The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning / Cambridge Edition

JOCOSERIA

This collection of poems was published in 1883. The title of the volume is mentioned in a foot-note to the Note at the end of Paracelsus, where the poet speaks of "such rubbish as Melander's Jocoseria." In a letter, accompanying a copy of the volume, sent to a friend, Browning wrote: "The title is taken from the work of Melander (Schwartzmann), reviewed, by a curious coincidence, in the Blackwood of this month [February, 1883]. I referred to it in a note to Paracelsus. The two Hebrew quotations [in the note to Jochanan Hakkadosh] (put in to give a grave look to what is mere fun and invention) being translated amount to (1) 'A Collection of Lies'; and (2), an old saying, 'From Moses to Moses arose none like Moses.'"

WANTING IS—WHAT?

This is in the nature of a prelude to the entire group of poems.

Wanting is—what?

Summer redundant,

Blueness abundant,

—Where is the blot?

Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same,

—Framework which waits for a picture to frame:

What of the leafage, what of the flower?

Roses embowering with naught they embower!

Come then, complete incompletion, O comer,

Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer!

Breathe but one breath

Rose-beauty above,

And all that was death

Grows life, grows love,

Grows love!

DONALD

This story which Browning had from the lips of the hero has also been told in prose by Sir Walter Scott.

"Will you hear my story also,

—Huge Sport, brave adventure in plenty?"

The boys were a band from Oxford,

The oldest of whom was twenty.

The bothy we held carouse in

Was bright with fire and candle;

Tale followed tale like a merry-go-round

Whereof Sport turned the handle.

In our eyes and noses—turf-smoke:

In our ears a tune from the trivet,

Whence "Boiling, boiling," the kettle sang,

"And ready for fresh Glenlivet."

So, feat capped feat, with a vengeance:

Truths, though,—the lads were loyal:

Grouse, five-score brace to the bag!

Deer, ten hours' stalk of the Royal!"

Of boasting, not one bit, boys!

Only there seemed to settle

Somehow above your curly heads,

—Plain through the singing kettle,

Palpable through the cloud,

As each new-puffed Havana

Rewarded the teller's well-told tale,—

This vaunt "To Sport—Hosanna!

"Hunt, fish, shoot,

Would a man fulfil life's duty!

Not to the bodily frame alone

Does Sport give strength and beauty,

"But character gains in—courage?

Ay, Sir, and much beside it!

You don't sport, more 's the pity;

You soon would find, if you tried it,

"Good sportsman means good fellow,

Sound-hearted he, to the centre;

Your mealy-mouthed mild milksops

—There 's where the rot can enter!

"There 's where the dirt will breed,

The shabbiness Sport would banish!

Oh no, Sir, no! In your honored case

All such objections vanish.

"'T is known how hard you studied:

A Double-First—what, the jigger!

Give me but half your Latin and Greek,

I 'll never again touch trigger!

"Still, tastes are tastes, allow me!

Allow, too, where there 's keenness

For Sport, there 's little likelihood

Of a man's displaying meanness!"

So, put on my mettle, I interposed.

"Will you hear my story?" quoth I.

Never mind how long since it happed,

I sat, as we sit, in a bothy;

"With as merry a band of mates, too,

Undergrads all on a level:

(One 's a Bishop, one 's gone to the Bench,

And one's gone—well, to the Devil.)

"When, lo, a scratching and tapping!

In hobbled a ghastly visitor.

Listen to just what he told us himself

—No need of our playing inquisitor!"

Do you happen to know in Ross-shire

Mount Ben ... but the name scarce matters:

Of the naked fact I am sure enough,

Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.

You may recognize Ben by description;

Behind him—a moor's immenseness:

Up goes the middle mount of a range,

Fringed with its firs in denseness.

Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind!

For an edge there is, though narrow;

From end to end of the range, a strip

Of path runs straight as an arrow.

And the mountaineer who takes that path

Saves himself miles of journey

He has to plod if he crosses the moor

Through heather, peat, and burnie.

But a mountaineer he needs must be,

For, look you, right in the middle

Projects bluff Ben—with an end in ich—

Why planted there, is a riddle:

Since all Ben's brothers little and big

Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder,

And only this burliest out must bulge

Till it seems—to the beholder

From down in the gully,—as if Ben's breast,

To a sudden spike diminished,

Would signify to the boldest foot

"All further passage finished!"

Yet the mountaineer who sidles on

And on to the very bending,

Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,

No necessary ending.

Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt

Having trod, he, there arriving,

Finds—what he took for a point was breadth,

A mercy of Nature's contriving.

So, he rounds what, when 't is reached, proves straight,

From one side gains the other:

The wee path widens—resume the march,

And he foils you, Ben my brother!

But Donald—(that name, I hope, will do)—

I wrong him if I call "foiling"

The tramp of the callant, whistling the while

As blithe as our kettle's boiling.

He had dared the danger from boyhood up,

And now,—when perchance was waiting

A lass at the brig below,—'twixt mount

And moor would he stand debating?

Moreover this Donald was twenty-five,

A glory of bone and muscle:

Did a fiend dispute the right of way,

Donald would try a tussle.

Lightsomely marched he out of the broad

On to the narrow and narrow;

A step more, rounding the angular rock,

Reached the front straight as an arrow.

He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,

When—whom found he full-facing?

What fellow in courage and wariness too,

Had scouted ignoble pacing,

And left low safety to timid mates,

And made for the dread dear danger,

And gained the height where—who could guess

He would meet with a rival ranger?

'T was a gold-red stag that stood and stared,

Gigantic and magnific,

By the wonder—ay, and the peril—struck

Intelligent and pacific:

For a red deer is no fallow deer

Grown cowardly through park-feeding;

He batters you like a thunderbolt

If you brave his haunts unheeding.

I doubt he could hardly perform volte-face

Had valor advised discretion:

You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a rope

No Blondin makes profession.

Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit,

Though pride ill brooks retiring:

Each eyed each—mute man, motionless beast—

Less fearing than admiring.

These are the moments when quite new sense,

To meet some need as novel,

Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource:

—"Nor advance nor retreat but—grovel!"

And slowly, surely, never a whit

Relaxing the steady tension

Of eye-stare which binds man to beast,—

By an inch and inch declension,

Sank Donald sidewise down and down:

Till flat, breast upwards, lying

At his six-foot length, no corpse more still,

—"If he cross me! The trick 's worth trying."

Minutes were an eternity;

But a new sense was created

In the stag's brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure,

With eye-stare unabated,

Feelingly he extends a foot

Which tastes the way ere it touches

Earth's solid and just escapes man's soft,

Nor hold of the same unclutches

Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk,

Lands itself no less finely:

So a mother removes a fly from the face

Of her babe asleep supinely.

And now 't is the haunch and hind-foot's turn

—That 's hard: can the beast quite raise it?

Yes, traversing half the prostrate length,

His hoof-tip does not graze it.

Just one more lift! But Donald, you see,

Was sportsman first, man after:

A fancy lightened his caution through,

—He wellnigh broke into laughter:

"It were nothing short of a miracle!

Unrivalled, unexampled—

All sporting feats with this feat matched

Were down and dead and trampled!"

The last of the legs as tenderly

Follows the rest: or never

Or now is the time! His knife in reach,

And his right-hand loose—how clever!

For this can stab up the stomach's soft,

While the left-hand grasps the pastern.

A rise on the elbow, and—now 's the time

Or never: this turn 's the last turn!

I shall dare to place myself by God

Who scanned—for he does—each feature

Of the face thrown up in appeal to him

By the agonizing creature.

Nay, I hear plain words: "Thy gift brings this!"

Up he sprang, back he staggered,

Over he fell, and with him our friend

—At following game no laggard.

Yet he was not dead when they picked next day

From the gully's depth the wreck of him;

His fall had been stayed by the stag beneath

Who cushioned and saved the neck of him.

But the rest of his body—why, doctors said,

Whatever could break was broken;

Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toast

In a tumbler of port-wine soaken.

"That your life is left you, thank the stag!"

Said they when—the slow cure ended—

They opened the hospital-door, and thence

—Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended,

And minor damage left wisely alone,—

Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled,

Out—what went in a Goliath wellnigh,—

Some half of a David hobbled.

"You must ask an alms from house to house:

Sell the stag's head for a bracket,

With its grand twelve tines—I 'd buy it myself—

And use the skin for a jacket!"

He was wiser, made both head and hide

His win-penny: hands and knees on,

Would manage to crawl—poor crab—by the roads

In the misty stalking-season.

And if he discovered a bothy like this,

Why, harvest was sure: folk listened.

He told his tale to the lovers of Sport:

Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened.

And when he had come to the close, and spread

His spoils for the gazers' wonder,

With "Gentlemen, here 's the skull of the stag

I was over, thank God, not under!"—

The company broke out in applause;

"By Jingo, a lucky cripple!

Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread,

And a tug, besides, at our tipple!"

And "There 's my pay for your pluck!" cried This,

"And mine for your jolly story!"

Cried That, while T' other—but he was drunk—

Hiccupped "A trump, a Tory!"

I hope I gave twice as much as the rest;

For, as Homer would say, "within grate

Though teeth kept tongue," my whole soul growled,

"Rightly rewarded,—Ingrate!"

SOLOMON AND BALKIS

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELI

Oh, but is it not hard, Dear?

Mine are the nerves to quake at a mouse:

If a spider drops I shrink with fear:

I should die outright in a haunted house;

While for you—did the danger dared bring help—

From a lion's den I could steal his whelp,

With a serpent round me, stand stock-still,

Go sleep in a churchyard,—so would will

Give me the power to dare and do

Valiantly—just for you!

Much amiss in the head, Dear,

I toil at a language, tax my brain

Attempting to draw—the scratches here!

I play, play, practise, and all in vain:

But for you—if my triumph brought you pride,

I would grapple with Greek Plays till I died,

Paint a portrait of you—who can tell?

Work my fingers off for your "Pretty well:"

Language and painting and music too,

Easily done—for you!

Strong and fierce in the heart, Dear,

With—more than a will—what seems a power

To pounce on my prey, love outbroke here

In flame devouring and to devour.

Such love has labored its best and worst

To win me a lover; yet, last as first,

I have not quickened his pulse one beat,

Fixed a moment's fancy, bitter or sweet:

Yet the strong fierce heart's love's labor's due,

Utterly lost, was—you!

ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE

One day, it thundered and lightened.

Two women, fairly frightened,

Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed,

At the feet of the man who sat betwixt;

And "Mercy!" cried each—"if I tell the truth

Of a passage in my youth!"

Said This: "Do you mind the morning

I met your love with scorning?

As the worst of the venom left my lips,

I thought, 'If, despite this lie, he strips

The mask from my soul with a kiss—I crawl

His slave,—soul, body, and all!'"

Said That: "We stood to be married;

The priest, or some one, tarried;

'If Paradise-door prove locked?' smiled you.

I thought, as I nodded, smiling too,

'Did one, that 's away, arrive—nor late

Nor soon should unlock Hell's gate!'"

It ceased to lighten and thunder.

Up started both in wonder,

Looked round and saw that the sky was clear,

Then laughed "Confess you believed us, Dear!"

"I saw through the joke!" the man replied

They re-seated themselves beside.

IXION

High in the dome, suspended, of Hell, sad triumph, behold us!

Here the revenge of a God, there the amends of a Man.

Whirling forever in torment, flesh once mortal, immortal

Made—for a purpose of hate—able to die and revive,

Pays to the uttermost pang, then, newly for payment replenished,

Doles out—old yet young—agonies ever afresh;

Whence the result above me: torment is bridged by a rainbow,—

Tears, sweat, blood,—each spasm, ghastly once, glorified now.

Wrung, by the rush of the wheel ordained my place of reposing,

Off in a sparklike spray,—flesh become vapor through pain,—

Flies the bestowment of Zeus, soul's vaunted bodily vesture,

Made that his feats observed gain the approval of Man,—

Flesh that he fashioned with sense of the earth and the sky and the ocean,

Framed should pierce to the star, fitted to pore on the plant,—

All, for a purpose of hate, re-framed, re-fashioned, re-fitted,

Till, consummate at length,—lo, the employment of sense!

Pain's mere minister now to the soul, once pledged to her pleasure—

Soul, if untrammelled by flesh, unapprehensive of pain!

Body, professed soul's slave, which serving beguiled and betrayed her,

Made things false seem true, cheated through eye and through ear,

Lured thus heart and brain to believe in the lying reported,—

Spurn but the trait'rous slave, uttermost atom, away,

What should obstruct soul's rush on the real, the only apparent?

Say I have erred,—how else? Was I Ixion or Zeus?

Foiled by my senses I dreamed; I doubtless awaken in wonder:

This proves shine, that—shade? Good was the evil that seemed?

Shall I, with sight thus gained, by torture be taught I was blind once?

Sisuphos, teaches thy stone—Tantalos, teaches thy thirst

Aught which unaided sense, purged pure, less plainly demonstrates?

No, for the past was dream: now that the dreamers awake,

Sisuphos scouts low fraud, and to Tantalos treason is folly.

Ask of myself, whose form melts on the murderous wheel,

What is the sin which throe and throe prove sin to the sinner!

Say the false charge was true,—thus do I expiate, say,

Arrogant thought, word, deed,—mere man who conceited me godlike,

Sat beside Zeus, my friend—knelt before HerÉ, my love!

What were the need but of pitying power to touch and disperse it,

Film-work—eye's and ear's—all the distraction of sense?

How should the soul not see, not hear,—perceive and as plainly

Render, in thought, word, deed, back again truth—not a lie?

"Ay, but the pain is to punish thee!" Zeus, once more for a pastime,

Play the familiar, the frank! Speak and have speech in return!

I was of Thessaly king, there ruled and a people obeyed me:

Mine to establish the law, theirs to obey it or die:

Wherefore? Because of the good to the people, because of the honor

Thence accruing to me, king, the king's law was supreme.

What of the weakling, the ignorant criminal? Not who, excuseless,

Breaking my law braved death, knowing his deed and its due—

Nay, but the feeble and foolish, the poor transgressor, of purpose

No whit more than a tree, born to erectness of bole,

Palm or plane or pine, we laud if lofty, columnar—

Loathe if athwart, askew,—leave to the axe and the flame!

Where is the vision may penetrate earth and beholding acknowledge

Just one pebble at root ruined the straightness of stem?

Whose fine vigilance follows the sapling, accounts for the failure,

—Here blew wind, so it bent: there the snow lodged, so it broke?

Also the tooth of the beast, bird's bill, mere bite of the insect

Gnawed, gnarled, warped their worst: passive it lay to offence.

King—I was man, no more: what I recognized faulty I punished,

Laying it prone: be sure, more than a man had I proved,

Watch and ward o'er the sapling at birthtime had saved it, nor simply

Owned the distortion's excuse,—hindered it wholly: nay, more—

Even a man, as I sat in my place to do judgment, and pallid

Criminals passing to doom shuddered away at my foot,

Could I have probed through the face to the heart, read plain a repentance,

Crime confessed fools' play, virtue ascribed to the wise,

Had I not stayed the consignment to doom, not dealt the renewed ones

Life to retraverse the past, light to retrieve the misdeed?

Thus had I done, and thus to have done much more it behooves thee,

Zeus who madest man—flawless or faulty, thy work!

What if the charge were true, as thou mouthest,—Ixion the cherished

Minion of Zeus grew vain, vied with the godships and fell,

Forfeit through arrogance? Stranger! I clothed, with the grace of our human,

Inhumanity—gods, natures I likened to ours.

Man among men I had borne me till gods forsooth must regard me

—Nay, must approve, applaud, claim as a comrade at last.

Summoned to enter their circle, I sat—their equal, how other?

Love should be absolute love, faith is in fulness or naught.

"I am thy friend, be mine!" smiled Zeus: "If HerÉ attract thee,"

Blushed the imperial cheek, "then—as thy heart may suggest!"

Faith in me sprang to the faith, my love hailed love as its fellow,

"Zeus, we are friends—how fast! HerÉ, my heart for thy heart!"

Then broke smile into fury of frown, and the thunder of "Hence, fool!"

Then through the kiss laughed scorn "Limbs or a cloud was to clasp?"

Then from Olumpos to Erebos, then from the rapture to torment,

Then from the fellow of gods—misery's mate, to the man!

—Man henceforth and forever, who lent from the glow of his nature

Warmth to the cold, with light colored the black and the blank.

So did a man conceive of your passion, you passion-protesters!

So did he trust, so love—being the truth of your lie!

You to aspire to be Man! Man made you who vainly would ape him:

You are the hollowness, he—filling you, falsifies void.

Even as—witness the emblem, Hell's sad triumph suspended,

Born of my tears, sweat, blood—bursting to vapor above—

Arching my torment, an iris ghostlike startles the darkness,

Cold white—jewelry quenched—justifies, glorifies pain.

Strive, mankind, though strife endure through endless obstruction,

Stage after stage, each rise marred by as certain a fall!

Baffled forever—yet never so baffled but, e'en in the baffling,

When Man's strength proves weak, checked in the body or soul,

Whatsoever the medium, flesh or essence,—Ixion's

Made for a purpose of hate,—clothing the entity Thou,

—Medium whence that entity strives for the Not-Thou beyond it,

Fire elemental, free, frame unencumbered, the All,—

Never so baffled but—when, on the verge of an alien existence,

Heartened to press, by pangs burst to the infinite Pure,

Nothing is reached but the ancient weakness still that arrests strength,

Circumambient still, still the poor human array,

Pride and revenge and hate and cruelty—all it has burst through,

Thought to escape,—fresh formed, found in the fashion it fled,

Never so baffled but—when Man pays the price of endeavor,

Thunderstruck, downthrust, Tartaros-doomed to the wheel,—

Then, ay, then, from the tears and sweat and blood of his torment,

E'en from the triumph of Hell, up let him look and rejoice!

What is the influence, high o'er Hell, that turns to a rapture

Pain—and despair's murk mist blends in a rainbow of hope?

What is beyond the obstruction, stage by stage though it baffle?

Back must I fall, confess "Ever the weakness I fled"?

No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-unobstructed!

Zeus was Zeus—not Man: wrecked by his weakness, I whirl.

Out of the wreck I rise—past Zeus to the Potency o'er him!

I—to have hailed him my friend! I—to have clasped her—my love!

Pallid birth of my pain,—where light, where light is, aspiring

Thither I rise, whilst thou—Zeus, keep the godship and sink!

JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH

"This now, this other story makes amends

And justifies our Mishna," quoth the Jew

Aforesaid. "Tell it, learnedest of friends!"

A certain morn broke beautiful and blue

O'er Schiphaz city, bringing joy and mirth,

—So had ye deemed; while the reverse was true,

Since one small house there gave a sorrow birth

In such black sort that, to each faithful eye,

Midnight, not morning settled on the earth.

How else, when it grew certain thou wouldst die,

Our much-enlightened master, Israel's prop,

Eximious Jochanan Ben Sabbathai?

Old, yea, but, undiminished of a drop,

The vital essence pulsed through heart and brain;

Time left unsickled yet the plenteous crop

On poll and chin and cheek, whereof a skein

Handmaids might weave—hairs silk-soft, silver-white,

Such as the wool-plant's; none the less in vain

Had Physic striven her best against the spite

Of fell disease: the Rabbi must succumb;

And, round the couch whereon in piteous plight

He lay a-dying, scholars,—awe-struck, dumb

Throughout the night-watch,—roused themselves and spoke

One to the other: "Ere death's touch benumb

"His active sense,—while yet 'neath Reason's yoke

Obedient toils his tongue,—befits we claim

The fruit of long experience, bid this oak

"Shed us an acorn which may, all the same,

Grow to a temple-pillar,—dear that day!—

When Israel's scattered seed finds place and name

"Among the envious nations. Lamp us, pray,

Thou the Enlightener! Partest hence in peace?

Hailest without regret—much less, dismay—

"The hour of thine approximate release

From fleshly bondage soul hath found obstruct?

Calmly envisagest the sure increase

"Of knowledge? Eden's tree must hold unplucked

Some apple, sure, has never tried thy tooth,

Juicy with sapience thou hast sought, not sucked?

"Say, does age acquiesce in vanished youth?

Still towers thy purity above—as erst—

Our pleasant follies? Be thy last word—truth!"

The Rabbi groaned; then, grimly, "Last as first

The truth speak I—in boyhood who began

Striving to live an angel, and, amerced

"For such presumption, die now hardly man.

What have I proved of life? To live, indeed,

That much I learned: but here lies Jochanan

"More luckless than stood David when, to speed

His fighting with the Philistine, they brought

Saul's harness forth: whereat, 'Alack, I need

"Armor to arm me, but have never fought

With sword and spear, nor tried to manage shield,

Proving arms' use, as well-trained warrior ought,

"'Only a sling and pebbles can I wield!'

So he: while I, contrariwise, 'No trick

Of weapon helpful on the battlefield

"'Comes unfamiliar to my theoric:

But, bid me put in practice what I know,

Give me a sword—it stings like Moses' stick,

"'A serpent I let drop apace.' E'en so,

I,—able to comport me at each stage

Of human life as never here below

"Man played his part,—since mine the heritage

Of wisdom carried to that perfect pitch,

Ye rightly praise,—I, therefore, who, thus sage,

"Could sure act man triumphantly, enrich

Life's annals, with example how I played

Lover, Bard, Soldier, Statist,—(all of which

"Parts in presentment failing, cries invade

The world's ear—'Ah, the Past, the pearl-gift thrown

To hogs, time's opportunity we made

"'So light of, only recognized when flown!

Had we been wise!')—-in fine, I—wise enough,—

What profit brings me wisdom never shown

"Just when its showing would from each rebuff

Shelter weak virtue, threaten back to bounds

Encroaching vice, tread smooth each track too rough

"For youth's unsteady footstep, climb the rounds

Of life's long ladder, one by slippery one,

Yet make no stumble? Me hard fate confounds

"With that same crowd of wailers I outrun

By promising to teach another cry

Of more hilarious mood than theirs, the sun

"I look my last at is insulted by.

What cry,—ye ask? Give ear on every side!

Witness yon Lover! 'How entrapped am I!

"'Methought, because a virgin's rose-lip vied

With ripe Khubbezleh's, needs must beauty mate

With meekness and discretion in a bride:

"'Bride she became to me who wail—too late—

Unwise I loved!' That 's one cry. 'Mind 's my gift:

I might have loaded me with lore, full weight

"'Pressed down and running over at each rift

O' the brain-bag where the famished clung and fed.

I filled it with what rubbish!—would not sift

"'The wheat from chaff, sound grain from musty—shed

Poison abroad as oft as nutriment—

And sighing say but as my fellows said,

"'Unwise I learned!' That 's two. 'In dwarfs-play spent

Was giant's prowess: warrior all unversed

In war's right waging, I struck brand, was lent

"'For steel's fit service, on mere stone—and cursed

Alike the shocked limb and the shivered steel,

Seeing too late the blade's true use which erst

"How was I blind to! My cry swells the peal—

Unwise I fought!' That 's three. But wherefore waste

Breath on the wailings longer? Why reveal

"A root of bitterness whereof the taste

Is noisome to Humanity at large?

First we get Power, but Power absurdly placed

"In Folly's keeping, who resigns her charge

To Wisdom when all Power grows nothing worth:

Bones marrowless are mocked with helm and targe

"When, like your Master's, soon below the earth

With worms shall warfare only be. Farewell,

Children! I die a failure since my birth!"

"Not so!" arose a protest, as, pell-mell,

They pattered from his chamber to the street,

Bent on a last resource. Our Targums tell

That such resource there is. Put case, there meet

The Nine Points of Perfection—rarest chance—

Within some saintly teacher whom the fleet

Years, in their blind implacable advance,

O'ertake before fit teaching born of these

Have magnified his scholars' countenance,—

If haply folk compassionating please

To render up—according to his store,

Each one—a portion of the life he sees

Hardly worth saving when 't is set before

Earth's benefit should the Saint, Hakkadosh,

Favored thereby, attain to full fourscore—

If such contribute (Scoffer, spare thy "Bosh!")

A year, a month, a day, an hour—to eke

Life out,—in him away the gift shall wash

That much of ill-spent time recorded, streak

The twilight of the so-assisted sage

With a new sunrise: truth, though strange to speak!

Quick to the doorway, then, where youth and age,

All Israel, thronging, waited for the last

News of the loved one. "'T is the final stage:

"Art's utmost done, the Rabbi's feet tread fast

The way of all flesh!" So announced that apt

Olive-branch Tsaddik: "Yet, O Brethren, east

"No eye to earthward! Look where heaven has clapped

Morning's extinguisher—yon ray-shot robe

Of sun-threads—on the constellation mapped

"And mentioned by our Elders,—yea, from Job

Down to Satam,—as figuring forth—what?

Perpend a mystery! Ye call it Dob,

"'The Bear': I trow, a wiser name than that

Were Aish—'The Bier': a corpse those four stars hold,

Which—are not those Three Daughters weeping at

"Banoth? I judge so: list while I unfold

The reason. As in twice twelve hours this Bier

Goes and returns, about the east-cone rolled,

"So may a setting luminary here

Be rescued from extinction, rolled anew

Upon its track of labor, strong and clear,

"About the Pole—that Salem, every Jew

Helps to build up when thus he saves some Saint

Ordained its architect. Ye grasp the clue

"To all ye seek? The Rabbi's lamp-flame faint

Sinks: would ye raise it? Lend then life from yours,

Spare each his oil-drop! Do I need acquaint

"The Chosen how self-sacrifice ensures

Tenfold requital?—urge ye emulate

The fame of those Old Just Ones death procures

"Such praise for, that 't is now men's sole debate

Which of the Ten, who volunteered at Rome

To die for glory to our Race, was great

"Beyond his fellows? Was it thou—the comb

Of iron carded, flesh from bone, away,

While thy lips sputtered through their bloody foam

"Without a stoppage (O brave Akiba!)

'Hear, Israel, our Lord God is One'? Or thou,

Jischab?—who smiledst, burning, since there lay,

"Burning along with thee, our Law! I trow,

Such martyrdom might tax flesh to afford:

While that for which I make petition now,

"To what amounts it? Youngster, wilt thou hoard

Each minute of long years thou look'st to spend

In dalliance with thy spouse? Hast thou so soared,

"Singer of songs, all out of sight of friend

And teacher, warbling like a woodland bird,

There 's left no Selah, 'twixt two psalms, to lend

"Our late-so-tuneful quirist? Thou, averred

The fighter born to plant our lion-flag

Once more on Zion's mount,—doth all-unheard,

"My pleading fail to move thee? Toss some rag

Shall stanch our wound, some minute never missed

From swordsman's lustihood like thine! Wilt lag

"In liberal bestowment, show close fist

When open palm we look for,—thou, wide-known

For statecraft? whom, 't is said, and if thou list,

"The Shah himself would seat beside his throne,

So valued were advice from thee" ... But here

He stopped short: such a hubbub! Not alone

From those addressed, but far as well as near

The crowd brought into clamor: "Mine, mine, mine—

Lop from my life the excrescence, never fear!

"At me thou lookedst, markedst me! Assign

To me that privilege of granting life—

Mine, mine!" Then he: "Be patient! I combine

"The needful portions only, wage no strife

With Nature's law nor seek to lengthen out

The Rabbi's day unduly. 'T is the knife

"I sto p,—would eat its thread too short. About

As much as helps life last the proper term,

The appointed Fourscore,—that I crave, and scout

"A too-prolonged existence. Let the worm

Change at fit season to the butterfly!

And here a story strikes me, to confirm

"This judgment. Of our worthies, none ranks high

As Perida who kept the famous school:

None rivalled him in patience: none! For why?

"In lecturing it was his constant rule,

Whatever he expounded, to repeat

—Ay, and keep on repeating, lest some fool

"Should fail to understand him fully—(feat

Unparalleled, Uzzean!)—do ye mark?—

Five hundred times! So might he entrance beat

"For knowledge into howsoever dark

And dense the brain-pan. Yet it happed, at close

Of one especial lecture, not one spark

"Of light was found to have illumed the rows

Of pupils round their pedagogue. 'What, still

Impenetrable to me? Then—here goes!'

"And for a second time he sets the rill

Of knowledge running, and five hundred times

More re-repeats the matter—and gains nil.

"Out broke a voice from heaven: 'Thy patience climbs

Even thus high. Choose! Wilt thou, rather, quick

Ascend to bliss—or, since thy zeal sublimes

"'Such drudgery, will thy back still bear its crick,

Bent o'er thy class,—thy voice drone spite of drouth,—

Five hundred years more at thy desk wilt stick?'

"'To heaven with me!' was in the good man's mouth,

When all his scholars—cruel-kind were they!—

Stopped utterance, from East, West, North and South,

"Rending the welkin with their shout of 'Nay—

No heaven as yet for our instructor! Grant

Five hundred years on earth for Perida!'

"And so long did he keep instructing! Want

Our Master no such misery! I but take

Three months of life marital. Ministrant

"Be thou of so much, Poet! Bold I make,

Swordsman, with thy frank offer!—and conclude,

Statist, with thine! One year,—ye will not shake

"My purpose to accept no more. So rude?

The very boys and girls, forsooth, must press

And proffer their addition? Thanks! The mood

"Is laudable, but I reject, no less,

One month, week, day of life more. Leave my gown,

Ye overbold ones! Your life's gift, you guess,

"Were good as any? Rudesby, get thee down!

Set my feet free, or fear my staff! Farewell,

Seniors and saviors, sharers of renown

"With Jochanan henceforward!" Straightway fell

Sleep on the sufferer; who awoke in health,

Hale everyway, so potent was the spell.

O the rare Spring-time! Who is he by stealth

Approaches Jochanan?—embowered that sits

Under his vine and figtree 'mid the wealth

Of garden-sights and sounds, since intermits

Never the turtle's coo, nor stays nor stints

The rose her smell. In homage that befits

The musing Master, Tsaddik, see, imprints

A kiss on the extended foot, low bends

Forehead to earth, then, all-obsequious, hints

"What if it should be time? A period ends—

That of the Lover's gift—his quarter-year

Of lustihood: 't is just thou make amends,

"Return that loan with usury: so, here

Come I, of thy Disciples delegate,

Claiming our lesson from thee. Make appear

"Thy profit from experience! Plainly state

How men should Love!" Thus he: and to him thus

The Rabbi: "Love, ye call it?—rather, Hate!

"What wouldst thou? Is it needful I discuss

Wherefore new sweet wine, poured in bottlescaked

With old strong wine's deposit, offers us

"Spoilt liquor we recoil from, thirst-unslaked?

Like earth-smoke from a crevice, out there wound—

Languors and yearnings: not a sense but ached

"Weighed on by fancied form and feature, sound

Of silver word and sight of sunny smile:

No beckoning of a flower-branch, no profound

"Purple of noon-oppression, no light wile

O' the West wind, but transformed itself till—brief—

Before me stood the phantasy ye style

"Youth's love, the joy that shall not come to grief,

Born to endure, eternal, unimpaired

By custom the accloyer, time the thief.

"Had Age's hard cold knowledge only spared

That ignorance of Youth! But now the dream,

Fresh as from Paradise, alighting fared

"As fares the pigeon, finding what may seem

Her nest's safe hollow holds a snake inside

Coiled to enclasp her. See, Eve stands supreme

"In youth and beauty! Take her for thy bride!

What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew

Morn set a-sparkle, but which noon quick dried

"While Youth bent gazing at its red and blue

Supposed perennial,—never dreamed the sun

Which kindled the display would quench it too.

"Graces of shape and color—every one

With its appointed period of decay

When ripe to purpose! 'Still, these dead and done,

"'Survives the woman-nature—the soft sway

Of undefinable omnipotence

O'er our strong male-stuff, we of Adam's clay.'

"Ay, if my physics taught not why and whence

The attraction! Am I like the simple steer

Who, from his pasture lured inside the fence,

"Where yoke and goad await him, holds that mere

Kindliness prompts extension of the hand

Hollowed for barley, which drew near and near

Shut inside,—temporary ignorance

Got outside of, lo, light emerging clear

"Shows each astonished starer the expanse

Of heaven made bright with knowledge! That's the way,

The only way—I see it at a glance—

"To legislate for earth! As poet ... Stay!

What is ... I would that ... were it ... I had been ...

O sudden change, as if my arid clay

"Burst into bloom!" ... "A change indeed, I ween,

And change the last!" sighed Tsaddik as he kissed

The closing eyelids. "Just as those serene

"Princes of Night apprised me! Our acquist

Of life is spent, since corners only four

Hath Aisch, and each in turn was made desist

"In passage round the Pole (O Mishna's lore—

Little it profits here!) by strenuous tug

Of friends who eked out thus to full fourscore

"The Rabbi's years. I see each shoulder shrug!

What have we gained? Away the Bier may roll!

To-morrow, when the Master's grave is dug,

"In with his body I may pitch the scroll

I hoped to glorify with, text and gloss,

My Science of Man's Life: one blank's the whole!

"Love, war, song, statesmanship—no gain, all loss,

The stars' bestowment! We on our return

To-morrow merely find—not gold but dross,

"The body not the soul. Come, friends, we learn

At least thus much by our experiment—

That—that ... well, find what, whom it may concern!"

But next day through the city rumors went

Of a new persecution; so, they fled

All Israel, each man,—this time,—from his tent,

Tsaddik among the foremost. When, the dread

Subsiding, Israel ventured back again

Some three months after, to the cave they sped

Where lay the Sage,—a reverential train!

Tsaddik first enters. "What is this I view?

The Rabbi still alive? No stars remain

"Of Aisch to stop within their courses. True,

I mind me, certain gamesome boys must urge

Their offerings on me: can it be—one threw

"Life at him and it stuck? There needs the scourge

To teach that urchin manners! Prithee, grant

Forgiveness if we pretermit thy dirge

"Just to explain no friend was ministrant,

This time, of life to thee! Some jackanapes,

I gather, has presumed to foist his scant

"Scurvy unripe existence—wilding grapes

Grass-green and sorrel-sour—on that grand wine,

Mighty as mellow, which, so fancy shapes

"May fitly image forth this life of thine

Fed on the last low fattening lees—condensed

Elixir, no milk-mildness of the vine!

"Rightly with Tsaddik wert thou now incensed

Had he been witting of the mischief wrought

When, for elixir, verjuice he dispensed!"

And slowly woke,—like Shushan's flower besought

By over-curious handling to unloose

The curtained secrecy wherein she thought

Her captive bee, 'mid store of sweets to choose,

Would loll, in gold pavilioned lie unteased,

Sucking on, sated never,—whose, O whose

Might seem that countenance, uplift, all eased

Of old distraction and bewilderment,

Absurdly happy? "How ye have appeased

"The strife within me, bred this whole content,

This utter acquiescence in my past,

Present and future life,—by whom was lent

"The power to work this miracle at last,—

Exceeds my guess. Though—ignorance confirmed

By knowledge sounds like paradox, I cast

"Vainly about to tell you—fitlier termed—

Of calm struck by encountering opposites,

Each nullifying either! Henceforth wormed

"From out my heart is every snake that bites

The dove that else would brood there: doubt, which kills

With hiss of 'What if sorrows end delights?'

"Fear which stings ease with 'Work the Master wills!'

Experience which coils round and strangles quick

Each hope with 'Ask the Past if hoping skills

"'To work accomplishment, or proves a trick

Wiling thee to endeavor! Strive, fool, stop

Nowise, so live, so die—that's law! why kick

"'Against the pricks?' All out-wormed! Slumber, drop

Thy films once more and veil the bliss within!

Experience strangle hope? Hope waves a-top

"Her wings triumphant! Come what will, I win,

Whoever loses! Every dream's assured

Of soberest fulfilment. Where's a sin

"Except in doubting that the light, which lured

The unwary into darkness, meant no wrong

Had I but marched on bold, nor paused immured

"By mists I should have pressed through, passed along

My way henceforth rejoicing? Not the boy's

Passionate impulse he conceits so strong,

"Which, at first touch, truth, bubble-like, destroys,—

Not the man's slow conviction 'Vanity

Of vanities—alike my griefs and joys!'

"Ice!—thawed (look up) each bird, each insect by—

(Look round) by all the plants that break in bloom,

(Look down) by every dead friend's memory

"That smiles 'Am I the dust within my tomb?'

Not either, but both these—amalgam rare—

Mix in a product, not from Nature's womb,

"But stuff which He the Operant—who shall dare

Describe His operation?—strikes alive

And thaumaturgic. I nor know nor care

"How from this tohu-bohu—hopes which dive,

And fears which soar—faith, ruined through and through

By doubt, and doubt, faith treads to dust?—revive

"In some surprising sort,—as see, they do!—

Note.—This story can have no better authority than that of the treatise, existing dispersedly in fragments, of Rabbinical writing, ???? ?? ???? ????, from which I might have helped myself more liberally. Thus, instead of the simple reference to "Moses' stick,"—but what if I make amends by attempting three illustrations, when some thirty might be composed on the same subject, equally justifying that pithy proverb ???? ?? ??? ?? ?? ????.

Moses the Meek was thirty cubits high,

The staff he strode with—thirty cubits long;

And when he leapt, so muscular and strong

Was Moses that his leaping neared the sky

By thirty cubits more: we learn thereby

He reached full ninety cubits—am I wrong?—

When, in a fight slurred o'er by sacred song,

With staff outstretched he took a leap to try

The just dimensions of the giant Og.

And yet he barely touched—this marvel lacked

Posterity to crown earth's catalogue

Of marvels—barely touched—to be exact—

The giant's ankle-bone, remained a frog

That fain would match an ox in stature: fact!

And this same fact has met with unbelief!

How saith a certain traveller? "Young, I chanced

To come upon an object—if thou canst,

Guess me its name and nature! 'Twas, in brief,

White, hard, round, hollow, of such length, in chief,

—And this is what especially enhanced

My wonder—that it seemed, as I advanced,

Never to end. Bind up within thy sheaf

Of marvels, this—Posterity! I walked

From end to end,—four hours walked I, who go

A goodly pace,—and found—I have not balked

Thine expectation, Stranger? Ay or No?—

'T was but Og's thighbone, all the while, I stalked

Alongside of: respect to Moses, though!

III

Og's thighbone—if ye deem its measure strange,

Myself can witness to much length of shank

Even in birds. Upon a water's bank

Once halting, I was minded to exchange

Noon heat for cool. Quoth I, "On many a grange

I have seen storks perch—legs both long and lank:

Yon stork's must touch the bottom of this tank,

Since on its top doth wet no plume derange

Of the smooth breast. I'll bathe there!" "Do not so!"

Warned me a voice from heaven. "A man let drop

His axe into that shallow rivulet—

As thou accountest—seventy years ago:

It fell and fell and still without a stop

Keeps falling, nor has reached the bottom yet."

NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE

Never the time and the place

And the loved one all together!

This path—how soft to pace!

This May—what magic weather!

Where is the loved one's face?

In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,

But the house is narrow, the place is bleak

Where, outside, rain and wind combine

With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,

With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,

With a malice that marks each word, each sign!

O enemy sly and serpentine,

Uncoil thee from the waking man!

Do I hold the Past

Thus firm and fast

Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?

This path so soft to pace shall lead

Through the magic of May to herself indeed!

Or narrow if needs the house must be,

Outside are the storms and strangers: we—

Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,

—I and she!

PAMBO

Suppose that we part (work done, comes play)

With a grave tale told in crambo

—As our hearty sires were wont to say—

Whereof the hero is Pambo?

Do you happen to know who Pambo was?

Nor I—but this much have heard of him:

He entered one day a college-class,

And asked—was it so absurd of him?—

"May Pambo learn wisdom ere practise it?

In wisdom I fain would ground me:

Since wisdom is centred in Holy Writ,

Some psalm to the purpose expound me!"

"That psalm," the Professor smiled, "shall be

Untroubled by doubt which dirtieth

Pellucid streams when an ass like thee

Would drink there—the Nine-and-thirtieth.

"Verse First: I said I will look to my ways

That I with my tongue offend not.

How now? Why stare? Art struck in amaze?

Stop, stay! The smooth line hath an end knot!

"He's gone!—disgusted my text should prove

Too easy to need explaining?

Had he waited, the blockhead might find I move

To matter that pays remaining!"

Long years went by, when—"Ha, who's this?

Do I come on the restive scholar

I had driven to Wisdom's goal, I wis,

But that he slipped the collar?

"What? Arms crossed, brow bent, thought-immersed?

A student indeed! Why scruple

To own that the lesson proposed him first

Scarce suited so apt a pupil?

"Come back! From the beggarly elements

To a more recondite issue

We pass till we reach, at all events,

Some point that may puzzle.... Why 'pish' you?"

From the ground looked piteous up the head:

"Daily and nightly, Master,

Your pupil plods through that text you read,

Yet gets on never the faster.

"At the selfsame stand,—now old, then young!

I will look to my ways—were doing

As easy as saying!—that I with my tongue

Offend not—and 'scape pooh-poohing

"From sage and simple, doctor and dunce?

Ah, nowise! Still doubts so muddy

The stream I would drink at once,—but once!

That—thus I resume my study!"

Brother, brother, I share the blame,

Arcades sumus ambo!

Darkling, I keep my sunrise-aim,

Lack not the critic's flambeau,

And look to my ways, yet, much the same,

Offend with my tongue—like Pambo!

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