the house-tops now—Just a palsied few at the windows set;For the best of the sight is, all allow,At the Shambles' Gate—or, better yet,By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
¶I go in the rain, and, more than needs,A rope cuts both my wrists behind;And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,For they fling, whoever has a mind,Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.
¶Thus I entered, and thus I go!In triumphs, people have dropped down dead."Paid by the world, what dost thou oweMe?"—God might question; now instead,'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.
A Grammarian's FuneralShortly After the Revival of Learning in Europe
¶LET us begin and carry up this corpse,Singing together.Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpesEach in its tetherSleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,Cared-for till cock-crow:Look out if yonder be not day againRimming the rock-row!That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,Rarer, intenser,Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,Chafes in the censer.Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop:Seek we sepultureOn a tall mountain, citied to the top,Crowded with culture!All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;Clouds overcome it;No! yonder sparkle is the citadel'sCircling its summit.[1084]Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights;Wait ye the warning?Our low life was the level's and the night's;He's for the morning.Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,'Ware the beholders!This is our master, famous, calm and dead,Borne on our shoulders.
¶Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,Safe from the weather!He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,Singing together,He was a man born with thy face and throat,Lyric Apollo!Long he lived nameless: how should Spring take noteWinter would follow?Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!Cramped and diminished,Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!My dance is finished?"No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountainside,Make for the city!)He knew the signal, and stepped on with prideOver men's pity;Left play for work, and grappled with the worldBent on escaping:"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?Show me their shaping,Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,—Give!"—So, he gowned him,Straight got by heart that book to its last page:Learned, we found him.Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,Accents uncertain:"Time to taste life," another would have said,"Up with the curtain!"This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?Patience a moment![1085]Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,Still there's the comment.Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,Painful or easy!Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,Ay, nor feel queasy."Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,When he had learned it,When he had gathered all books had to give!Sooner, he spurned it.Image the whole, then execute the parts—Fancy the fabricQuite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,Ere mortar dab brick!
¶(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-placeGaping before us.)Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace(Hearten our chorus!)That before living he'd learn how to live—No end to learning:Earn the means first—God surely will contriveUse for our earning.Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:Live now or never!"He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!Man has Forever."Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:Calculus racked him:Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:Tussis attacked him."Now, master, take a little rest!"—not he!(Caution redoubled,Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)Not a whit troubled,Back to his studies, fresher than at first,Fierce as a dragonHe (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)Sucked at the flagon.[1086]Oh, if we draw a circle premature,Heedless of far gain,Greedy for quick returns of profit, sureBad is our bargain!Was it not great? did not he throw on God,(He loves the burthen)—God's task to make the heavenly periodPerfect the earthen?Did not he magnify the mind, show clearJust what it all meant?He would not discount life, as fools do here,Paid by instalment.He ventured neck or nothing—heaven's successFound, or earth's failure:"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes!Hence with life's pale lure!"That low man seeks a little thing to do,Sees it and does it:This high man, with a great thing to pursue,Dies ere he knows it.That low man goes on adding one to one,His hundred's soon hit:This high man, aiming at a million,Misses an unit.That, has the world here—should he need the next,Let the world mind him!This, throws himself on God, and unperplexedSeeking shall find him.So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,Ground he at grammar;Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:While he could stammerHe settled Hod's business—let it be!—Properly based Oun—Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,Dead from the waist down.Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:Hail to your purlieus,All ye highfliers of the feathered race,Swallows and curlews![1087]Here's the top-peak; the multitude belowLive, for they can, there:This man decided not to Live but Know—Bury this man there?Here—here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,Lightnings are loosened,Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,Peace let the dew send!Lofty designs must close in like effects:Loftily lying,Leave him—still loftier than the world suspects,Living and dying.
Andrea Del SartoCalled "the Faultless Painter"
¶BUT do not let us quarrel any more,No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,Treat his own subject after his own way,Fix his own time, accept too his own price,And shut the money into this small handWhen next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?Oh, I'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love!I often am much wearier than you think,This evening more than usual, and it seemsAs if—forgive now—should you let me sitHere by the window with your hand in mineAnd look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,Both of one mind, as married people use,Quietly, quietly the evening through,I might get up to-morrow to my workCheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!Your soft hand is a woman of itself,And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serveFor each of the five pictures we require:[1088]It saves a model. So! keep looking so—My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!—How could you ever prick those perfect ears,Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet—My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,Which everybody looks on and calls his,And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,While she looks—no one's: very dear, no less.You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,There's what we painters call our harmony!A common grayness silvers everything,—All in a twilight, you and I alike—You, at the point of your first pride in me(That's gone you know),—but I, at every point;My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned downTo yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;That length of convent-wall across the wayHolds the trees safer, huddled more inside;The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,And autumn grows, autumn in everything.Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shapeAs if I saw alike my work and selfAnd all that I was born to be and do,A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.How strange now looks the life he makes us lead;So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!This chamber for example—turn your head—All that's behind us! You don't understandNor care to understand about my art,But you can hear at least when people speak:And that cartoon, the second from the door—It is the thing, Love! so such things should be—Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say.I can do with my pencil what I know,What I see, what at bottom of my heartI wish for, if I ever wish so deep—Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly,I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,[1089]Who listened to the Legate's talk last week,And just as much they used to say in France.At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:I do what many dream of all their lives,—Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,And fail in doing. I could count twenty suchOn twice your fingers, and not leave this town,Who strive—you don't know how the others striveTo paint a little thing like that you smearedCarelessly passing with your robes afloat,—Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,(I know his name, no matter)—so much less!Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.There burns a truer light of God in them,In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to promptThis low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,Enter and take their place there sure enough,Though they come back and cannot tell the world.My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.The sudden blood of these men! at a word—Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.I, painting from myself and to myself,Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blameOr their praise either. Somebody remarksMorello's outline there is wrongly traced,His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grayPlacid and perfect with my art: the worse!I know both what I want and what might gain,And yet how profitless to know, to sigh'Had I been two, another and myself,Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubtYonder's a work now, of that famous youth[1090]The Urbinate who died five years ago.('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)Well, I can fancy how he did it all,Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,Above and through his art—for it gives way;That arm is wrongly put—and there again—A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,He means right—that, a child may understand.Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:But all the play, the insight and the stretch—Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think—More than I merit, yes, by many times.But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow,And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,And the low voice my soul hears, as a birdThe fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare—Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged"God and the glory! never care for gain,The present by the future, what is that ?Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!"I might have done it for you. So it seems:Perhaps not. All is as God overrules.Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;The rest avail not. Why do I need you?What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?In this world, who can do a thing, will not;And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:Yet the will's somewhat—somewhat, too, the power—And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,That I am something underrated here,Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.[1091]I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.The best is when they pass and look aside;But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,In that humane great monarch's golden look,—One finger in his beard or twisted curlOver his mouth's good mark that made the smile,One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,I painting proudly with his breath on me,All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of soulsProfuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,—And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,This in the background, waiting on my work,To crown the issue with a last reward!A good time, was it not, my kingly days?And had you not grown restless . . . but I know—'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said;Too live the life grew, golden and not gray,And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should temptOut of the grange whose four walls make his world.How could it end in any other way?You called me, and I came home to your heart.The triumph was—to reach and stay there; sinceI reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;The Roman's is the better when you pray,But still the other's Virgin was his wife"—Men will excuse me. I am glad to judgeBoth pictures in your presence; clearer growsMy better fortune, I resolve to think.For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,Said one day Agnolo, his very self,[1092]To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . .(When the young man was flaming out his thoughtsUpon a palace-wall for Rome to see,Too lifted up in heart because of it)"Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrubGoes up and down our Florence, none cares how,Who, were he set to plan and executeAs you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"To Rafael's!—And indeed the arm is wrong.I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see,Give the chalk here—quick, thus the line should go!Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?Do you forget already words like those?)If really there was such a chance, so lost,—Is, whether you're—not grateful—but more pleased.Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!This hour has been an hour! Another smile?If you would sit thus by me every nightI should work better, do you comprehend?I mean that I should earn more, give you more.See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.Come from the window, love,—come in, at last,Inside the melancholy little houseWe built to be so gay with. God is just.King Francis may forgive me: oft at nightsWhen I look up from painting, eyes tired out,The walls become illumined, brick from brickDistinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,That gold of his I did cement them with!Let us but love each other. Must you go ?That Cousin here again? he waits outside?Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans?More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend ?While hand and eye and something of a heart[1093]Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth ?I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sitThe gray remainder of the evening out,Idle, you call it, and muse perfectlyHow I could paint, were I but back in France,One picture, just one more—the Virgin's face.Not yours this time! I want you at my sideTo hear them—that is, Michel Agnolo—Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.I take the subjects for his corridor,Finish the portrait out of hand—there, there,And throw him in another thing or twoIf he demurs; the whole should prove enoughTo pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,What's better and what's all I care about,Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,The Cousin, what does he to please you more?
¶I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.I regret little, I would change still less.Since there my past life lies, why alter it?The very wrong to Francis!—it is trueI took his coin, was tempted and complied,And built this house and sinned, and all is said.My father and my mother died of want.Well, had I riches of my own? you seeHow one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died;And I have labored somewhat in my timeAnd not been paid profusely. Some good sonPaint my two hundred pictures—let him try!No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes.You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.This must suffice me here. What would one have?In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance—Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,Meted on each side by the angel's reed,For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me[1094]* To cover—the three first without a wife,While I have mine! So—still they overcomeBecause there's still Lucrezia,—as I choose.
¶Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.
676 One Word MoreTo E. B. B.
¶London, September, 1S55
¶1
¶THERE they are, my fifty men and womenNaming me the fifty poems finished!Take them, Love, the book and me together:Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.
¶11
¶Rafael made a century of sonnets,Made and wrote them in a certain volumeDinted with the silver-pointed pencilElse he only used to draw Madonnas:These, the world might view—but one, the volume.Who that one, you ask ? Your heart instructs you.Did she live and love it all her lifetimeDid she drop, his lady of the sonnets,Die, and let it drop beside her pillowWhere it lay in place of Rafael's glory,Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving,Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's,Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?
Hi
¶You and I would rather read that volume,(Taken to his beating bosom by it)Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael,Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas—Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno,Her, that visits Florence in a vision,Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre—Seen by us and all the world in circle.
IV
¶You and I will never read that volume.Guido Reni, like his own eye's appleGuarded long the treasure-book and loved it.Guido Reni dying, all BolognaCried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!"Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.
¶v
¶Dante once prepared to paint an angel:Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice."While he mused and traced it and retraced it,(Peradventure with a pen corrodedStill by drops of that hot ink he dipped for,When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked,Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,Let the wretch go festering through Florence)—Dante, who loved well because he hated,Hated wickedness that hinders loving,Dante standing, studying his angel,—In there broke the folk of his Inferno.Says he—"Certain people of importance"(Such he gave his daily dreadful line top"Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet."Says the poet—"Then I stopped my painting."
VI
¶You and I would rather see that angel,Painted by the tenderness of Dante,Would we not?—than read a fresh Inferno.
VII
¶You and I will never see that picture.While he mused on love and Beatrice,While he softened o'er his outlined angel,In they broke, those "people of importance:"We and Bice bear the loss forever.
VIII
¶What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture?This: no artist lives and loves, that longs notOnce, and only once, and for one only,(Ah, the prize!) to find his love a languageFit and fair and simple and sufficient—Using nature that's an art to others,Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature,Ay, of all the artists living, loving,None but would forego his proper dowry,—Does he paint? he fain would write a poem,—Does he write? he fain would paint a picture,Put to proof art alien to the artist's,Once, and only once, and for one only,So to be the man and leave the artist,Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.
IX
¶Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement!He who smites the rock and spreads the water,Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him,Even he, the minute makes immortal,Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute.Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing.While he smites, how can he but remember,So he smote before, in such a peril,When they stood and mocked—"Shall smiting help us?'When they drank and sneered—"A stroke is easy!"When they wiped their mouths and went their journeyThrowing him for thanks—"But drought was pleasant.'Thus old memories mar the actual triumph;Thus the doing savors of disrelish;Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat;O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate,Carelessness or consciousness—the gesture.For he bears an ancient wrong about him,Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces,Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude—"How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?"[1097]Guesses what is like to prove the sequel—"Egypt's flesh pots—nay, the drought was better."
¶x
¶Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance,Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.Never dares the man put off the prophet.
XI
¶Did he love one face from out the thousands,(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely,Were she but the ^Ethiopian bondslave,)He would envy yon dumb patient camel,Keeping a reserve of scanty waterMeant to save his own life in the desert;Ready in the desert to deliver(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened)Hoard and life together for his mistress.
XII
¶I shall never, in the years remaining,Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues,Make you music that should all-express me;So it seems: I stand on my attainment.This of verse alone, one life allows me;Verse and nothing else have I to give you.Other heights in other lives, God willing:All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!
XIII
¶Yet a semblance of resource avails us—Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,Lines I write the first time and the last time.He who works in fresco, steals a hairbrush,Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,Makes a strange art of an art familiar,Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets.
p. 1098¶He who blows through bronze, may breathe through sil Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.
¶He who writes, may write for once as I do.
XIV
¶Love, you saw me gather men and women,Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy,Enter each and all, and use their service,Speak from every mouth,—the speech, a poem.Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,Hope and fears, belief and disbelieving:I am mine and yours—the rest be all men's,Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty,Let me speak this once in my true person,Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea,Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence:Pray you, look on these my men and women,Take and keep my fifty poems finished;Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.
¶xvNot but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!Here in London, yonder late in Florence,Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured,Curving on a sky imbrued with color,Drifted over Fiesole by twilight,Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato,Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder,Perfect till the nightingales applauded.Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,Hard to greet, she traverses the houseroofs,Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.
¶xviWhat, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy),[1099]All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos),She would turn a new side to her mortal,Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman—Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,Blind to Galileo on his turret,Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even!Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal—When she turns round, comes again in heaven,Opens out anew for worse or better!Proves she like some portent of an icebergSwimming full upon the ship it founders,Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?Proves she as the paved work of a sapphireSeen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?Moses, Aaron, Nadab and AbihuClimbed and saw the very God, the Highest,Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.Like the bodied heaven in his clearnessShone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work,When they ate and drank and saw God also!
XVII
¶What were seen? None knows, none ever shall know.Only this is sure—the sight were other,Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,Dying now impoverished here in London.God be thanked, the meanest of his creaturesBoasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,One to show a woman when he loves her!
XVIII
¶This I say of me, but think of you, Love!This to you—yourself my moon of poets!Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder,Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!There, in turn I stand with them and praise you—Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.But the best is when I glide from out them,Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,Come out on the other side, the novel[1100]Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,Where I hush and bless myself with silence.
XIX
¶Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno,Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it,Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom I
677 Abt Vogler
¶(AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL
Instrument of His Invention)
¶WOULD that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willedArmies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,Man, brute, reptile, fly,—alien of end and of aim,Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!
¶Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine,Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.
¶And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was,Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest,Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest:For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,When a great illumination surprises a festal night—Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.[1101]In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth,As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine,Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.
¶Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast,Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last;Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone,But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;And what is,—shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.
¶All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause,Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:—
¶But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught:It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said:Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:And there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!
¶Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go,[1102]Never to be again! But many more of the kindAs good, nay, better, perchance: is this your comfort to me?To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mindTo the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.
¶Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name?Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands!What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same?Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands?There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound;What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.
¶All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor powerWhose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodistWhen eternity affirms the conception of an hour,The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.
¶And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidenceFor the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe;But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.
¶Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor,—yes,And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep;Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.
6j8 RABBI BEN EZRA
¶GROW old along with me!The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made:Our times are in his handWho saith, "A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
¶Not that, amassing flowers,Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours,Which lily leave and then as best recall?"Not that, admiring stars,It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars;Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"
¶Not for such hopes and fearsAnnulling youth's brief years,Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!Rather I prize the doubtLow kinds exist without,Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
¶Poor vaunt of life indeed,Were man but formed to feedOn joy, to solely seek and find a feast:Such feasting ended, thenAs sure an end to men;Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?
¶Rejoice we are alliedTo that which doth provideAnd not partake, effect and not receive!A spark disturbs our clod;Nearer we hold of GodWho gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.
¶Then, welcome each rebuffThat turns earth's smoothness rough,Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go![1104]Be our joys three-parts pain!Strive, and hold cheap the strain;Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
¶For thence,—a paradoxWhich comforts while it mocks,—Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:What I aspired to be,And was not, comforts me:A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.
¶What is he but a bruteWhose flesh has soul to suit,Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?To man, propose this test—Thy body at its best,How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?
¶Yet gifts should prove their use:I own the Past profuseOf power each side, perfection every turn:Eyes, ears took in their dole,Brain treasured up the whole;Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn"?
¶Not once beat "Praise be thine!I see the whole design,I, who saw power, see now Love perfect too:Perfect I call Thy plan:Thanks that I was a man!Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!"
¶For pleasant is this flesh;Our soul, in its rose-meshPulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:Would we some prize might holdTo match those manifoldPossessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!
¶Let us not always say,"Spite of this flesh to-dayI strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!"[1105]As the bird wings and sings,Let us cry, "All good thingsAre ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"
¶Therefore I summon ageTo grant youth's heritage,Life's struggle having so far reached its term:Thence shall I pass, approvedA man, for aye removedFrom the developed brute; a God though in the germ.
¶And I shall thereuponTake rest, ere I be goneOnce more on my adventure brave and new:Fearless and unperplexed,When I wage battle next,What weapons to select, what armor to indue.
¶Youth ended, I shall tryMy gain or loss thereby;Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:And I shall weigh the same,Give life its praise or blame:Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.
¶For note, when evening shuts,A certain moment cutsThe deed off, calls the glory from the gray:A whisper from the westShoots—"Add this to the rest,Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."
¶So, still within this life,Though lifted o'er its strife,Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,"This rage was right i' the main,That acquiescence vain:The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."
¶For more is not reservedTo man, with soul just nervedTo act to-morrow what he learns to-day:[1106]Here, work enough to watchThe Master work, and catchHints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.
¶As it was better, youthShould strive, through acts uncouth,Toward making, than repose on aught found made:So, better, age, exemptFrom strife, should know, than temptFurther. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!
¶Enough now, if the RightAnd Good and InfiniteBe named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,With knowledge absolute,Subject to no disputeFrom fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.
¶Be there, for once and all,Severed great minds from small,Announced to each his station in the Past!Was I, the world arraigned,Were they, my soul disdained,Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
¶Now, who shall arbitrate?Ten men love what I hate,Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;Ten, who in ears and eyesMatch me; we all surmise,They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?
¶Not on the vulgar massCalled "work," must sentence pass,Things done, that took the eye and had the price;O'er which, from level stand,The low world laid its hand,Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
¶But all, the world's coarse thumbAnd finger failed to plumb,So passed in making up the main account;[1107]All instincts immature,All purposes unsure,That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:
¶Thoughts hardly to be packedInto a narrow act,Fancies that broke through language and escaped;All I could never be,All, men ignored in me,This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
¶Ay, note that Potter's wheel,That metaphor! and feelWhy time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—Thou, to whom fools propound,When the wine makes its round,"Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"
¶Fool! All that is, at all,Lasts ever, past recall;Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:What entered into thee,That was, is, and shall be:Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
¶He fixed thee 'mid this danceOf plastic circumstance,This Present, thou, forsooth, would fain arrest:Machinery just meantTo give thy soul its bent,Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.
¶What though the earlier grooves,Which ran the laughing lovesAround thy base, no longer pause and press?What though, about thy rim,Skull-things in order grimGrow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?
¶Look not thou down but up!To uses of a cup,The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,[1108]The new wine's foaming flow,The master's lips aglow!Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?
¶But I need, now as then,Thee, God, who mouldest men;And since, not even while the whirl was worst,Did I—to the wheel of lifeWith shapes and colors rife,Bound dizzily—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:
¶So, take and use Thy work:Amend what flaws may lurk,What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!My times be in Thy hand!Perfect the cup as planned!Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!
679 Never the Time and the Place
¶NEVER the time and the placeAnd the loved one all together!This path—how soft to pace!This May—what magic weather!Where is the loved one's face?In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,But the house is narrow, the place is bleakWhere, outside, rain and wind combineWith a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,With a malice that marks each word, each sign!O enemy sly and serpentine,Uncoil thee from the waking man!Do I hold the PastThus firm and fastYet doubt if the Future hold I can?This path so soft to pace shall leadThrough the magic of May to herself indeed!Or narrow if needs the house must be,Outside are the storms and strangers: we—Oh, close, safe, warm, sleep I and she, I and she.
p. 1109¶680 DEDICATION OF THE RING AND THE BOOK
¶O LYRIC Love, half angel and half bird,And all a wonder and a wild desire,—Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,Took sanctuary within the holier blue,And sang a kindred soul out to his face,—Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart—When the first summons from the darkling earthReached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,And bared them of the glory—to drop down,To toil for man, to suffer or to die,—This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?Hail then, and harken from the realms of help!Never may I commence my song, my dueTo God who best taught song by gift of thee,Except with bent head and beseeching hand—That still, despite the distance and the dark,What was, again may be; some interchangeOf grace, some splendor once thy very thought,Some benediction anciently thy smile:—Never conclude, but raising hand and headThither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearnFor all hope, all sustainment, all reward,Their utmost up and on,—so blessing backIn those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home,Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud,Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall!
681 Epilogue
¶A T the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,When you set your fancies free,Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned—Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,—Pity me?
¶Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!What had I on earth to doWith the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?[1110]Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel—Being—who?
¶One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,Never doubted clouds would break,Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,Sleep to wake.
¶No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-timeGreet the unseen with a cheer!Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,—fight on, fare everThere as here!"