  SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY ?d?a? f??e?sa?, ????? t' ????? p???? d???f?? ????a? ... t? ???s???? d? t??d' ?t??? t??a? p????, ... d?a ??????sa? ?a????. I slew the Hydra, and from labor pass'd To labor—tribes of labors! Till, at last, Attempting one more labor, in a trice, Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice. This poem, written in Scotland in 1871, shortly after the downfall of Napoleon III., was published in December of the same year. The suggestion of the emperor is transparent, and Browning writing in January, 1872, to Miss Isa Blagden, says of it: "I am glad you have got my little book, and seen for yourself whether I make the best or the worst of the case. I think, in the main, he meant to do what I say, and, but for weakness—grown more apparent in his last years than formerly—would have done what I say he did not. I So long as that spurs good, which might be best, Into becoming better, anyhow: Good—pride of country, putting hearth and home I' the background, out of undue prominence: Good—yearning after change, strife, victory, And triumph. Each shall have its orbit marked, But no more,—none impede the other's path In this wide world,—though each and all alike, Save for me, fain would spread itself through space And leave its fellow not an inch of way. I rule and regulate the course, excite, Restrain: because the whole machine should march Impelled by those diversely-moving parts, Each blind to aught beside its little bent. Out of the turnings round and round inside, Comes that straightforward world-advance, I want, And none of them supposes God wants too And gets through just their hindrance and my help. I think that to have held the balance straight For twenty years, say, weighing claim and claim And giving each its due, no less no more, This was good service to humanity, Right usage of my power in head and heart, And reasonable piety beside. Keep those three points in mind while judging me! You stand, perhaps, for some one man, not men,— Represent this or the other interest, Nor mind the general welfare,—so, impugn My practice and dispute my value: why? You man of faith, I did not tread the world Into a paste, and thereof make a smooth Uniform mound whereon to plant your flag, The lily-white, above the blood and brains! Nor yet did I, you man of faithlessness, So roll things to the level which you love, That you could stand at ease there and survey The universal Nothing undisgraced By pert obtrusion of some old church-spire I' the distance! Neither friend would I content, Nor, as the world were simply meant for him, Thrust out his fellow and mend God's mistake. Why, you two fools,—my dear friends all the same,— Is it some change o' the world and nothing else Contents you? Should whatever was, not be? How thanklessly you view things! There 's the root Of the evil, source of the entire mistake: You see no worth i' the world, nature and life, Unless we change what is to what may be, Which means,—may be, i' the brain of one of you! "Reject what is?"—all capabilities— Nay, you may style them chances if you choose— All chances, then, of happiness that lie Open to anybody that is born, Tumbles into this life and out again,— All that may happen, good and evil too, I' the space between, to each adventurer Upon this 'sixty, Anno Domini: A life to live—and such a life! a world To learn, one's lifetime in,—and such a world! How did the foolish ever pass for wise By calling life a burden, man a fly Or worm or what 's most insignificant? "O littleness of man!" deplores the bard; And then, for fear the Powers should punish him, "O grandeur of the visible universe Our human littleness contrasts withal! O sun, O moon, ye mountains and thou sea, Thou emblem of immensity, thou this, That and the other,—what impertinence In man to eat and drink and walk about And have his little notions of his own, The while some wave sheds foam upon the shore!" First of all, 't is a lie some three-times thick: The bard,—this sort of speech being poetry,— The bard puts mankind well outside himself And then begins instructing them: "This way I and my friend the sea conceive of you! What would you give to think such thoughts as ours Of you and the sea together?" Down they go On the humbled knees of them: at once they draw Distinction, recognize no mate of theirs In one, despite his mock humility, So plain a match for what he plays with. Next, The turn of the great ocean-playfellow, When the bard, leaving Bond Street very far From ear-shot, cares not to ventriloquize, But tells the sea its home-truths: "You, my match? You, all this terror and immensity And what not? Shall I tell you what you are? Just fit to hitch into a stanza, so Wake up and set in motion who 's asleep O' the other side of you in England, else Unaware, as folk pace their Bond Street now, Somebody here despises them so much! Between us,—they are the ultimate! to them And their perception go these lordly thoughts: Since what were ocean—mane and tail, to boot— Mused I not here, how make thoughts thinkable? Start forth my stanza and astound the world! Back, billows, to your insignificance! Deep, you are done with!" Learn, my gifted friend, There are two things i' the world, still wiser folk Accept—intelligence and sympathy. You pant about unutterable power I' the ocean, all you feel but cannot speak? Why, that 's the plainest speech about it all. You did not feel what was not to be felt. Well, then, all else but what man feels is naught— The wash o' the liquor that o'erbrims the cup Called man, and runs to waste adown his side, Perhaps to feed a cataract,—who cares? I 'll tell you: all the more I know mankind, The more I thank God, like my grandmother, For making me a little lower than The angels, honor-clothed and glory-crowned: This is the honor,—that no thing I know, Feel or conceive, but I can make my own Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart: This is the glory,—that in all conceived, Or felt or known, I recognize a mind Not mine but like mine,—for the double joy,— Making all things for me and me for Him. There 's folly for you at this time of day! So think it! and enjoy your ignorance Of what—no matter for the worthy's name— Wisdom set working in a noble heart, When he, who was earth's best geometer Up to that tim
orn to do service in the way she chose Rather than his way: way superlative, Only,—by some infatuation,—his And his and his and every one's but hers Who stuck to just the Assembly and the Head. I make no doubt the Head, too, had his dream Of doing sudden duty swift and sure On all that heap of untrustworthiness— Catching each vaunter of the villany He meant to perpetrate when time was ripe, Once the Head-servant fairly out of doors,— And, caging here a knave and there a fool, Cry, "Mistress of your servants, these and me, Hohenstiel-Schwangau! I, their trusty Head, Pounce on a pretty scheme concocting here That's stopped, extinguished by my vigilance. Your property is safe again: but mark! Safe in these hands, not yours, who lavish trust Too lightly. Leave my hands their charge awhile! I know your business better than yourself: Let me alone about it! Some fine day, Once we are rid of the embarrassment, You shall look up and see your longings crowned!" Such fancy might have tempted him be false, But this man chose truth and was wiser so. He recognized that for great minds i' the world There is no trial like the appropriate one Of leaving little minds their liberty Of littleness to blunder on through life, Now aiming at right ends by foolish means, Now, at absurd achievement through the aid Of good and wise endeavor—to acquiesce In folly's life-long privilege, though with power To do the little minds the good they need, Despite themselves, by just abolishing Their right to play the part and fill the place I' the scheme of things He schemed who made alike Great minds and little minds, saw use for each. Could the orb sweep those puny particles It just half-lights at distance, hardly leads I' the leash—sweep out each speck of them from space They anticise in with their days and nights And whirlings round and dancings off, forsooth, And all that fruitless individual life One cannot lend a beam to but they spoil— Sweep them into itself and so, one star, Preponderate henceforth i' the heritage Of heaven! No! in less senatorial phrase, The man endured to help, not save outright The multitude by substituting him For them, his knowledge, will and way, for God's: Nor change the world, such as it is, and was And will be, for some other, suiting all Except the purpose of the maker. No! He saw that weakness, wickedness will be, And therefore should be: that the perfect man, As we account perfection—at most pure O' the special gold, whate'er the form it take, Head-work or heart-work, fined and thrice-refined I' the crucible of life, whereto the powers Of the refiner, one and all, are flung To feed the flame, he saw that e'en the block, Such perfect man holds out triumphant, breaks Into some poisonous ore, gold's opposite, At the very purest, so compensating Man's Adversary—what if we believe? For earlier stern exclusion of his stuff. See the sage, with the hunger for the truth, And see his system that's all true, except The one weak place that's stanchioned by a lie! The moralist, who walks with head erect I' the crystal clarity of air so long, Until a stumble, and the man's one mire! Philanthropy undoes the social knot With axe-edge, makes love room 'twixt head and trunk: Religion—but, enough, the thing's too clear! Well, if these sparks break out i' the greenest tree, Our topmost of performance, yours and mine, What will be done i' the dry ineptitude Of ordinary mankind, bark and bole, All seems ashamed of but their mother-earth? Therefore throughout Head's term of servitude He did the appointed service, and forebore Extraneous action that were duty else, Done by some other servant, idle now Or mischievous: no matter, each his own— Own task, and, in the end, own praise or blame! He suffered them strut, prate, and brag their best, Squabble at odds on every point save one, And there shake hands,—agree to trifle time, Obstruct advance with, each, his cricket-cry, "Wait till the Head be off the shoulders here! Then comes my King, my Pope, my Autocrat, My Socialist Republic to her own— To-wit, that property of only me, Hohenstiel-Schwangau who conceits herself Free, forsooth, and expects I keep her so!" —Nay, suffered when, perceiving with dismay Head's silence paid no tribute to their noise, They turned on him. "Dumb menace in that mouth, Malice in that unstridulosity! He cannot but intend some stroke of state Shall signalize his passage into peace Out of the creaking,—hinder transference O' the Hohenstielers-Schwangauese to king, Pope, autocrat, or socialist republic! That 's Exact the cause his lips unlocked would cry! Therefore be stirring: brave, beard, bully him! Dock, by the million, of its friendly joints, The electoral body short at once! who did, May do again, and undo us beside; Wrest from his hands the sword for self-defence, The right to parry any thrust in play We peradventure please to meditate!" And so forth; creak, creak, creak: and ne'er a line His locked mouth oped the wider, till at last O' the long degraded and insulting day, Sudden the clock told it was judgment-time. Then he addressed himself to speak indeed To the fools, not knaves: they saw him walk straight down Each step of the eminence, as he first engaged, And stand at last o' the level,—all he swore. "People, and not the people's varletry, This is the task you set myself and these! Thus I performed my part of it, and thus They thwarted me throughout, here, here and here: Study each instance! yours the loss, not mine. What they intend now is demonstrable As plainly: here's such man, and here's such mode Of making you some other than the thing <
me!""Old enough," (At whisper in his ear, the laugh outbroke,) "And mode the most discredited of all, By just the men and women who make boast They are kings and queens thereby! Mere self-defence Should teach them, on one chapter of the law Must be no sort of trifling—chastity: They stand or fall, as their progenitors Were chaste or unchaste. Now, run eye around My crowned acquaintance, give each life its look And no more,—why, you 'd think each life was led Purposely for example of what pains Who leads it took to cure the prejudice, And prove there 's nothing so unprovable As who is who, what son of what a sire, And—inferentially—how faint the chance That the next generation needs to fear Another fool o' the selfsame type as he Happily regnant now by right divine And luck o' the pillow! No: select your lord By the direct employment of your brains As best you may,—bad as the blunder prove, A far worse evil stank beneath the sun When some legitimate blockhead managed so Matters that high time was to interfere, Though interference came from hell itself And not the blind mad miserable mob Happily ruled so long by pillow-luck And divine right,—by lies in short, not truth. And meanwhile use the allotted minute ..." One,— Two, three, four, five—yes, five the pendule warns! Eh? Why, this wild work wanders past all bound And bearing! Exile, Leicester Square, the life I' the old gay miserable time, rehearsed, Tried on again like cast clothes, still to serve At a pinch, perhaps? "Who 's who?" was aptly asked, Since certainly I am not I! since when? Where is the bud-mouthed arbitress? A nod Out-Homering Homer! Stay—there flits the clue I fain would find the end of! Yes,—"Meanwhile, Use the allotted minute!" Well, you see, (Veracious and imaginary Thiers, Who map out thus the life I might have led, But did not,—all the worse for earth and me,— Doff spectacles, wipe pen, shut book, decamp!) You see 't is easy in heroics! Plain Pedestrian speech shall help me perorate. Ah, if one had no need to use the tongue! How obvious and how easy 't is to talk Inside the soul, a ghostly dialogue— Instincts with guesses,—instinct, guess, again With dubious knowledge, half-experience: each And all the interlocutors alike Subordinating,—as decorum bids, Oh, never fear! but still decisively,— Claims from without that take too high a tone, —("God wills this, man wants that, the dignity Prescribed a prince would wish the other thing")— Putting them back to insignificance Beside one intimatest fact—myself Am first to be considered, since I live Twenty years longer and then end, perhaps! But, where one ceases to soliloquize, Somehow the motives, that did well enough I' the darkness, when you bring them into light Are found, like those famed cave-fish, to lack eye And organ for the upper magnitudes. The other common creatures, of less fine Existence, that acknowledge earth and heaven, Have it their own way in the argument. Yes, forced to speak, one stoops to say—one's aim Was—what it peradventure should have been: To renovate a people, mend or end That bane come of a blessing meant the world— Inordinate culture of the sense made quick By soul,—the lust o' the flesh, lust of the eye, And pride of life,—and, consequent on these, The worship of that prince o' the power o' the air Who paints the cloud and fills the emptiness And bids his votaries, famishing for truth, Feed on a lie. Alack, one lies one's self Even in the stating that one's end was truth, Truth only, if one states as much in words! Give me the inner chamber of the soul For obvious easy argument! 't is there One pits the silent truth against a lie— Truth which breaks shell a careless simple bird, Nor wants a gorget nor a beak filed fine, Steel spurs and the whole armory o' the tongue, To equalize the odds. But, do your best, Words have to come: and somehow words deflect As the best cannon ever rifled will. "Deflect" indeed! nor merely words from thoughts But names from facts: "Clitumnus" did I say? As if it had been his ox-whitening wave Whereby folk practised that grim cult of old— The murder of their temple's priest by who Would qualify for his succession. Sure— Nemi was the true lake's style. Dream had need Of the ox-whitening peace of prettiness And so confused names, well known once awake. So, i' the Residenz yet, not Leicester Square, Alone,—no such congenial intercourse!— My reverie concludes, as dreaming should, With daybreak: nothing done and over yet, Except cigars! The adventure thus may be, Or never needs to be at all: who knows? My Cousin-Duke, perhaps, at whose hard head —Is it, now—is this letter to be launched, The sight of whose gray oblong, whose grim seal, Set all these fancies floating for an hour? Twenty years are good gain, come what come will! Double or quits! The letter goes! Or stays? |
|
