The volume bearing the title Dramatis PersonÆ was published in 1864 and the contents remained unchanged in subsequent editions except that two short poems were added in the edition of 1868. The first poem was however originally entitled James Lee. The first six stanzas of the sixth section of the poem were first printed in 1836 in Mr. Fox's The Monthly Repository, and bore the title merely Lines, with the signature Z. JAMES LEE'S WIFE I
JAMES LEE'S WIFE SPEAKS AT THE WINDOW Ah, Love, but a day And the world has changed! The sun 's away, And the bird estranged; The wind has dropped, And the sky 's deranged: Summer has stopped. Look in my eyes! Wilt thou change too? Should I fear surprise? Shall I find aught new In the old and dear, In the good and true, With the changing year? Thou art a man, But I am thy love. For the lake, its swan; For the dell its dove; And for thee—(oh, haste!) Me, to bend above, Me, to hold embraced. II
BY THE FIRESIDE Is all our fire of shipwreck wood, Oak and pine? Oh, for the ills half-understood, The dim dead woe Long ago Befallen this bitter coast of France! Well, poor sailors took their chance; I take mine. A ruddy shaft our fire must shoot O'er the sea: Do sailors eye the casement—mute Drenched and stark, From their bark— And envy, gnash their teeth for hate O' the warm safe house and happy freight —Thee and me? God help you, sailors, at your need! Spare the curse! For some ships, safe in port indeed, Rot and rust, Run to dust, All through worms i' the wood, which crept, Gnawed our hearts out while we slept: That is worse. Who lived here before us two? Old-world pairs. Did a woman ever—would I knew!— Watch the man With whom began Love's voyage full-sail,—(now gnash your teeth!) When planks start, open hell beneath Unawares? III
IN THE DOORWAY The swallow has set her six young on the rail, And looks seaward: The water 's in stripes like a snake, olive-pale To the leeward,— On the weather-side, black, spotted white with the wind. "Good fortune departs, and disaster 's behind,"— Hark, the wind with its wants and its infinite wail! Our fig-tree, that leaned for the saltness, has furled Her five fingers, Each leaf like a hand opened wide to the world Where there lingers No glint of the gold, Summer sent for her sake: How the vines writhe in rows, each impaled on its stake! My heart shrivels up and my spirit shrinks curled. Yet here are we two; we have love, house enough, With the field there, This house of four rooms, that field red and rough, Though it yield there, For the rabbit that robs, scarce a blade or a bent; If a magpie alight now, it seems an event; And they both will be gone at November's rebuff. But why must cold spread? but wherefore bring change To the spirit, God meant should mate his with an infinite range, And inherit His power to put life in the darkness and cold? Oh, live and love worthily, bear and be bold! Whom Summer made friends of, let Winter estrange! IV
ALONG THE BEACH I will be quiet and talk with you, And reason why you are wrong. You wanted my love—is that much true? And so I did love, so I do: What has come of it all along? I took you—how could I otherwise? For a world to me, and more; For all, love greatens and glorifies Till God's aglow, to the loving eyes, In what was mere earth before. Yes, earth—yes, mere ignoble earth! Now do I mis-state, mistake? Do I wrong your weakness and call it worth? Expect all harvest, dread no dearth, Seal my sense up for your sake? Oh, Love, Love, no, Love! not so, indeed! You were just weak earth, I knew: With much in you waste, with many a weed, And plenty of passions run to seed, But a little good grain too. And such as you were, I took you for mine: Did not you find me yours, To watch the olive and wait the vine, And wonder when rivers of oil and wine Would flow, as the Book assures? Well, and if none of these good things came, What did the failure prove? The man was my whole world, all the same, With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame, And, either or both, to love. Yet this turns now to a fault—there! there! That I do love, watch too long, And wait too well, and weary and wear; And 't is all an old story, and my despair Fit subject for some new song: "How the light, light love, he has wings to fly At suspicion of a bond: My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-by, Which will turn up next in a laughing eye, And why should you look beyond?" V
ON THE CLIFF I leaned on the turf, I looked at a rock Left dry by the surf; For the turf, to call it grass were to mock: Dead to the roots, so deep was done The work of the summer sun. And the rock lay flat As an anvil's face: No iron like that! Baked dry; of a weed, of a shell, no trace: Sunshine outside, but ice at the core, Death's altar by the lone shore. On the turf, sprang gay With his films of blue, No cricket, I 'll say, But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too, The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight, Real fairy, with wings all right. On the rock, they scorch Like a drop of fire From a brandished torch, Fall two red fans of a butterfly: No turf, no rock: in their ugly stead, See, wonderful blue and red! Is it not so With the minds of men? The level and low, The burnt and bare, in themselves; but then With such a blue and red grace, not theirs,— Love settling unawares! VI
READING A BOOK, UNDER THE CLIFF "Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no? Which needs the other's office, thou or I? Dost want to be disburdened of a woe, And can, in truth, my voice untie Its links, and let it go? "Art thou a dumb, wronged thing that would be righted, Entrusting thus thy cause to me? Forbear! No tongue can mend such pleadings; faith, requited With falsehood,—love, at last aware Of scorn,—hopes, early blighted,— "We have them; but I know not any tone So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow: Dost think men would go mad without a moan, If they knew any way to borrow A pathos like thy own? "Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the sighs? The one So long escaping from lips starved and blue, That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nun Stretches her length; her foot comes through The straw she shivers on; "You had not thought she was so tall: and spent, Her shrunk lids open, her lean fingers shut Close, close, their sharp and livid nails indent The clammy palm; then all is mute: That way, the spirit went. "Or wouldst thou rather that I understand Thy will to help me?—like the dog I found Once, pacing sad this solitary strand, Who would not take my food, poor hound. But whined and licked my hand."
All this, and more, comes from some young man's pride Of power to see,—in failure and mistake, Relinquishment, disgrace, on every side,— Merely examples for his sake, Helps to his path untried: Instances he must—simply recognize? Oh, more than so!—must, with a learner's zeal, Make doubly prominent, twice emphasize, By added touches that reveal The god in babe's disguise. Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest! Himself the undefeated that shall be: Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test,— His triumph, in eternity Too plainly manifest! Whence, judge if he learn forthwith what the wind Means in its moaning—by the happy prompt Instinctive way of youth, I mean; for kind Calm years, exacting their accompt Of pain, mature the mind: And some midsummer morning, at the lull Just about daybreak, as he looks across A sparkling foreign country, wonderful To the sea's edge for gloom and gloss, Next minute must annul,— Then, when the wind begins among the vines, So low, so low, what shall it say but this? "Here is the change beginning, here the lines Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss The limit time assigns." Nothing can be as it has been before; Better, so call it, only not the same. To draw one beauty into our hearts' core, And keep it changeless! such our claim; So answered,—Nevermore! Simple? Why this is the old woe o' the world; Tune, to whose rise and fall we live and die. Rise with it, then! Rejoice that man is hurled From change to change unceasingly, His soul's wings never furled! That 's a new question; still replies the fact, Nothing endures: the wind moans, saying so; We moan in acquiescence: there 's life's pact. Perhaps probation—do I know? God does: endure his act! Only, for man, how bitter not to grave On his soul's hands' palms one fair good wise thing Just as he grasped it! For himself, death's wave; While time first washes—ah, the sting!— O'er all he 'd sink to save. VII
AMONG THE ROCKS 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. 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! VIII
BESIDE THE DRAWING-BOARD "As like as a Hand to another Hand!" Whoever said that foolish thing, Could not have studied to understand The councils of God in fashioning, Out of the infinite love of his heart, This Hand, whose beauty I praise, apart From the world of wonder left to praise, If I tried to learn the other ways Of love in its skill, or love in its power. "As like as a Hand to another Hand:" Who said that, never took his stand, Found and followed, like me, an hour, The beauty in this,—how free, how fine To fear, almost,—of the limit-line! As I looked at this, and learned and drew, Drew and learned, and looked again, While fast the happy minutes flew, Its beauty mounted into my brain, And a fancy seized me; I was fain To efface my work, begin anew, Kiss what before I only drew; Ay, laying the red chalk 'twixt my lips, With soul to help if the mere lips failed, I kissed all right where the drawing ailed. Kissed fast the grace that somehow slips Still from one's soulless finger-tips. 'Tis a clay cast, the perfect thing, From Hand live once, dead long ago: Princess-like it wears the ring To fancy's eye, by which we know That here at length a master found His match, a proud lone soul its mate, As soaring genius sank to ground, And pencil could not emulate The beauty in this,—how free, how fine To fear almost!—of the limit-line. Long ago the god, like me The worm, learned, each in our degree: Looked and loved, learned and drew, Drew and learned and loved again, While fast the happy minutes flew, Till beauty mounted into his brain And on the finger which outvied His art he placed the ring that's there, Still by fancy's eye descried, In token of a marriage rare: For him on earth, his art's despair, For him in heaven, his soul's fit bride. Little girl with the poor coarse hand I turned from to a cold clay cast— I have my lesson, understand The worth of flesh and blood at last! Nothing but beauty in a Hand? Because he could not change the hue, Mend the lines and make them true To this which met his soul's demand,— Would Da Vinci turn from you? I hear him laugh my woes to scorn— "The fool forsooth is all forlorn Because the beauty, she thinks best, Lived long ago or was never born,— Because no beauty bears the test In this rough peasant Hand! Confessed 'Art is null and study void!' So sayest thou? So said not I, Who threw the faulty pencil by, And years instead of hours employed, Learning the veritable use Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath Lines and hue of the outer sheath, If haply I might reproduce One motive of the powers profuse, Flesh and bone and nerve that make The poorest coarsest human hand An object worthy to be scanned A whole life long for their sole sake. Shall earth and the cramped moment-space Yield the heavenly crowning grace? Now the parts and then the whole! Who art thou, with stinted soul And stunted body, thus to cry, 'I love,—shall that be life's strait dole? I must live beloved or die!' This peasant hand that spins the wool And bakes the bread, why lives it on, Poor and coarse with beauty gone,— What use survives the beauty?" Fool! Go, little girl with the poor coarse hand! I have my lesson, shall understand. IX
ON DECK There is nothing to remember in me, Nothing I ever said with a grace, Nothing I did that you care to see, Nothing I was that deserves a place In your mind, now I leave you, set you free. Conceded! In turn, concede to me, Such things have been as a mutual flame. Your soul's locked fast; but, love for a key, You might let it loose, till I grew the same In your eyes, as in mine you stand: strange plea! For then, then, what would it matter to me That I was the harsh, ill-favored one? We both should be like as pea and pea; It was ever so since the world begun: So, let me proceed with my reverie. How strange it were if you had all me, As I have all you in my heart and brain, You, whose least word brought gloom or glee, Who never lifted the hand in vain— Will hold mine yet, from over the sea! Strange, if a face, when you thought of me, Rose like your own face present now, With eyes as dear in their due degree, Much such a month, and as bright a brow, Till you saw yourself, while you cried "Tis She!" Well, you may, you must, set down to me Love that was life, life that was love; A tenure of breath at your lips' decree, A passion to stand as your thoughts approve, A rapture to fall where your foot might be. But did one touch of such love for me Come in a word or a look of yours, Whose words and looks will, circling, flee Round me and round while life endures,— Could I fancy "As I feel, thus feels He;" Why, fade you might to a thing like me, And your hair grow these coarse hanks of hair, Your skin, this bark of a gnarled tree,— You might turn myself!—should I know or care, When I should be dead of joy, James Lee? GOLD HAIR A STORY OF PORNIC This poem was issued by itself as well as included later in Dramatis PersonÆ, and simultaneously with its appearance in England it was printed in The Atlantic Monthly. It was written in Normandy, and in a letter printed in Mrs. Orr's Life, II. 395, there is an account of the destruction of the church referred to in the poem. Oh, the beautiful girl, too white, Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea, Just where the sea and the Loire unite! And a boasted name in Brittany She bore, which I will not write. Too white, for the flower of life is red: Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen Of a soul that is meant (her parents said) To just see earth, and hardly be seen, And blossom in heaven instead. Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair! One grace that grew to its full on earth: Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare, And her waist want half a girdle's girth, But she had her great gold hair. Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss, Freshness and fragrance—floods of it, too! Gold, did I say? Nay, gold's mere dross: Here, Life smiled, "Think what I meant to do!" And Love sighed, "Fancy my loss!" So, when she died, it was scarce more strange Than that, when delicate evening dies, And you follow its spent sun's pallid range, There's a shoot of color startles the skies With sudden, violent change,— That, while the breath was nearly to seek, As they put the little cross to her lips, She changed; a spot came out on her cheek, A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse, And she broke forth, "I must speak!" "Not my hair!" made the girl her moan— "All the rest is gone or to go; But the last, last grace, my all, my own, Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know! Leave my poor gold hair alone!" The passion thus vented, dead lay she; Her parents sobbed their worst on that; All friends joined in, nor observed degree: For indeed the hair was to wonder at, As it spread—not flowing free, But curled around her brow, like a crown, And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap, And calmed about her neck—ay, down To her breast, pressed flat, without a gap I' the gold, it reached her gown. All kissed that face, like a silver wedge 'Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair: E'en the priest allowed death's privilege, As he planted the crucifix with care On her breast, 'twixt edge and edge. And thus was she buried, inviolate Of body and soul, in the very space By the altar; keeping saintly state In Pornic church, for her pride of race, Pure life and piteous fate. And in after-time would your fresh tear fall, Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile, As they told you of gold, both robe and pall, How she prayed them leave it alone awhile, So it never was touched at all. Years flew; this legend grew at last The life of the lady; all she had done, All been, in the memories fading fast Of lover and friend, was summed in one Sentence survivors passed: To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth; Had turned an angel before the time: Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearth Of frailty, all you could count a crime Was—she knew her gold hair's worth.
At little pleasant Pornic church, It chanced, the pavement wanted repair, Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch, A certain sacred space lay bare, And the boys began research. 'Twas the space where our sires would lay a saint, A benefactor,—a bishop, suppose, A baron with armor-adornments quaint, Dame with chased ring and jewelled rose, Things sanctity saves from taint; So we come to find them in after-days When the corpse is presumed to have done with gauds Of use to the living, in many ways: For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds, And the church deserves the praise. They grubbed with a will: and at length—O cor Humanum, pectora cÆca, and the rest!— They found—no gaud they were prying for, No ring, no rose, but—who would have guessed?— A double Louis-d'or! Here was a case for the priest: he heard, Marked, inwardly digested, laid Finger on nose, smiled, "There's a bird Chirps in my ear:" then, "Bring a spade, Dig deeper!"—he gave the word. And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid, Or rotten planks which composed it once, Why, there lay the girl's skull wedged amid A mint of money, it served for the nonce To hold in its hair-heaps hid! Hid there? Why? Could the girl be wont (She the stainless soul) to treasure up Money, earth's trash and heaven's affront? Had a spider found out the communion-cup, Was a toad in the christening-font? Truth is truth: too true it was. Gold! She hoarded and hugged it first, Longed for it, leaned o'er it, loved it—alas— Till the humor grew to a head and burst, And she cried, at the final pass,— "Talk not of God, my heart is stone! Nor lover nor friend—be gold for both! Gold I lack; and, my all, my own, It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die loth If they let my hair alone!" Louis-d'or, some six times five, And duly double, every piece. Now, do you see? With the priest to shrive, With parents preventing her soul's release By kisses that kept alive,— With heaven's gold gates about to ope, With friends' praise, gold-like, lingering still, An instinct had bidden the girl's hand grope For gold, the true sort—"Gold in heaven, if you will; But I keep earth's too, I hope." Enough! The priest took the grave's grim yield: The parents, they eyed that price of sin As if thirty pieces lay revealed On the place to bury strangers in, The hideous Potter's Field. But the priest bethought him: "'Milk that 's spilt' —You know the adage! Watch and pray! Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt! It would build a new altar; that, we may!" And the altar therewith was built. Why I deliver this horrible verse? As the text of a sermon, which now I preach: Evil or good may be better or worse In the human heart, but the mixture of each Is a marvel and a curse. The candid incline to surmise of late That the Christian faith proves false, I find; For our Essays-and-Reviews' debate Begins to tell on the public mind, And Colenso's words have weight: I still, to suppose it true, for my part, See reasons and reasons; this, to begin: 'Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie—taught Original Sin, The Corruption of Man's Heart. THE WORST OF IT Would it were I had been false, not you! I that am nothing, not you that are all: I, never the worse for a touch or two On my speckled hide; not you, the pride Of the day, my swan, that a first fleck's fall On her wonder of white must unswan, undo! I had dipped in life's struggle and, out again, Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see, When I found my swan and the cure was plain; The dull turned bright as I caught your white On my bosom: you saved me—saved in vain If you ruined yourself, and all through me! Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am, Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself, And bound your soul by the vows that damn: Since on better thought you break, as you ought, Vows—words, no angel set down, some elf Mistook,—for an oath, an epigram! Yes, might I judge you, here were my heart, And a hundred its like, to treat as you pleased! I choose to be yours, for my proper part, Yours, leave or take, or mar me or make; If I acquiesce, why should you be teased With the conscience-prick and the memory-smart? But what will God say? Oh, my sweet, Think, and be sorry you did this thing! Though earth were unworthy to feel your feet, There's a heaven above may deserve your love: Should you forfeit heaven for a snapt gold ring And a promise broke, were it just or meet? And I to have tempted you! I, who tried Your soul, no doubt, till it sank! Unwise, I loved, and was lowly, loved and aspired, Loved, grieving or glad, till I made you mad, And you meant to have hated and despised— Whereas, you deceived me nor inquired! She, ruined? How? No heaven for her? Crowns to give, and none for the brow That looked like marble and smelt like myrrh? Shall the robe be worn, and the palm-branch borne, And she go graceless, she graced now Beyond, all saints, as themselves aver? Hardly! That must be understood! The earth is your place of penance, then; And what will it prove? I desire your good, But, plot as I may, I can find no way How a blow should fall, such as falls on men, Nor prove too much for your womanhood. It will come, I suspect, at the end of life, When you walk alone, and review the past; And I, who so long shall have done with strife, And journeyed my stage and earned my wage And retired as was right,—I am called at last When the devil stabs you, to lend the knife. He stabs for the minute of trivial wrong, Nor the other hours are able to save, The happy, that lasted my whole life long: For a promise broke, not for first words spoke, The true, the only, that turn my grave To a blaze of joy and a crash of song. Witness beforehand! Off I trip On a safe path gay through the flowers you flung: My very name made great by your lip, And my heart aglow with the good I know Of a perfect year when we both were young, And I tasted the angels' fellowship. And witness, moreover ... Ah, but wait! I spy the loop whence an arrow shoots! It may be for yourself, when you meditate, That you grieve—for slain ruth, murdered truth: "Though falsehood escape in the end, what boots? How truth would have triumphed!"—you sigh too late. Ay, who would have triumphed like you, I say! Well, it is lost now; well, you must bear, Abide and grow fit for a better day: You should hardly grudge, could I be your judge! But hush! For you, can be no despair: There's amends: 'tis a secret: hope and pray! For I was true at least—oh, true enough! And, Dear, truth is not as good as it seems! Commend me to conscience! Idle stuff! Much help is in mine, as I mope and pine, And skulk through day, and scowl in my dreams At my swan's obtaining the crow's rebuff. Men tell me of truth now—"False!" I cry: Of beauty—"A mask, friend! Look beneath!" We take our own method, the devil and I, With pleasant and fair and wise and rare: And the best we wish to what lives, is—death; Which even in wishing, perhaps we lie! Far better commit a fault and have done— As you, Dear!—forever; and choose the pure, And look where the healing waters run, And strive and strain to be good again, And a place in the other world ensure, All glass and gold, with God for its sun. Misery! What shall I say or do? I cannot advise, or, at least, persuade: Most like, you are glad you deceived me—rue No whit of the wrong: you endured too long, Have done no evil and want no aid, Will live the old life out and chance the now. And your sentence is written all the same, And I can do nothing,—pray, perhaps: But somehow the world pursues its game,— If I pray, if I curse,—for better or worse: And my faith is torn to a thousand scraps, And my heart feels ice while my words breathe flame. Dear, I look from my hiding-place. Are you still so fair? Have you still the eyes? Be happy! Add but the other grace, Be good! Why want what the angels vaunt? I knew you once: but in Paradise, If we meet, I will pass nor turn my face. DÎS ALITER VISUM;
OR, LE BYRON DE NOS JOURS
ide And not partake, effect and not receive! A spark disturbs our clod; Nearer we hold of God Who gives, than of his tribes that take, I must believe. Then, welcome each rebuff That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go! 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 paradox Which 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 brute Whose 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 profuse Of 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-mesh Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest: Would we some prize might hold To match those manifold Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best! Let us not always say, "Spite of this flesh to-day I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" As the bird wings and sings. Let us cry, "All good things Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!" Therefore I summon age To grant youth's heritage, Life's struggle having so far reached its term: Thence shall I pass, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute; a God though in the germ. And I shall thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone Once 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 try My 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 cuts The deed off, calls the glory from the gray: A whisper from the west Shoots—"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 reserved To man, with soul just nerved To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: Here, work enough to watch The Master work, and catch Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play. As it was better, youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made: So, better, age, exempt From strife, should know, than tempt Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid! Enough now, if the Right And Good and Infinite Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, With knowledge absolute, Subject to no dispute From 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 eyes Match me: we all surmise, They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe? Not on the vulgar mass Called "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 thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into 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 feel Why 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 da
iv> 'Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, him Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life? What should wring this from thee!'—ye laugh and ask. What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a noise, The sudden Roman faces, violent hands, And fear of what the Jews might do! Just that, And it is written, 'I forsook and fled:' There was my trial, and it ended thus. Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow: Another year or two,—what little child, What tender woman that had seen no least Of all my sights, but barely heard them told, Who did not clasp the cross with a light laugh, Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God? Well, was truth safe forever, then? Not so. Already had begun the silent work Whereby truth, deadened of its absolute blaze, Might need love's eye to pierce the o'erstretched doubt. Teachers were busy, whispering 'All is true As the aged ones report: but youth can reach Where age gropes dimly, weak with stir and strain, And the full doctrine slumbers till to-day.' Thus, what the Roman's lowered spear was found, A bar to me who touched and handled truth, Now proved the glozing of some new shrewd tongue, This Ebion, this Cerinthus or their mates, Till imminent was the outcry 'Save our Christ!' Whereon I stated much of the Lord's life Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work. Such work done, as it will be, what comes next? What do I hear say, or conceive men say, 'Was John at all, and did he say he saw? Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!' "Is this indeed a burden for late days, And may I help to bear it with you all, Using my weakness which becomes your strength? For if a babe were born inside this grot, Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun, Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light's place,— One loving him and wishful he should learn, Would much rejoice himself was blinded first Month by month here, so made to understand How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss: I think I could explain to such a child There was more glow outside than gleams he caught, Ay, nor need urge 'I saw it, so believe!' It is a heavy burden you shall bear In latter days, new lands, or old grown strange, Left without me, which must be very soon. What is the doubt, my brothers? Quick with it! I see you stand conversing, each new face, Either in fields, of yellow summer eves, On islets yet unnamed amid the sea; Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico Out of the crowd in some enormous town Where now the larks sing in a solitude; Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand Idly conjectured to be Ephesus: And no one asks his fellow any more 'Where is the promise of his coming?' but 'Was he revealed in any of his lives, As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul?' "Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out, And let us ask and answer and be saved! My book speaks on, because it cannot pass; One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads, 'Here is a tale of things done ages since; What truth was ever told the second day? Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for naught. Remains the doctrine, love; well, we must love, And what we love most, power and love in one, Let us acknowledge on the record here, Accepting these in Christ: must Christ then be? Has he been? Did not we ourselves make him? Our mind receives but what it holds, no more. First of the love, then; we acknowledge Christ— A proof we comprehend his love, a proof We had such love already in ourselves, Knew first what else we should not recognize. 'T is mere projection from man's inmost mind, And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back, Becomes accounted somewhat out of him; He throws it up in air, it drops down earth's, With shape, name, story added, man's old way. How prove you Christ came otherwise at least? Next try the power: he made and rules the world: Certes there is a world once made, now ruled, Unless things have been ever as we see. Our sires declared a charioteer's yoked steeds Brought the sun up the east and down the west, Which only of itself now rises, sets, As if a hand impelled it and a will,— Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands: But the new question's whisper is distinct, Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves? We have the hands, the will; what made and drives The sun is force, is law, is named, not known, While will and love we do know; marks of these, Eye-witnesses attest, so books declare— As that, to punish or reward our race, The sun at undue times arose or set Or else stood still: what do not men affirm? But earth requires as urgently reward Or punishment to-day as years ago, And none expects the sun will interpose: Therefore it was mere passion and mistake, Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth. Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things; Ever the will, the intelligence, the love, Man's!—which he gives, supposing he but finds, As late he gave head, body, hands and feet, To help these in what forms he called his gods. First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were swept away, But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride continued long: As last, will, power, and love discarded these, So law in turn discards power, love, and will. What proveth God is otherwise at least? All else, projection from the mind of man! "Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong, But place my gospel where I put my hands. "I say that man was made to grow, not stop; That help, he needed once, and needs no more, Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn: For he hath new needs, and new helps to these. This imports solely, man should mount on each New height in view; the help whereby he mounts, The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall, CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS;
OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself." ['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: And while above his head a pompion-plant, Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, And now a flower drops with a bee inside, And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,— He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross And recross till they weave a spider-web, (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times,) And talks to his own self, howe'er he please, Touching that other, whom his dam called God. Because to talk about Him, vexes—ha, Could He but know! and time to vex is now, When talk is safer than in winter-time. Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep In confidence he drudges at their task, And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.] Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos! 'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon. 'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match, But not the stars; the stars came otherwise; Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that: Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same. 'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease: He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; Only, she ever sickened, found repulse At the other kind of water, not her life, (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun,) Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, And in her old bounds buried her despair, Hating and loving warmth alike: so He. 'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm, And says a plain word when she finds her prize, But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks About their hole—He made all these and more, Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else? He could not, Himself, make a second self To be His mate; as well have made Himself: He would not make what He mislikes or slights, An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains: But did, in envy, listlessness or sport, Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be— Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, Things He admires and mocks too,—that is it. Because, so brave, so better though they be, It nothing skills if He begin to plague. Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,— Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme, And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. Put case, unable to be what I wish, I yet could make a live bird out of clay: Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban Able to fly?—for, there, see, he hath wings, And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire, And there, a sting to do his foes offence, There, and I will that he begin to live, Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns Of grigs high up that make the merry din, Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not. In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, And he lay stupid-like,—why, I should laugh; And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,— Well, as the chance were, this might take or else Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry, And give the manikin three sound legs for one, Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg, And lessoned he was mine and merely clay. Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme, Drinking the mash, with brain become alive, Making and marring clay at will? So He. 'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs That march now from the mountain to the sea; 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, And two worms he whose nippers end in red; As it likes me each time, I do: so He. Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main, Placable if His mind and ways were guessed, But rougher than His handiwork, be sure! Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself, And envieth that, so helped, such things do more Than He who made them! What consoles but this? That they, unless through Him, do naught at all, And must submit: what other use in things? 'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue: Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt: Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth, "I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing, I make the cry my maker cannot make With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!" Would not I smash it with my foot? So He. But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease? Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, What knows,—the something over Setebos That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought, Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance. There may be something quiet o'er His head, Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief, Since both derive from weakness in some way. I joy because the quails come; would not joy Could I bring quails here when I have a mind: This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. 'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch, But never spends much thought nor care that way. It may look up, work up,—the worse for those It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos The many-handed as a cuttle-fish, Who, making Himself feared through what He does, Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar To what is quiet and hath happy life; Next looks down here, and out of very spite Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real, These good things to match those as hips do grapes. 'T is solace making baubles, ay, and sport. Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words; Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe The eyed skin of a supple oncelot; And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, And saith she is Miranda and my wife: 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban; A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. 'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way, Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He. His dam held that the Quiet made all things Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so. Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex. Had He meant other, while His hand was in, Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick, Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow, Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint, Like an orc's armor? Ay,—so spoil His sport! He is the One now: only He doth all. 'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him. Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why? 'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose, But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes. Also it pleaseth Setebos to work, Use all His hands, and exercise much craft, By no means for the love of what is worked. 'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world When all goes right, in this safe summer-time, And he wants little, hungers, aches not much, Than trying what to do with wit and strength. 'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs, And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk, And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each, And set up endwise certain spikes of tree, And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top, Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill. No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake; 'Shall some day knock it down again: so He. 'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof! One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope. He hath a spite against me, that I know, Just as He favors Prosper, who knows why? So it is, all the same, as well I find. 'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave, Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck, Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue, And licked the whole labor flat: so much for spite. 'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies) Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade: Often they scatter sparkles: there is force! 'Dug up a newt He may have envied once And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone. Please Him and hinder this?—What Prosper does? Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He! There is the sport: discover how or die! All need not die, for of the things o' the isle Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees; Those at His mercy,—why, they please Him most When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice! Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth. You must not know His ways, and play Him off, Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself: 'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears But steals the nut from underneath my thumb, And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence: 'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, Curls up into a ball, pretending death For fright at my approach: the two ways please. But what would move my choler more than this, That either creature counted on its life To-morrow and next day and all days to come, Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart, "Because he did so yesterday with me, And otherwise with such another brute, So must he do henceforth and always."—Ay? Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means! 'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He. 'Conceiveth all things will continue thus, And we shall have to live in fear of Him So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change, If He have done His best, make no new world To please Him more, so leave off watching this,— If He surprise not even the Quiet's self Some strange day,—or, suppose, grow into it As grubs grow butterflies: else, here we are, And there is He, and nowhere help at all. 'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop. His dam held different, that after death He both plagued enemies and feasted friends: Idly! He doth His worst in this our life, Giving just respite lest we die through pain, Saving last pain for worst,—with which, an end. Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself, Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink, Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both. 'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball On head and tail as if to save their lives: Moves them the stick away they strive to clear. Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose This Caliban strives hard and ails no less, And always, above all else, envies Him; Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights, Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh, And never speaks his mind save housed as now: Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here, O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?" 'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off, Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best, Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree, Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste: While myself lit a fire, and made a song And sung it, "What I hate, be consecrate To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?" Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend, Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime, That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch And conquer Setebos, or likelier He Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.
[What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once! Crickets stop hissing; not a bird—or, yes, There scuds His raven that has told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze— A tree's head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there, His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!] CONFESSIONS What is he buzzing in my ears? "Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears?" Ah, reverend sir, not I! What I viewed there once, what I view again Where the physic bottles stand On the table's edge,—is a suburb lane, With a wall to my bedside hand. That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry O'er the garden-wall; is the curtain blue Or green to a healthy eye? To mine, it serves for the old June weather Blue above lane and wall; And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether" Is the house o'ertopping all. At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, There watched for me, one June, A girl: I know, sir, it 's improper, My poor mind 's out of tune. Only, there was a way ... you crept Close by the side, to dodge Eyes in the house, two eyes except: They styled their house "The Lodge." What right had a lounger up their lane? But, by creeping very close, With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain And stretch themselves to Oes, Yet never catch her and me together, As she left the attic, there, By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether," And stole from stair to stair, And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, We loved, sir—used to meet: How sad and bad and mad it was— But then, how it was sweet! MAY AND DEATH Among Browning's companions in boyhood were three Silverthornes, cousins on his mother's side. The name of Charles in the poem stands for the more familiar Jim, and it was in remembrance of him, the eldest and most talented of the three, that this poem was written. First published in The Keepsake, 1857. I wish that when you died last May, Charles, there had died along with you Three parts of spring's delightful things; Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too. A foolish thought, and worse, perhaps! There must be many a pair of friends Who, arm in arm, deserve the warm Moon-births and the long evening-ends. So, for their sake, be May still May! Let their new time, as mine of old, Do all it did for me: I bid Sweet sights and sounds throng manifold. Only, one little sight, one plant, Woods have in May, that starts up green Save a sole streak which, so to speak, Is spring's blood, spilt its leaves between,— That, they might spare; a certain wood Might miss the plant; their loss were small: But I,—whene'er the leaf grows there, Its drop comes from my heart, that 's all. DEAF AND DUMB
A GROUP BY WOOLNER Only the prism's obstruction shows aright The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light Into the jewelled bow from blankest white; So may a glory from defect arise: Only by Deafness may the vexed Love wreak Its insuppressive sense on brow and cheek, Only by Dumbness adequately speak As favored mouth could never, through the eyes. PROSPICE Written in the autumn following Mrs. Browning's death. The closing lines intensify the association. Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I 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 peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of 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! EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS
A PICTURE BY LEIGHTON First published, without metrical divisions, in the Royal Academy Catalogue, 1864. But give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow! Let them once more absorb me! One look now Will lap me round forever, not to pass Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond: Hold me but safe again within the bond Of one immortal look! All woe that was, Forgotten, and all terror that may be, Defied,—no past is mine, no future: look at me!
YOUTH AND ART It once might have been, once only: We lodged in a street together, You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, I, a lone she-bird of his feather. Your trade was with sticks and clay, You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished, Then laughed "They will see some day Smith made, and Gibson demolished." My business was song, song, song; I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered, "Kate Brown's on the boards ere long, And Grisi's existence embittered!" I earned no more by a warble Than you by a sketch in plaster; You wanted a piece of marble, I needed a music-master. We studied hard in our styles, Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, For air, looked out on the tiles, For fun, watched each other's windows. You lounged, like a boy of the South, Cap and blouse—nay, a bit of beard too; Or you got it, rubbing your mouth With fingers the clay adhered to. And I—soon managed to find Weak points in the flower-fence facing, Was forced to put up a blind And be safe in my corset-lacing. No harm! It was not my fault If you never turned your eye's tail up As I shook upon E in alt., Or ran the chromatic scale up: For spring bade the sparrows pair, And the boys and girls gave guesses, And stalls in our street looked rare With bulrush and watercresses. Why did not you pinch a flower In a pellet of clay and fling it? Why did not I put a power Of thanks in a look, or sing it? I did look, sharp as a lynx, (And yet the memory rankles,) When models arrived, some minx Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles. But I think I gave you as good! "That foreign fellow,—who can know How she pays, in a playful mood, For his tuning her that piano?" Could you say so, and never say, "Suppose we join hands and fortunes, And I fetch her from over the way, Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes"? No, no: you would not be rash, Nor I rasher and something over: You 've to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover. But you meet the Prince at the Board, I 'm queen myself at bals-parÉ, I 've married a rich old lord, And you 're dubbed knight and an R. A. Each life unfulfilled, you see; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy: We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired,—been happy, And nobody calls you a dunce, And people suppose me clever: This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it forever. A FACE If one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold, Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould Of those two lips, which should be opening soft In the pure profile; not as when she laughs, For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's Burden of honey-colored buds to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, How it should waver on the pale gold ground Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts! I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb: But these are only massed there, I should think, Waiting to see some wonder momently Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky (That 's the pale ground you 'd see this sweet face by), All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. A LIKENESS Some people hang portraits up In a room where they dine or sup: And the wife clinks tea-things under, And her cousin, he stirs his cup, Asks, "Who was the lady, I wonder?" "'T is a daub John bought at a sale," Quoth the wife,—looks black as thunder. "What a shade beneath her nose! Snuff-taking, I suppose,"— Adds the cousin, while John's corns ail. Or else, there 's no wife in the case, But the portrait 's queen of the place, Alone 'mid the other spoils Of youth,—masks, gloves and foils, And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine, And the long whip, the tandem-lasher, And the cast from a fist ("not, alas! mine, But my master's, the Tipton Slasher"), And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace, And a satin shoe uses for cigar-case, And the chamois-horns ("shot in the Chablais"), And prints—Rarey drumming on Cruiser, And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser, And the little edition of Rabelais: Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets, May saunter up close to examine it, And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it, "But the eyes are half out of their sockets; That hair 's not so bad, where the gloss is, But they 've made the girl's nose a proboscis: Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy! What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?" All that I own is a print, An etching, a mezzotint; 'T is a study, a fancy, a fiction, Yet a fact (take my conviction) Because it has more than a hint Of a certain face, I never Saw elsewhere touch or trace of In women I 've seen the face of: Just an etching, and, so far, clever. I keep my prints, an imbroglio, Fifty in one portfolio. When somebody tries my claret, We turn round chairs to the fire, Chirp over days in a garret, Chuckle o'er increase of salary, Taste the good fruits of our leisure, Talk about pencil and lyre, And the National Portrait Gallery: Then I exhibit my treasure. After we 've turned over twenty, And the debt of wonder my crony owes Is paid to my Marc Antonios, He stops me—"Festina lentÈ! What 's that sweet thing there, the etching?" How my waistcoat-strings want stretching, How my cheeks grow red as tomatoes, How my heart leaps! But hearts, after leaps, ache. "By the by, you must take, for a keepsake, That other, you praised, of Volpato's." The fool! would he try a flight further and say— He never saw, never before to-day, What was able to take his breath away, A face to lose youth for, to occupy age With the dream of, meet death with,—why, I 'll not engage But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage, I should toss him the thing's self—"'T is only a duplicate, A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!" MR. SLUDGE, "THE MEDIUM" Mr. D. D. Home, an American spiritualist, attracted much attention in the circle in which Mr. and Mrs. Browning lived in Florence.
sed the squeak, This time you 're ... joking, are you not, my boy?" "N-n-no!"—and I 'm done for, bought and sold henceforth The old good easy jog-trot way, the ... eh? The ... not so very false, as falsehood goes, The spinning out and drawing fine, you know,— Really mere novel-writing of a sort, Acting, or improvising, make-believe, Surely not downright cheatery,—anyhow, 'T is done with and my lot cast; Cheat 's my name: The fatal dash of brandy in your tea Has settled what you 'll have the souchong's smack: The caddy gives way to the dram-bottle. Then, it 's so cruel easy! Oh, those tricks That can't be tricks, those feats by sleight of hand, Clearly no common conjurer's!—no, indeed! A conjurer? Choose me any craft i' the world A man puts hand to; and with six months' pains, I 'll play you twenty tricks miraculous To people untaught the trade: have you seen glass blown, Pipes pierced? Why, just this biscuit that I chip, Did you ever watch a baker toss one flat To the oven? Try and do it! Take my word, Practice but half as much, while limbs are lithe, To turn, shove, tilt a table, crack your joints, Manage your feet, dispose your hands aright, Work wires that twitch the curtains, play the glove At end o' your slipper,—then put out the lights And ... there, there, all you want you 'll get, I hope! I found it slip, easy as an old shoe. Now, lights on table again! I've done my part, You take my place while I give thanks and rest. "Well, Judge Humgruffin, what 's your verdict, sir? You, hardest head in the United States,— Did you detect a cheat here? Wait! Let 's see! Just an experiment first, for candor's sake! I 'll try and cheat you, Judge! the table tilts: Is it I that move it? Write! I 'll press your hand: Cry when I push, or guide your pencil, Judge!" Sludge still triumphant! "That a rap, indeed? That, the real writing? Very like a whale! Then, if, sir, you—a most distinguished man, And, were the Judge not here, I 'd say, ... no matter! Well, sir, if you fail, you can't take us in,— There 's little fear that Sludge will!" Won't he, ma'am? But what if our distinguished host, like Sludge, Bade God bear witness that he played no trick, While you believed that what produced the raps Was just a certain child who died, you know, And whose last breath you thought your lips had felt? Eh? That 's a capital point, ma'am: Sludge begins At your entreaty with your dearest dead, The little voice set lisping once again, The tiny hand made feel for yours once more, The poor lost image brought back, plain as dreams, Which image, if a word had chanced recall, The customary cloud would cross your eyes, Your heart return the old tick, pay its pang! A right mood for investigation, this! One 's at one's ease with Saul and Jonathan, Pompey and CÆsar: but one's own lost child ... I wonder, when you heard the first clod drop From the spadeful at the grave-side, felt you free To investigate who twitched your funeral scarf Or brushed your flounces? Then, it came of course, You should be stunned and stupid; then (how else?) Your breath stopped with your blood, your brain struck work. But now, such causes fail of such effects, All 's changed,—the little voice begins afresh, Yet you, calm, consequent, can test and try And touch the truth. "Tests? Did n't the creature tell Its nurse's name, and say it lived six years, And rode a rocking-horse? Enough of tests! Sludge never could learn that!" He could not, eh? You compliment him. "Could not?" Speak for yourself! I 'd like to know the man I ever saw Once,—never mind where, how, why, when,—once saw, Of whom I do not keep some matter in mind He 'd swear I "could not" know, sagacious soul! What? Do you live in this world's blow of blacks, Palaver, gossipry, a single hour Nor find one smut has settled on your nose, Of a smut's worth, no more, no less?—one fact Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn What some one was, somewhere, somewhen, somewhy? You don't tell folk—"See what has stuck to me! Judge Humgruffin, our most distinguished man, Your uncle was a tailor, and your wife Thought to have married Miggs, missed him, hit you!"— Do you, sir, though you see him twice a-week? "No," you reply, "what use retailing it? Why should I?" But, you see, one day you should, Because one day there 's much use,—when this fact Brings you the Judge upon both gouty knees Before the supernatural; proves that Sludge Knows, as you say, a thing he "could not" know: Will not Sludge thenceforth keep an outstretched face, The way the wind drives? "Could not!" Look you now, I 'll tell you a story! There 's a whiskered chap, A foreigner, that teaches music here And gets his bread,—knowing no better way: He says, the fellow who informed of him And made him fly his country and fall West, Was a hunchback cobbler, sat, stitched soles and sang, In some outlandish place, the city Rome, In a cellar by their Broadway, all day long; Never asked questions, stopped to listen or look, Nor lifted nose from lapstone; let the world Roll round his three-legged stool, and news run in The ears he hardly seemed to keep pricked up. Well, that man went on Sundays, touched his pay, And took his praise from government, you see; For something like two dollars every week, He 'd engage tell you some one little thing Of some one man, which led to many more, (Because one truth leads right to the world's end,) And make you that man's master—when he dined And on what dish, where walked to keep his health And to what street. His trade was, throwing thus His sense out, like a
too small To be worth thunder: "small," folk kept on, "small," With much complacency in those great days! A mote of sand, you know, a blade of grass— What was so despicable as mere grass, Except perhaps the life o' the worm or fly Which fed there? These were "small" and men were great. Well, sir, the old way 's altered somewhat since, And the world wears another aspect now: Somebody turns our spyglass round, or else Puts a new lens in it: grass, worm, fly grow, big: We find great things are made of little things, And little things go lessening till at last Comes God behind them. Talk of mountains now? We talk of mould that heaps the mountain, mites That throng the mould, and God that makes the mites. The Name comes close behind a stomach-cyst, The simplest of creations, just a sac That 's mouth, heart, legs and belly at once, yet lives And feels, and could do neither, we conclude, If simplified still further one degree: The small becomes the dreadful and immense! Lightning, forsooth? No word more upon that! A tin-foil bottle, a strip of greasy silk, With a bit of wire and knob of brass, and there 's Your dollar's-worth of lightning! But the cyst— The life of the least of the little things? No, no! Preachers and teachers try another tack, Come near the truth this time: they put aside Thunder and lightning. "That 's mistake," they cry; "Thunderbolts fall for neither fright nor sport, But do appreciable good, like tides, Changes o' the wind, and other natural facts— 'Good' meaning good to man, his body or soul. Mediate, immediate, all things minister To man,—that 's settled: be our future text 'We are His children!'" So, they now harangue About the intention, the contrivance, all That keeps up an incessant play of love,— See the Bridgewater book. Amen to it! Well, sir, I put this question: I 'm a child? I lose no time, but take you at your word: How shall I act a child's part properly? Your sainted mother, sir,—used you to live With such a thought as this a-worrying you? "She has it in her power to throttle me, Or stab or poison: she may turn me out, Or lock me in,—nor stop at this to-day, But cut me off to-morrow from the estate I look for"—(long may you enjoy; it, sir!) "In brief, she may unchild the child I am. You never had such crotchets? Nor have I! Who, frank confessing childship from the first, Cannot both fear and take my ease at once, So, don't fear,—know what might be, well enough, But know too, child-like, that it will not be, At least in my case, mine, the son and heir O' the kingdom, as yourself proclaim my style. But do you fancy I stop short at this? Wonder if suit and service, son and heir Needs must expect, I dare pretend to find? If, looking for signs proper to such an one, I straight perceive them irresistible? Concede that homage is a son's plain right, And, never mind the nods and raps and winks, 'T is the pure obvious supernatural Steps forward, does its duty: why, of course! I have presentiments; my dreams come true: I fancy a friend stands whistling all in white Blithe as a boblink, and he's dead I learn. I take dislike to a dog my favorite long, And sell him; he goes mad next week and snaps. I guess that stranger will turn up to-day I have not seen these three years; there 's his knock. I wager "sixty peaches on that tree!"— That I pick up a dollar in my walk, That your wife's brother's cousin's name was George— And win on all points. Oh, you wince at this? You 'd fain distinguish between gift and gift, Washington's oracle and Sludge's itch O' the elbow when at whist he ought to trump? With Sludge it's too absurd? Fine, draw the line Somewhere, but, sir, your somewhere is not mine! Bless us, I 'm turning poet! It 's time to end. How you have drawn me out, sir! All I ask Is—am I heir or not heir? If I 'm he, Then, sir, remember, that same personage (To judge by what we read i' the newspaper) Requires, beside one nobleman in gold To carry up and down his coronet, Another servant, probably a duke, To hold eggnog in readiness: why want Attendance, sir, when helps in his father's house Abound, I'd like to know? Enough of talk! My fault is that I tell too plain a truth. Why, which of those-who say they disbelieve, Your clever people, but has dreamed his dream, Caught his coincidence, stumbled on his fact He can't explain, (he'll tell you smilingly,) Which he 's too much of a philosopher To count as supernatural, indeed, So calls a puzzle and problem, proud of it: Bidding you still be on your guard, you know, Because one fact don't make a system stand, Nor prove this an occasional escape Of spirit beneath the matter: that's the way! Just so wild Indians picked up, piece by piece, The fact in California, the fine gold That underlay the gravel—hoarded these, But never made a system stand, nor dug! So wise men hold out in each hollowed palm A handful of experience, sparkling-fact They can't explain; and since their rest of life Is all explainable, what proof in this? Whereas I take the fact, the grain of gold, And fling away the dirty rest of life, And add this grain to the grain each fool has found O' the million other such philosophers,— Till I see gold, all gold and only gold, Truth questionless though unexplainable, And the miraculous proved the commonplace! The other fools believed in mud, no doubt— Failed to know gold they saw: was that so strange? Are all men born to play Bach's fiddle-fugues, "Time" with the foil in carte, jump their own height, |
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