Robert Browning

His genius was jocular, but, when disposed, he could be very serious.—Article "Shakespear," Jeremy Collier's Historical etc. Dictionary, 2d edition, 1701.

You, Sir, I entertain you for one of my Hundred; only, I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say they are Persian: but let them be changed.—King Lear, Act III. Sc. 6.

There is a loose connection between this group of poems and certain forms of Oriental literature, notably The Fables of Bidpai or Pilpay, Firdausi's ShÁh-NÁmeh, and the Book of Job; specific instances may easily be noted; but Browning himself said in a letter to a friend, written soon after the publication of Ferishtah's Fancies: "I hope and believe that one or two careful readings of the Poem will make its sense clear enough. Above all, pray allow for the Poet's inventiveness in any case, and do not suppose there is more than a thin disguise of a few Persian names and allusions. There was no such person as Ferishtah—the stories are all inventions.... The Hebrew quotations are put in for a purpose, as a direct acknowledgment that certain doctrines may be found in the Old Book, which the Concoctors of Novel Schemes of Morality put forth as discoveries of their own."

PROLOGUE

Pray, Reader, have you eaten ortolans

Ever in Italy?

Recall how cooks there cook them: for my plan 's

To—Lyre with Spit ally.

They pluck the birds,—some dozen luscious lumps,

Or more or fewer,—

Then roast them, heads by heads and rumps by rumps,

Stuck on a skewer.

But first,—and here 's the point I fain would press,—

Don't think I 'm tattling!—

They interpose, to curb its lusciousness,

—What, 'twixt each fatling?

First comes plain bread, crisp, brown, a toasted square:

Then, a strong sage-leaf:

(So we find books with flowers dried here and there

Lest leaf engage leaf.)

First, food—then, piquancy—and last of all

Follows the thirdling:

Through wholesome hard, sharp soft, your tooth must bite

Ere reach the birdling.

Now, were there only crust to crunch, you 'd wince:

Unpalatable!

Sage-leaf is bitter-pungent—so 's a quince:

Eat each who 's able!

But through all three bite boldly—lo, the gust!

Flavor—no fixture—

Flies permeating flesh and leaf and crust

In fine admixture.

So with your meal, my poem: masticate

Sense, sight, and song there!

Digest these, and I praise your peptics' state,

Nothing found wrong there.

Whence springs my illustration who can tell?

—The more surprising

That here eggs, milk, cheese, fruit suffice so well

For gormandizing.

A fancy-freak by contrast born of thee,

Delightful Gressoney!

Who laughest "Take what is, trust what may be!"

That 's Life's true lesson,—eh?

Maison Delapierre,

Gressoney St. Jean, Val d'Aosta,

September 12, '83.

I. THE EAGLE

This poem is drawn quite closely from The Fables of Bidpai.

Dervish—(though yet un-dervished, call him so

No less beforehand: while he drudged our way,

Other his worldly name was: when he wrote

Those versicles we Persians praise him for,

—True fairy-work—Ferishtah grew his style)—

Dervish Ferishtah walked the woods one eve,

And noted on a bough a raven's nest

Whereof each youngling gaped with callow beak

Widened by want; for why? beneath the tree

Dead lay the mother-bird. "A piteous chance!

How shall they 'scape destruction?" sighed the sage

—Or sage about to be, though simple still.

Responsive to which doubt, sudden there swooped

An eagle downward, and behold he bore

(Great-hearted) in his talons flesh wherewith

He stayed their craving, then resought the sky.

"Ah, foolish, faithless me!" the observer smiled,

"Who toil and moil to eke out life, when, lo,

Providence cares for every hungry mouth!"

To profit by which lesson, home went he,

And certain days sat musing,—neither meat

Nor drink would purchase by his handiwork.

Then—for his head swam and his limbs grew faint—

Sleep overtook the unwise one, whom in dream

God thus admonished: "Hast thou marked my deed?

Which part assigned by providence dost judge

Was meant for man's example? Should he play

The helpless weakling, or the helpful strength

That captures prey and saves the perishing?

Sluggard, arise: work, eat, then feed who lack!"

Waking, "I have arisen, work I will,

Eat, and so following. Which lacks food the more,

Body or soul in me? I starve in soul:

So may mankind: and since men congregate

In towns, not woods,—to Ispahan forthwith!"

---

Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees,

Underfoot the moss-tracks,—life and love with these!

I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers:

All the long lone summer-day, that greenwood life of ours!

Rich-pavilioned, rather,—still the world without,—

Inside—gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about!

Queen it thou on purple,—I, at watch, and ward

Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard!

So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me!

Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we!

Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face!

God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have place.

II. THE MELON-SELLER

Going his rounds one day in Ispahan,—

Halfway on Dervishhood, not wholly there,—

Ferishtah, as he crossed a certain bridge,

Came startled on a well-remembered face.

"Can it be? What, turned melon-seller—thou?

Clad in such sordid garb, thy seat yon step

Where dogs brush by thee and express contempt?

Methinks, thy head-gear is some scooped-out gourd!

Nay, sunk to slicing up, for readier sale,

One fruit whereof the whole scarce feeds a swine?

Wast thou the Shah's Prime Minister, men saw

Ride on his right-hand while a trumpet blew

And Persia hailed the Favorite? Yea, twelve years

Are past, I judge, since that transcendency,

And thou didst peculate and art abased;

No less, twelve years since, thou didst hold in hand

Persia, couldst halve and quarter, mince its pulp

As pleased thee, and distribute—melon-like—

Portions to whoso played the parasite,

Or suck—thyself—each juicy morsel. How

Enormous thy abjection,—hell from heaven,

Made tenfold hell by contrast! Whisper me!

Dost thou curse God for granting twelve years' bliss

Only to prove this day 's the direr lot?"

Whereon the beggar raised a brow, once more

Luminous and imperial, from the rags.

"Fool, does thy folly think my foolishness

Dwells rather on the fact that God appoints

A day of woe to the unworthy one,

Than that the unworthy one, by God's award,

Tasted joy twelve years long? Or buy a slice,

Or go to school!"

To school Ferishtah went;

And, schooling ended, passed from Ispahan

To Nishapur, that Elburz looks above

—Where they dig turquoise: there kept school himself,

The melon-seller's speech, his stock in trade.

Some say a certain Jew adduced the word

Out of their book, it sounds so much the same.

??????? ???? ??? ??????

??????? ?? ???? ? In Persian phrase,

"Shall we receive good at the hand of God

And evil not receive?" But great wits jump.

---

Wish no word unspoken, want no look away!

What if words were but mistake, and looks—too sudden, say!

Be unjust for once, Love! Bear it—well I may!

Do me justice always? Bid my heart—their shrine—

Render back its store of gifts, old looks and words of thine

—Oh, so all unjust—the less deserved, the more divine?

III. SHAH ABBAS

Anyhow, once full Dervish, youngsters came

To gather up his own-words, 'neath a rock

Or else a palm, by pleasant Nishapur.

Said some one, as Ferishtah paused abrupt,

Reading a certain passage from the roll

Wherein is treated of Lord Ali's life:

"Master, explain this incongruity!

When I dared question 'It is beautiful,

But is it true?'—thy answer was 'In truth

Lives beauty.' I persisting—'Beauty—yes,

In thy mind and in my mind, every mind

That apprehends: but outside—so to speak—

Did beauty live in deed as well as word,

Was this life lived, was this death died—not dreamed?'

'Many attested it for fact,' saidst thou.

'Many!' but mark, Sir! Half as long ago

As such things were,—supposing that they were,—

Reigned great Shah Abbas: he too lived and died

—How say they? Why, so strong of arm, of foot

So swift, he stayed a lion in his leap

On a stag's haunch,—with one hand grasped the stag,

With one struck down the lion: yet, no less,

Himself, that same day, feasting after sport.

Perceived a spider drop into his wine,

Let fall the flagon, died of simple fear.

So all say,—so dost thou say?"

"Wherefore not?"

Ferishtah smiled: "though strange, the story stands

Clear-chronicled: none tells it otherwise:

The fact's eye-witness bore the cup, beside."

"And dost thou credit one cup-bearer's tale,

False, very like, and futile certainly,

Yet hesitate to trust what many tongues

Combine to testify was beautiful

In deed as well as word? No fool's report,

Of lion, stag and spider, but immense

With meaning for mankind, thy race, thyself?"

Whereto the Dervish: "First amend, my son,

Thy faulty nomenclature, call belief

Belief indeed, nor grace with such a name

The easy acquiescence of mankind

In matters nowise worth dispute, since life

Lasts merely the allotted moment. Lo—

That lion-stag-and-spider tale leaves fixed

The fact for us that somewhen Abbas reigned,

Died, somehow slain,—a useful registry,—

Which therefore we—'believe'? Stand forward, thou,

My Yakub, son of Yusuf, son of Zal!

I advertise thee that our liege, the Shah

Happily regnant, hath become assured,

By opportune discovery, that thy sires,

Son by the father upwards, track their line

To—whom but that same bearer of the cup

Whose inadvertency was chargeable

With what therefrom ensued, disgust and death

To Abbas Shah, the over-nice of soul?

Whence he appoints thee,—such his clemency,—

Not death, thy due, but just a double tax

To pay, on thy particular bed of reeds

Which flower into the brush that makes a broom

Fit to sweep ceilings clear of vermin. Sure,

Thou dost believe the story nor dispute

That punishment should signalize its truth?

Down therefore with some twelve dinars! Why start,

—The stag's way with the lion hard on haunch?

'Believe the story?'—how thy words throng fast!—

'Who saw this, heard this, said this, wrote down this,

That and the other circumstance to prove

So great a prodigy surprised the world?

Needs must thou prove me fable can be fact

Or ere thou coax one piece from out my pouch!'"

"There we agree, Sir: neither of us knows,

Neither accepts that tale on evidence

Worthy to warrant the large word—belief.

Now I get near thee! Why didst pause abrupt,

Disabled by emotion at a tale

Might match—be frank!—for credibility

The figment of the spider and the cup?

—To wit, thy roll 's concerning Ali's life,

Unevidenced—thine own word! Little boots

Our sympathy with fiction! When I read

The annals and consider of Tahmasp

And that sweet sun-surpassing star his love,

I weep like a cut vine-twig, though aware

Zurah's sad fate is fiction, since the snake

He saw devour her,—how could such exist,

Having nine heads? No snake boasts more than three!

I weep, then laugh—both actions right alike.

But thou, Ferishtah, sapiency confessed,

When at the Day of Judgment God shall ask

'Didst thou believe?'—what wilt thou plead? Thy tears?

(Nay, they fell fast and stain the parchment still.)

What if thy tears meant love? Love lacking ground

—Belief,—avails thee as it would avail

My own pretence to favor since, forsooth,

I loved the lady—I who needs must laugh

To hear a snake boasts nine heads: they have three!"

"Thanks for the well-timed help that 's born, behold,

Out of thy words, my son,—belief and love!

Hast heard of Ishak son of Absal? Ay,

The very same we heard of, ten years since,

Slain in the wars: he comes back safe and sound,—

Though twenty soldiers saw him die at Yezdt,—

Just as a single mule-and-baggage boy

Declared 't was like he some day would,—for why?

The twenty soldiers lied, he saw him stout,

Cured of all wounds at once by smear of salve,

A Mubid's manufacture: such the tale.

Now, when his pair of sons were thus apprised

Effect was twofold on them. 'Hail!' crowed This:

'Dearer the news than dayspring after night!

The cure-reporting youngster warrants me

Our father shall make glad our eyes once more,

For whom, had outpoured life of mine sufficed

To bring him back, free broached were every vein!'

'Avaunt, delusive tale-concocter, news

Cruel as meteor simulating dawn!'

Whimpered the other: 'Who believes this boy,

Must disbelieve his twenty seniors: no,

Return our father shall not! Might my death

Purchase his life, how promptly would the dole

Be paid as due!' Well, ten years pass,—aha,

Ishak is marching homeward,—doubts, not he,

Are dead and done with! So, our townsfolk straight

Must take on them to counsel. 'Go thou gay,

Welcome thy father, thou of ready faith!

Hide thee, contrariwise, thou faithless one,

Expect paternal frowning, blame and blows!'

So do our townsfolk counsel: dost demur?"

"Ferishtah like those simpletons—at loss

In what is plain as pikestaff? Pish! Suppose

The trustful son had sighed 'So much the worse!

Returning means—retaking heritage

Enjoyed these ten years, who should say me nay?'

How would such trust reward him? Trustlessness

—O' the other hand—were what procured most praise

To him who judged return impossible,

Yet hated heritage procured thereby.

A fool were Ishak if he failed to prize

Mere head's work less than heart's work: no fool he!"

"Is God less wise? Resume the roll!" They did.

---

You groped your way across my room i' the drear dark dead of night;

At each fresh step a stumble was: but, once your lamp alight,

Easy and plain you walked again: so soon all wrong grew right!

What lay on floor to trip your foot? Each object, late awry,

Looked fitly placed, nor proved offence to footing free—for why?

The lamp showed all, discordant late, grown simple symmetry.

Be love your light and trust your guide, with these explore my heart!

No obstacle to trip you then, strike hands and souls apart!

Since rooms and hearts are furnished so,—light shows you,—needs love start?

IV. THE FAMILY

A certain neighbor lying sick to death,

Ferishtah grieved beneath a palm-tree, whence

He rose at peace: whereat objected one

"Gudarz our friend gasps in extremity.

Sure, thou art ignorant how close at hand

Death presses, or the cloud, which fouled so late

Thy face, had deepened down not lightened off."

"I judge there will be respite, for I prayed."

"Sir, let me understand, of charity!

Yestereve, what was thine admonishment?

'All-wise, all-good, all-mighty—God is such!'

How then should man, the all-unworthy, dare

Propose to set aside a thing ordained?

To pray means—substitute man's will for God's:

Two best wills cannot be: by consequence,

What is man bound to but—assent, say I?

Rather to rapture of thanksgiving; since

That which seems worst to man to God is best,

So, because God ordains it, best to man.

Yet man—the foolish, weak, and wicked—prays!

Urges 'My best were better, didst Thou know'!"

"List to a tale, A worthy householder

Of Shiraz had three sons, beside a spouse

Whom, cutting gourds, a serpent bit, whereon

The offended limb swelled black from foot to fork.

The husband called in aid a leech renowned

World-wide, confessed the lord of surgery,

And bade him dictate—who forthwith declared

'Sole remedy is amputation.' Straight

The husband sighed 'Thou knowest: be it so!'

His three sons heard their mother sentenced: 'Pause!'

Outbroke the elder: 'Be precipitate

Nowise, I pray thee! Take some gentler way,

Thou sage of much resource! I will not doubt

But science still may save foot, leg, and thigh!'

The next in age snapped petulant: 'Too rash!

No reason for this maiming! What, Sir Leech,

Our parent limps henceforward while we leap?

Shame on thee! Save the limb thou must and shalt!'

'Shame on yourselves, ye bold ones!' followed up

The brisk third brother, youngest, pertest too:

'The leech knows all things, we are ignorant;

What he proposes, gratefully accept!

For me, had I some unguent bound to heal

Hurts in a twinkling, hardly would I dare

Essay its virtue and so cross the sage

By cure his skill pronounces folly. Quick!

No waiting longer! There the patient lies:

Out then with implements and operate!'"

"Ah, the young devil!"

"Why, his reason chimed

Right with the Hakim's."

"Hakim's, ay—but chit's?

How? what the skilled eye saw and judged of weight

To overbear a heavy consequence,

That—shall a sciolist affect to see?

All he saw—that is, all such oaf should see,

Was just the mother's suffering."

"In my tale,

Be God the Hakim: in the husband's case,

Call ready acquiescence—aptitude

Angelic, understanding swift and sure:

Call the first son—a wise humanity,

Slow to conceive but duteous to adopt:

See in the second son—humanity,

Wrong-headed yet right-hearted, rash but kind.

Last comes the cackler of the brood, our chit

Who, aping wisdom all beyond his years,

Thinks to discard humanity itself:

Fares like the beast which should affect to fly

Because a bird with wings may spurn the ground,

So, missing heaven and losing; earth—drops how

But hell-ward? No, be man and nothing more—

Man who, as man conceiving, hopes and fears,

And craves and deprecates, and loves, and loathes,

And bids God help him, till death touch his eyes

And show God granted most, denying all."

---

Man I am and man would be, Love—merest man and nothing more.

Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions—let them soar!

I may put forth angel's plumage, once unmanned, but not before.

Now on earth, to stand suffices,—nay, if kneeling serves, to kneel:

Here you front me, here I find the all of heaven that earth can feel:

Sense looks straight,—not over, under,—perfect sees beyond appeal.

Good you are and wise, full circle: what to me were more outside?

Wiser wisdom, better goodness? Ah, such want the angel's wide

Sense to take and hold and keep them! Mine at least has never tried.

V. THE SUN

"And what might that bold man's announcement be"—

Ferishtah questioned—"which so moved thine ire

That thou didst curse, nay, cuff and kick—in short,

Confute the announcer? Wipe those drops away

Which start afresh upon thy face at mere

Mention of such enormity: now, speak!"

"He scrupled not to say—(thou warrantest,

O patient Sir, that I unblamed repeat

Abominable words which blister tongue?)

God once assumed on earth a human shape:

(Lo, I have spitten!) Dared I ask the grace,

Fain would I hear, of thy subtility,

From out what hole in man's corrupted heart

Creeps such a maggot: fancies verminous

Breed in the clots there, but a monster born

Of pride and folly like this pest—thyself

Only canst trace to egg-shell it hath chipped."

The sun rode high. "During our ignorance"—

Began Ferishtah—"folk esteemed as God

Yon orb: for argument, suppose him so,—

Be it the symbol, not the symbolized,

I and thou safelier take upon our lips.

Accordingly, yon orb that we adore

—What is he? Author of all light and life:

Such one must needs be somewhere: this is he.

Like what? If I may trust my human eyes,

A ball composed of spirit-fire, whence springs

—What, from this ball, my arms could circle round?

All I enjoy on earth. By consequence,

Inspiring me with—what? Why, love and praise.

I eat a palatable fig—there's love

In little: who first planted what I pluck,

Obtains my little praise, too: more of both

Keeps due proportion with more cause for each:

So, more and ever more, till most of all

Completes experience, and the orb, descried

Ultimate giver of all good, perforce

Gathers unto himself all love, all praise,

Is worshipped—which means loved and praised at height.

Back to the first good: 'twas the gardener gave

Occasion to my palate's pleasure: grace,

Plain on his part, demanded thanks on mine.

Go up above this giver,—step by step,

Gain a conception of what—(how and why,

Matters not now)—occasioned him to give,

Appointed him the gardener of the ground,—

I mount by just progression slow and sure

To some prime giver—here assumed yon orb—

Who takes my worship. Whom have I in mind,

Thus worshipping, unless a man, my like

Howe'er above me? Man, I say—how else,

I being man who worship? Here's my hand

Lifts first a mustard-seed, then weight on weight

Greater and ever greater, till at last

It lifts a melon, I suppose, then stops—

Hand-strength expended wholly: so, my love

First lauds the gardener for the fig his gift,

Then, looking higher, loves and lauds still more,

Who hires the ground, who owns the ground, Sheikh, Shah,

On and away, away and ever on,

Till, at the last, it loves and lauds the orb

Ultimate cause of all to laud and love.

Where is the break, the change of quality

In hand's power, soul's impulsion? Gift was grace,

The greatest as the smallest. Had I stopped

Anywhere in the scale, stayed love and praise

As so far only fit to follow gift,

Saying, 'I thanked the gardener for his fig,

But now that, lo, the Shah has filled my purse

With tomans which avail to purchase me

A fig-tree forest, shall I pay the same

With love and praise, the gardener's proper fee?'

Justly would whoso bears a brain object,

'Giving is giving, gift claims gift's return,

Do thou thine own part, therefore: let the Shah

Ask more from one has more to pay.' Perchance

He gave me from his treasure less by much

Than the soil's servant: let that be! My part

Is plain—to meet and match the gift and gift

With love and love, with praise and praise, till both

Cry 'All of us is thine, we can no more!'

So shall I do man's utmost—man to man:

For as our liege the Shah's sublime estate

Merely enhaloes, leaves him man the same,

So must I count that orb I call a fire

(Keep to the language of our ignorance)

Something that 's fire and more beside: mere fire

—Is it a force which, giving, knows it gives,

And wherefore, so may look for love and praise

From me, fire's like so far, however less

In all beside? Prime cause this fire shall be,

Uncaused, all-causing: hence begin the gifts,

Thither must go my love and praise—to what?

Fire? Symbol fitly serves the symbolized

Herein,—that this same object of my thanks,

While to my mind nowise conceivable

Except as mind no less than fire, refutes

Next moment mind's conception: fire is fire—

While what I needs must thank, must needs include

Purpose with p ower,—humanity like mine,

Imagined, for the dear necessity,

One moment in an object which the next

Confesses unimaginable. Power!

—What need of will, then? Naught opposes power:

Why, purpose? any change must be for worse:

And what occasion for beneficence

When all that is, so is and so must be?

Best being best now, change were for the worse.

Accordingly discard these qualities

Proper to imperfection, take for type

Mere fire, eject the man, retain the orb,—

The perfect and, so, inconceivable,—

And what remains to love and praise? A stone

Fair-colored proves a solace to my eye,

Rolled by my tongue brings moisture curing drouth,

And struck by steel emits a useful spark:

Shall I return it thanks, the insentient thing?

No,—man once, man forever—man in soul

As man in body: just as this can use

Its proper senses only, see and hear,

Taste, like or loathe according to its law

And not another creature's,—even so

Man's soul is moved by what, if it in turn

Must move, is kindred soul: receiving good

—Man's way—must make man's due acknowledgment,

No other, even while he reasons out

Plainly enough that, were the man unmanned,

Made angel of, angelic every way,

The love and praise that rightly seek and find

Their man-like object now,—instructed more,

Would go forth idly, air to emptiness.

Our human flower, sun-ripened, proffers scent

Though reason prove the sun lacks nose to feed

On what himself made grateful: flower and man,

Let each assume that scent and love alike

Being once born, must needs have use! Man's part

Is plain—to send love forth,—astray, perhaps:

No matter, he has done his part."

"Wherefrom

What is to follow—if I take thy sense—

But that the sun—the inconceivable

Confessed by man—comprises, all the same,

Man's every-day conception of himself—

No less remaining unconceived!"

"Agreed!"

"Yet thou, insisting on the right of man

To feel as man, not otherwise,—man, bound

By man's conditions neither less nor more,

Obliged to estimate as fair or foul,

Right, wrong, good, evil, what man's faculty

Adjudges such,—how canst thou,—plainly bound

To take man's truth for truth and only truth,—

Dare to accept, in just one case, as truth

Falsehood confessed? Flesh simulating fire—

Our fellow-man whom we his fellows know

For dust—instinct with fire unknowable!

Where 's thy man-needed truth—its proof, nay print

Of faintest passage on the tablets traced

By man, termed knowledge? 'T is conceded thee,

We lack such fancied union—fire with flesh:

But even so, to lack is not to gain

Our lack's suppliance: where 's the trace of such

Recorded?"

"What if such a tracing were?

If some strange story stood,—whate'er its worth,—

That the immensely yearned-for, once befell,

—The sun was flesh once?—(keep the figure!)"

"How?

An union inconceivable was fact?"

"Son, if the stranger have convinced himself

Fancy is fact—the sun, besides a fire,

Holds earthly substance somehow fire pervades

And yet consumes not,—earth, he understands,

With essence he remains a stranger to,—

Fitlier thou saidst 'I stand appalled before

Conception unattainable by me

Who need it most'—than this—'What? boast he holds

Conviction where I see conviction's need,

Alas,—and nothing else? then what remains

But that I straightway curse, cuff, kick the fool!'"

---

Fire is in the flint: true, once a spark escapes,

Fire forgets the kinship, soars till fancy shapes

Some befitting cradle where the babe had birth—

Wholly heaven 's the product, unallied to earth.

Splendors recognized as perfect in the star!—

In out flint their home was, housed as now they are.

VI. MIHRAB SHAH

nds

With just this precept, 'Never faith enough

In man as weakness, God as potency'?

When I would pay soul's tribute to that same,

Why not look up in wonder, bid the stars

Attest my praise of the All-mighty One?

What are man's puny members and as mean

Requirements weighed with Star-King Mushtari?

There is the marvel!"

"Not to man—that 's me.

List to what happened late, in fact or dream.

A certain stranger, bound from far away,

Still the Shah's subject, found himself before

Ispahan palace-gate. As duty bade,

He enters in the courts, will, if he may,

See so much glory as befits a slave

Who only comes, of mind to testify

How great and good is shown our lord the Shah.

In he walks, round he casts his eye about,

Looks up and down, admires to heart's content,

Ascends the gallery, tries door and door,

None says his reverence nay: peeps in at each,

Wonders at all the unimagined use,

Gold here and jewels there,—so vast, that hall—

So perfect yon pavilion!—lamps above

Bidding look up from luxuries below,—

Evermore wonder topping wonder,—last—

Sudden he comes upon a cosy nook,

A nest-like little chamber, with his name,

His own, yea, his and no mistake at all,

Plain o'er the entry,—what, and he descries

Just those arrangements inside,—oh, the care!—

Suited to soul and body both,—so snug

The cushion—nay, the pipe-stand furnished so!

Whereat he cries aloud,—what think'st thou, Friend?

'That these my slippers should be just my choice,

Even to the color that I most affect,

Is nothing: ah, that lamp, the central sun,

What must it light within its minaret

I scarce dare guess the good of! Who lives there?

That let me wonder at,—no slipper toys

Meant for the foot, forsooth, which kicks them—thus!'

"Never enough faith in omnipotence,—

Never too much, by parity, of faith

In impuissance, man's—which turns to strength

When once acknowledged weakness every way.

How? Hear the teaching of another tale.

"Two men once owed the Shah a mighty sum,

Beggars they both were: this one crossed his arms

And bowed his head,—'whereof,' sighed he, 'each hair

Proved it a jewel, how the host's amount

Were idly strewn for payment at thy feet!'

'Lord, here they lie, my havings poor and scant!

All of the berries on my currant-bush,

What roots of garlic have escaped the mice,

And some five pippins from the seedling tree,—

Would they were half-a-dozen! Anyhow,

Accept my all, poor beggar that I am!'

'Received in full of all demands!' smiled back

The apportioner of every lot of ground

From inch to acre. Littleness of love

Befits the littleness of loving thing.

What if he boasted 'Seeing I am great,

Great must my corresponding tribute be'?

Mushtari,—well, suppose him seven times seven

The sun's superior, proved so by some sage:

Am I that sage? To me his twinkle blue

Is all I know of him and thank him for,

And therefore I have put the same in verse—

'Like yon blue twinkle, twinks thine eye, my Love!'

Neither shalt thou be troubled overmuch

Because thy offering—littleness itself—

Is lessened by admixture sad and strange

Of mere man's motives,—praise with fear, and love

With looking after that same love's reward.

Alas, Friend, what was free from this alloy,—

Some smatch thereof,—in best and purest love

Proffered thy earthly father? Dust thou art,

Dust shalt be to the end. Thy father took

The dust, and kindly called the handful—gold,

Nor cared to count what sparkled here and there

Sagely unanalytic. Thank, praise, love

(Sum up thus) for the lowest favors first,

The commonest of comforts! aught beside

Very omnipotence had overlooked

Such needs, arranging for thy little life.

Nor waste thy power of love in wonderment

At what thou wiselier lettest shine unsoiled

By breath of word. That this last cherry soothes

A roughness of my palate, that I know:

His Maker knows why Mushtari was made."

---

Verse-making was least of my virtues: I viewed with despair

Wealth that never yet was but might be—all that verse-making were

If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare.

So I said "To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse"—

And made verse.

Love-making,—how simple a matter! No depths to explore,

No heights in a life to ascend! No disheartening Before,

No affrighting Hereafter,—love now will be love evermore.

So I felt "To keep silence were folly:"—all language above,

I made love.

X. PLOT-CULTURE

EPILOGUE

RAWDON BROWN

"Tutti ga i so gusti, e mi go i mii."
(Venetian saying.)

Mr. Rawdon Brown was an Englishman who went to Venice on some temporary errand, and lived there for forty years, dying in that city in the summer of 1883. He had an enthusiastic love for Venice, and is mentioned in books of travel as one who knew the city thoroughly. The Venetian saying means that "everybody follows his taste as I follow mine." Toni was the gondolier and attendant of Brown. The inscription on Brown's tomb is given in the third and fourth lines. G. W. Cooke.

THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST

Inscribed in an Album presented to Mr. Arthur Chappell, of the Saint James Hall Saturday and Monday popular concerts.

THE NAMES

At Dr. F. J. Furnivall's suggestion, Browning was asked to contribute a sonnet to the Shakesperean Show-Book of the "Shakesperean Show" held in Albert Hall, London, on May 29–31, 1884, to pay off the debt on the Hospital for Women, in Fulham Road. The poet sent to the committee a sonnet on the names of Jehovah and Shakespeare.

EPITAPH

ON LEVI LINCOLN THAXTER

Born in Watertown, Massachusetts, February 1, 1824.
Died May 31, 1884.

Mr. Thaxter was early a student of Browning's genius and in his later years gave readings from his poems, which were singularly interpretative. The boulder over his grave bears these lines.

WHY I AM A LIBERAL

Contributed to a volume edited by Andrew Reid, in which a number of leaders of English thought answered the question, "Why I am a Liberal?"