Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)

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Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) Page 20

by Robert Browning

Their juice enriched his palate. ‘Could not Sludge!’

  I’ll go yet a step further, and maintain,

  Once the imposture plunged its proper depth

  I’ the rotten of your natures, all of you, –

  (If one’s not mad nor drunk, and hardly then)

  It’s impossible to cheat – that’s, be found out!

  Go tell your brotherhood this first slip of mine,

  [550] All today’s tale, how you detected Sludge,

  Behaved unpleasantly, till he was fain confess,

  And so has come to grief! You’ll find, I think,

  Why Sludge still snaps his fingers in your face.

  There now, you’ve told them! What’s their prompt reply?

  ‘Sir, did that youth confess he had cheated me,

  I’d disbelieve him. He may cheat at times;

  That’s in the “medium”-nature, thus they’re made,

  Vain and vindictive, cowards, prone to scratch.

  And so all cats are; still, a cat’s the beast

  [560] You coax the strange electric sparks from out,

  By rubbing back its fur; not so a dog,

  Nor lion, nor lamb: ’tis the cat’s nature, sir!

  Why not the dog’s? Ask God, who made them beasts!

  D’ye think the sound, the nicely-balanced man

  (‘Like me’ – aside) – ‘like you yourself,’ – (aloud)

  ‘– He’s stuff to make a “medium”? Bless your soul,

  ’Tis these hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs,

  Equivocal, worthless vermin yield the fire!

  We take such as we find them, ’ware their tricks,

  [570] Wanting their service. Sir, Sludge took in you –

  How, I can’t say, not being there to watch:

  He was tried, was tempted by your easiness, –

  He did not take in me!’

  Thank you for Sludge!

  I’m to be grateful to such patrons, eh,

  When what you hear’s my best word? ’Tis a challenge;

  ‘Snap at all strangers, half-tamed prairie-dog,

  So you cower duly at your keeper’s beck!

  Cat, show what claws were made for, muffling them

  Only to me! Cheat others if you can,

  [580] Me, if you dare!’ And, my wise sir, I dared –

  Did cheat you first, made you cheat others next,

  And had the help o’ your vaunted manliness

  To bully the incredulous. You used me?

  Have not I used you, taken full revenge,

  Persuaded folk they knew not their own name,

  And straight they’d own the error! Who was the fool

  When, to an awe-struck wide-eyed open-mouthed

  Circle of sages, Sludge would introduce

  Milton composing baby-rhymes, and Locke

  [590] Reasoning in gibberish, Homer writing Greek

  In noughts and crosses, Asaph setting psalms

  To crotchet and quaver? I’ve made a spirit squeak

  In sham voice for a minute, then outbroke

  Bold in my own, defying the imbeciles –

  Have copied some ghost’s pothooks, half a page,

  Then ended with my own scrawl undisguised.

  ‘All right! The ghost was merely using Sludge,

  Suiting itself from his imperfect stock!’

  Don’t talk of gratitude to me! For what?

  [600] For being treated as a showman’s ape,

  Encouraged to be wicked and make sport,

  Fret or sulk, grin or whimper, any mood

  So long as the ape be in it and no man –

  Because a nut pays every mood alike.

  Curse your superior, superintending sort,

  Who, since you hate smoke, send up boys that climb

  To cure your chimney, bid a ‘medium’ lie

  To sweep you truth down! Curse your women too,

  Your insolent wives and daughters, that fire up

  [610] Or faint away if a male hand squeeze theirs,

  Yet, to encourage Sludge, may play with Sludge

  As only a ‘medium,’ only the kind of thing

  They must humour, fondle … oh, to misconceive

  Were too preposterous! But I’ve paid them out!

  They’ve had their wish – called for the naked truth,

  And in she tripped, sat down and bade them stare:

  They had to blush a little and forgive!

  ‘The fact is, children talk so; in next world

  All our conventions are reversed, – perhaps

  [620] Made light of: something like old prints, my dear!

  The Judge has one, he brought from Italy,

  A metropolis in the background, – o’er a bridge,

  A team of trotting roadsters, – cheerful groups

  Of wayside travellers, peasants at their work,

  And, full in front, quite unconcerned, why not?

  Three nymphs conversing with a cavalier,

  And never a rag among them: “fine,” folk cry –

  And heavenly manners seem not much unlike!

  Let Sludge go on; we’ll fancy it’s in print!’

  [630] If such as came for wool, sir, went home shorn,

  Where is the wrong I did them? ’Twas their choice;

  They tried the adventure, ran the risk, tossed up

  And lost, as some one’s sure to do in games;

  They fancied I was made to lose, – smoked glass

  Useful to spy the sun through, spare their eyes:

  And had I proved a red-hot iron plate

  They thought to pierce, and, for their pains, grew blind,

  Whose were the fault but theirs? While, as things go,

  Their loss amounts to gain, the more’s the shame!

  [640] They’ve had their peep into the spirit-world,

  And all this world may know it! They’ve fed fat

  Their self-conceit which else had starved: what chance

  Save this, of cackling o’er a golden egg

  And compassing distinction from the flock,

  Friends of a feather? Well, they paid for it,

  And not prodigiously; the price o’ the play,

  Not counting certain pleasant interludes,

  Was scarce a vulgar play’s worth. When you buy

  The actor’s talent, do you dare propose

  [650] For his soul beside? Whereas my soul you buy!

  Sludge acts Macbeth, obliged to be Macbeth,

  Or you’ll not hear his first word! Just go through

  That slight formality, swear himself’s the Thane,

  And thenceforth he may strut and fret his hour,

  Spout, spawl, or spin his target, no one cares!

  Why hadn’t I leave to play tricks, Sludge as Sludge?

  Enough of it all! I’ve wiped out scores with you –

  Vented your fustian, let myself be streaked

  Like tom-fool with your ochre and carmine,

  [660] Worn patchwork your respectable fingers sewed

  To metamorphose somebody, – yes, I’ve earned

  My wages, swallowed down my bread of shame,

  And shake the crumbs off – where but in your face?

  As for religion – why, I served it, sir!

  I’ll stick to that! With my phenomena

  I laid the atheist sprawling on his back,

  Propped up Saint Paul, or, at least, Swedenborg!

  In fact, it’s just the proper way to balk

  These troublesome fellows – liars, one and all,

  [670] Are not these sceptics? Well, to baffle them,

  No use in being squeamish: lie yourself!

  Erect your buttress just as wide o’ the line,

  Your side, as they build up the wall on theirs;

  Where both meet, midway in a point, is truth

  High overhead: so, take your room, pile bricks,

  Lie! Oh, there’s titillation in all shame!

  Wha
t snow may lose in white, snow gains in rose!

  Miss Stokes turns – Rahab, – nor a bad exchange!

  Glory be on her, for the good she wrought,

  [680] Breeding belief anew ’neath ribs of death,

  Browbeating now the unabashed before,

  Ridding us of their whole life’s gathered straws

  By a live coal from the altar! Why, of old,

  Great men spent years and years in writing books

  To prove we’ve souls, and hardly proved it then:

  Miss Stokes with her live coal, for you and me!

  Surely, to this good issue, all was fair –

  Not only fondling Sludge, but, even suppose

  He let escape some spice of knavery, – well,

  [690] In wisely being blind to it! Don’t you praise

  Nelson for setting spy-glass to blind eye

  And saying … what was it – that he could not see

  The signal he was bothered with? Ay, indeed!

  I’ll go beyond: there’s a real love of a lie,

  Liars find ready-made for lies they make,

  As hand for glove, or tongue for sugar-plum.

  At best, ’tis never pure and full belief;

  Those furthest in the quagmire, – don’t suppose

  They strayed there with no warning, got no chance

  [700] Of a filth-speck in their face, which they clenched teeth,

  Bent brow against! Be sure they had their doubts,

  And fears, and fairest challenges to try

  The floor o’ the seeming solid sand! But no!

  Their faith was pledged, acquaintance too apprised,

  All but the last step ventured, kerchiefs waved,

  And Sludge called ‘pet’: ’twas easier marching on

  To the promised land, join those who, Thursday next,

  Meant to meet Shakespeare; better follow Sludge –

  Prudent, oh sure! – on the alert, how else? –

  [710] But making for the mid-bog, all the same!

  To hear your outcries, one would think I caught

  Miss Stokes by the scruff o’ the neck, and pitched her flat,

  Foolish-face-foremost! Hear these simpletons,

  That’s all I beg, before my work’s begun,

  Before I’ve touched them with my finger-tip!

  Thus they await me (do but listen, now!

  It’s reasoning, this is, – I can’t imitate

  The baby voice, though) ‘In so many tales

  Must be some truth, truth though a pin-point big,

  [720] Yet, some: a single man’s deceived, perhaps –

  Hardly, a thousand: to suppose one cheat

  Can gull all these, were more miraculous far

  Than aught we should confess a miracle’ –

  And so on. Then the Judge sums up – (it’s rare)

  Bids you respect the authorities that leap

  To the judgement-seat at once, – why don’t you note

  The limpid nature, the unblemished life,

  The spotless honour, indisputable sense

  Of the first upstart with his story? What –

  [730] Outrage a boy on whom you ne’er till now

  Set eyes, because he finds raps trouble him?

  Fools, these are: ay, and how of their opposites

  Who never did, at bottom of their hearts,

  Believe for a moment? – Men emasculate,

  Blank of belief, who played, as eunuchs use,

  With superstition safely, – cold of blood,

  Who saw what made for them i’ the mystery,

  Took their occasion, and supported Sludge

  – As proselytes? No, thank you, far too shrewd!

  [740] – But promisers of fair play, encouragers

  O’ the claimant; who in candour needs must hoist

  Sludge up on Mars’ Hill, get speech out of Sludge

  To carry off, criticize, and cant about!

  Didn’t Athens treat Saint Paul so? – at any rate,

  It’s ‘a new thing’ philosophy fumbles at.

  Then there’s the other picker-out of pearl

  From dung-heaps, – ay, your literary man,

  Who draws on his kid gloves to deal with Sludge

  Daintily and discreetly, – shakes a dust

  [750] O’ the doctrine, flavours thence, he well knows how,

  The narrative or the novel, – half-believes,

  All for the book’s sake, and the public’s stare,

  And the cash that’s God’s sole solid in this world!

  Look at him! Try to be too bold, too gross

  For the master! Not you! He’s the man for muck;

  Shovel it forth, full-splash, he’ll smooth your brown

  Into artistic richness, never fear!

  Find him the crude stuff; when you recognize

  Your lie again, you’ll doff your hat to it,

  [760] Dressed out for company! ‘For company,’

  I say, since there’s the relish of success:

  Let all pay due respect, call the lie truth,

  Save the soft silent smirking gentleman

  Who ushered in the stranger: you must sigh

  ‘How melancholy, he, the only one

  Fails to perceive the bearing of the truth

  Himself gave birth to!’ – There’s the triumph’s smack!

  That man would choose to see the whole world roll

  I’ the slime o’ the slough, so he might touch the tip

  [770] Of his brush with what I call the best of browns –

  Tint ghost-tales, spirit-stories, past the power

  Of the outworn umber and bistre!

  Yet I think

  There’s a more hateful form of foolery –

  The social sage’s, Solomon of saloons

  And philosophic diner-out, the fribble

  Who wants a doctrine for a chopping-block

  To try the edge of his faculty upon,

  Prove how much common sense he’ll hack and hew

  I’ the critical minute ’twixt the soup and fish!

  [780] These were my patrons: these, and the like of them

  Who, rising in my soul now, sicken it, –

  These I have injured! Gratitude to these?

  The gratitude, forsooth, of a prostitute

  To the greenhorn and the bully – friends of hers,

  From the wag that wants the queer jokes for his club,

  To the snuff-box-decorator, honest man,

  Who just was at his wits’ end where to find

  So genial a Pasiphae! All and each

  Pay, compliment, protect from the police:

  [790] And how she hates them for their pains, like me!

  So much for my remorse at thanklessness

  Toward a deserving public!

  But, for God?

  Ay, that’s a question! Well, sir, since you press –

  (How you do tease the whole thing out of me!

  I don’t mean you, you know, when I say ‘them’:

  Hate you, indeed! But that Miss Stokes, that Judge!

  Enough, enough – with sugar: thank you, sir!)

  Now, for it, then! Will you believe me, though?

  You’ve heard what I confess; I don’t unsay

  [800] A single word: I cheated when I could,

  Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work,

  Wrote down names weak in sympathetic ink,

  Rubbed odic lights with ends of phosphor-match,

  And all the rest; believe that: believe this,

  By the same token, though it seem to set

  The crooked straight again, unsay the said,

  Stick up what I’ve knocked down; I can’t help that.

  It’s truth! I somehow vomit truth today.

  This trade of mine – I don’t know, can’t be sure

  [810] But there was something in it, tricks and all!

  Really, I want to light up my own mind.


  They were tricks, – true, but what I mean to add

  Is also true. First, – don’t it strike you, sir?

  Go back to the beginning, – the first fact

  We’re taught is, there’s a world beside this world,

  With spirits, not mankind, for tenantry;

  That much within that world once sojourned here,

  That all upon this world will visit there,

  And therefore that we, bodily here below,

  [820] Must have exactly such an interest

  In learning what may be the ways o’ the world

  Above us, as the disembodied folk

  Have (by all analogic likelihood)

  In watching how things go in the old home

  With us, their sons, successors, and what not.

  Oh yes, with added powers probably,

  Fit for the novel state, – old loves grown pure,

  Old interests understood aright, – they watch!

  Eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to help,

  [830] Proportionate to advancement: they’re ahead,

  That’s all – do what we do, but noblier done –

  Use plate, whereas we eat our meals off delf,

  (To use a figure).

  Concede that, and I ask

  Next what may be the mode of intercourse

  Between us men here, and those once-men there?

  First comes the Bible’s speech; then, history

  With the supernatural element, – you know –

  All that we sucked in with our mothers’ milk,

  Grew up with, got inside of us at last,

  [840] Till it’s found bone of bone and flesh of flesh.

  See now, we start with the miraculous,

  And know it used to be, at all events:

  What’s the first step we take, and can’t but take,

  In arguing from the known to the obscure?

  Why this: ‘What was before, may be today.

  Since Samuel’s ghost appeared to Saul, of course

  My brother’s spirit may appear to me.’

  Go tell your teacher that! What’s his reply?

  What brings a shade of doubt for the first time

  [850] O’er his brow late so luminous with faith?

  ‘Such things have been,’ says he, ‘and there’s no doubt

  Such things may be: but I advise mistrust

  Of eyes, ears, stomach, and, more than all, your brain,

  Unless it be of your great-grandmother,

  Whenever they propose a ghost to you!’

  The end is, there’s a composition struck;

  ’Tis settled, we’ve some way of intercourse

  Just as in Saul’s time; only, different:

  How, when and where, precisely, – find it out!

  [860] I want to know, then, what’s so natural

  As that a person born into this world

  And seized on by such teaching, should begin

 

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