Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)

by Robert Browning

  Squeak, such a death-like hush sealed up the old Mote House.

  But when the mass of man sank meek upon his knees,

  [280] While Tab, alongside, wheezed a hoarse ‘Do hang us, please!’

  Why, then the waters rose, no eye but ran with tears,

  Hearts heaved, heads thumped, until, paying all past arrears

  Of pity and sorrow, at last a regular scream out broke

  Of triumph, joy and praise.

  My Lord Chief Justice spoke,

  First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged,

  Another bead broke fresh: ‘What Judge, that ever judged

  Since first the world began, judged such a case as this?

  Why, Master Bratts, long since, folk smelt you out, I wis!

  I had my doubts, i’ faith, each time you played the fox

  [290] Convicting geese of crime in yonder witness-box –

  Yea, much did I misdoubt, the thief that stole her eggs

  Was hardly goosey’s self at Reynard’s game, i’ feggs!

  Yet thus much was to praise – you spoke to point, direct –

  Swore you heard, saw the theft: no jury could suspect –

  Dared to suspect, – I’ll say, – a spot in white so clear:

  Goosey was throttled, true: but thereof godly fear

  Came of example set, much as our laws intend;

  And, though a fox confessed, you proved the Judge’s friend.

  What if I had my doubts? Suppose I gave them breath,

  [300] Brought you to bar: what work to do, ere “Guilty, Death,” –

  Had paid our pains! What heaps of witnesses to drag

  From holes and corners, paid from out the County’s bag!

  Trial three dog-days long! Amicus Curiae – that’s

  Your title, no dispute – truth-telling Master Bratts!

  Thank you, too, Mistress Tab! Why doubt one word you say?

  Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day!

  The tinker needs must be a proper man. I’ve heard

  He lies in Gaol long since: if Quality’s good word

  Warrants me letting loose, – some householder, I mean –

  [310] Freeholder, better still, – I don’t say but – between

  Now and next Sessions … Well! Consider of his case,

  I promise to, at least: we owe him so much grace.

  Not that – no, God forbid! – I lean to think, as you,

  The grace that such repent is any goal-bird’s due:

  I rather see the fruit of twelve years’ pious reign –

  Astraea Redux, Charles restored his rights again!

  – Of which, another time! I somehow feel a peace

  Stealing across the world. May deeds like this increase!

  So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I pronounced

  [320] On those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced

  Soundly, and yet … well, well, at all events dispatch

  This pair of – shall I say, sinner-saints? – ere we catch

  Their gaol-distemper too. Stop tears, or I’ll indite

  All weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!’

  So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur,

  Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur?

  And happily hanged were they, – why lengthen out my tale? –

  Where Bunyan’s Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.

  Clive

  I and Clive were friends – and why not? Friends! I think you laugh, my lad.

  Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives – egad,

  England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak –

  ‘Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades –’ with a tongue thrust in your cheek!

  Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world’s eyes, Clive was man,

  I was, am and ever shall be – mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan

  Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen’s estimate for fame;

  While the man Clive – he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game,

  Conquered and annexed and Englished!

  Never mind! As o’er my punch

  [10] (You away) I sit of evenings, – silence, save for biscuit-crunch,

  Black, unbroken, – thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old years,

  Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long-past life appears

  Like an outspread map of country plodded through, each mile and rood,

  Once, and well remembered still: I’m startled in my solitude

  Ever and anon by – what’s the sudden mocking light that breaks

  On me as I slap the table till no rummer-glass but shakes

  While I ask – aloud, I do believe, God help me! – ‘Was it thus?

  Can it be that so I faltered, stopped when just one step for us –’

  [20] (Us, – you were not born, I grant, but surely some day born would be)

  ‘– One bold step had gained a province’ (figurative talk, you see)

  ‘Got no end of wealth and honour, – yet I stood stock still no less?’

  – ‘For I was not Clive,’ you comment: but it needs no Clive to guess

  Wealth were handy, honour ticklish, did no writing on the wall

  Warn me ‘Trespasser, ’ware man-traps!’ Him who braves that notice – call

  Hero! none of such heroics suit myself who read plain words,

  Doff my hat, and leap no barrier. Scripture says the land’s the Lord’s:

  Louts then – what avail the thousand, noisy in a smock-frocked ring,

  All-agog to have me trespass, clear the fence, be Clive their king?

  [30] Higher warrant must you show me ere I set one foot before

  T’other in that dark direction, though I stand for evermore

  Poor as Job and meek as Moses. Evermore? No! By-and-by

  Job grows rich and Moses valiant, Clive turns out less wise than I.

  Don’t object ‘Why call him friend, then?’ Power is power, my boy, and still

  Marks a man, – God’s gift magnific, exercised for good or ill.

  You’ve your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread what was a tiger’s skin:

  Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in!

  True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass;

  Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage – ah, the brute he was!

  [40] Why, that Clive, – that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving clerk, in fine, –

  He sustained a siege in Arcot … But the world knows! Pass the wine.

  Where did I break off at? How bring Clive in? Oh, you mentioned ‘fear’!

  Just so: and, said I, that minds me of a story you shall hear.

  We were friends then, Clive and I: so, when the clouds, about the orb

  Late supreme, encroaching slowly, surely, threatened to absorb

  Ray by ray its noontide brilliance, – friendship might, with steadier eye

  Drawing near, bear what had burned else, now no blaze – all majesty.

  Too much bee’s-wing floats my figure? Well, suppose a castle’s new:

  None presume to climb its ramparts, none find foothold sure for shoe

  ’Twixt those squares and squares of granite plating the impervious pile

  [50] As his scale-mail’s warty iron cuirasses a crocodile.

  Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without

  Scrambling up by crack and crevice, every cockney prates about

  Towers – the heap he kicks now! turrets – just the measure of his cane!

  Will that do? Observe moreover – (same similitude again) –

  Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade:

  ’Tis when foes are foiled and fighting’s finished that vile rains invade,

  Grass o’ergrows, o’ergrows till night-birds congregating find no
holes

  Fit to build in like the topmost sockets made for banner-poles.

  So Clive crumbled slow in London – crashed at last.

  A week before,

  [60] Dining with him, – after trying churchyard-chat of days of yore, –

  Both of us stopped, tired as tombstones, head-piece, foot-piece, when they lean

  Each to other, drowsed in fog-smoke, o’er a coffined Past between.

  As I saw his head sink heavy, guessed the soul’s extinguishment

  By the glazing eyeball, noticed how the furtive fingers went

  Where a drug-box skulked behind the honest liquor, – ‘One more throw

  Try for Clive!’ thought I: ‘Let’s venture some good rattling question!’ So –

  ‘Come, Clive, tell us’ – out I blurted – ‘what to tell in turn, years hence,

  When my boy – suppose I have one – asks me on what evidence

  [70] I maintain my friend of Plassy proved a warrior every whit

  Worth your Alexanders, Caesars, Marlboroughs and – what said Pitt? –

  Frederick the Fierce himself! “Clive told me once” – I want to say –

  “Which feat out of all those famous doings bore the bell away

  – In his own calm estimation, mark you, not the mob’s rough guess –

  Which stood foremost as evincing what Clive called courageousness!”

  Come! what moment of the minute, what speck-centre in the wide

  Circle of the action saw your mortal fairly deified?

  (Let alone that filthy sleep-stuff, swallow bold this wholesome Port!)

  If a friend has leave to question, – when were you most brave, in short?’

  [80] Up he arched his brows o’ the instant – formidably Clive again.

  ‘When was I most brave? I’d answer, were the instance half as plain

  As another instance that’s a brain-lodged crystal – curse it! – here

  Freezing when my memory touches – ugh! – the time I felt most fear.

  Ugh! I cannot say for certain if I showed fear – anyhow,

  Fear I felt, and, very likely, shuddered, since I shiver now.’

  ‘Fear!’ smiled I. ‘Well, that’s the rarer: that’s a specimen to seek,

  Ticket up in one’s museum, Mind-Freaks, Lord Clive’s Fear, Unique!’

  Down his brows dropped. On the table painfully he pored as though

  Tracing, in the stains and streaks there, thoughts encrusted long ago.

  When he spoke ’twas like a lawyer reading word by word some will,

  [90] Some blind jungle of a statement, – beating on and on until

  Out there leaps fierce life to fight with.

  ‘This fell in my factor-days.

  Desk-drudge, slaving at Saint David’s, one must game, or drink, or craze.

  I chose gaming: and, – because your high-flown gamesters hardly take

  Umbrage at a factor’s elbow if the factor pays his stake, –

  I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice,

  Captain This and Major That, men high of colour, loud of voice,

  Yet indulgent, condescending to the modest juvenile

  Who not merely risked but lost his hard-earned guineas with a smile.

  ‘Down I sat to cards, one evening, – had for my antagonist

  [100] Somebody whose name’s a secret – you’ll know why – so, if you list,

  Call him Cock o’ the Walk, my scarlet son of Mars from head to heel!

  Play commenced: and, whether Cocky fancied that a clerk must feel

  Quite sufficient honour came of bending over one green baize,

  I the scribe with him the warrior, – guessed no penman dared to raise

  Shadow of objection should the honour stay but playing end

  More or less abruptly, – whether disinclined he grew to spend

  Practice strictly scientific on a booby born to stare

  At – not ask of – lace-and-ruffles if the hand they hide plays fair, –

  [110] Anyhow, I marked a movement when he bade me “Cut!”

  ‘I rose.

  “Such the new manoeuvre, Captain? I’m a novice: knowledge grows.

  What, you force a card, you cheat, Sir?”

  ‘Never did a thunder-clap

  Cause emotion, startle Thyrsis locked with Chloe in his lap,

  As my word and gesture (down I flung my cards to join the pack)

  Fired the man of arms, whose visage, simply red before, turned black.

  ‘When he found his voice, he stammered “That expression once again!”

  ‘“Well, you forced a card and cheated!”

  ‘“Possibly a factor’s brain,

  Busied with his all-important balance of accounts, may deem

  Weighing words superfluous trouble: cheat to clerkly ears may seem

  [120] Just the joke for friends to venture: but we are not friends, you see!

  When a gentleman is joked with, – if he’s good at repartee,

  He rejoins, as do I – Sirrah, on your knees, withdraw in full!

  Beg my pardon, or be sure a kindly bullet through your skull

  Lets in light and teaches manners to what brain it finds! Choose quick –

  Have your life snuffed out or, kneeling, pray me trim yon candle-wick!”

  ‘“Well, you cheated!”

  ‘Then outbroke a howl from all the friends around.

  To his feet sprang each in fury, fists were clenched and teeth were ground.

  “End it! no time like the present! Captain, yours were our disgrace!

  No delay, begin and finish! Stand back, leave the pair a space!

  Let civilians be instructed: henceforth simply ply the pen,

  [130] Fly the sword! This clerk’s no swordsman? Suit him with a pistol, then!

  Even odds! A dozen paces ’twixt the most and least expert

  Make a dwarf a giant’s equal: nay, the dwarf, if he’s alert,

  Likelier hits the broader target!”

  ‘Up we stood accordingly.

  As they handed me the weapon, such was my soul’s thirst to try

  Then and there conclusions with this bully, tread on and stamp out

  Every spark of his existence, that, – crept close to, curled about

  By that toying tempting teasing fool-forefinger’s middle joint, –

  Don’t you guess? – the trigger yielded. Gone my chance! and at the point

  Of such prime success moreover: scarce an inch above his head

  [140] Went my ball to hit the wainscot. He was living, I was dead.

  ‘Up he marched in flaming triumph – ’twas his right, mind! – up, within

  Just an arm’s length. “Now, my clerkling,” chuckled Cocky with a grin

  As the levelled piece quite touched me, “Now, Sir Counting-House, repeat

  That expression which I told you proved bad manners! Did I cheat?”

  ‘“Cheat you did, you knew you cheated, and, this moment, know as well.

  As for me, my homely breeding bids you – fire and go to Hell!”

  ‘Twice the muzzle touched my forehead. Heavy barrel, flurried wrist,

  Either spoils a steady lifting. Thrice: then, “Laugh at Hell who list,

  [150] I can’t! God’s no fable either. Did this boy’s eye wink once? No!

  There’s no standing him and Hell and God all three against me, – so,

  I did cheat!”

  ‘And down he threw the pistol, out rushed – by the door

  Possibly, but, as for knowledge if by chimney, roof or floor,

  He effected disappearance – I’ll engage no glance was sent

  That way by a single starer, such a blank astonishment

  Swallowed up their senses: as for speaking – mute they stood as mice.

  ‘Mute not long, though! Such reaction, such a hubbub in a trice!

  “Rogue and rascal! Who’d have thought it? What’s to be expected next,
>
  When His Majesty’s Commission serves a sharper as pretext

  [160] For … But where’s the need of wasting time now? Naught requires delay:

  Punishment the Service cries for: let disgrace be wiped away

  Publicly, in good broad daylight! Resignation? No, indeed

  Drum and fife must play the Rogue’s March, rank and file be free to speed

  Tardy marching on the rogue’s part by appliance in the rear

  – Kicks administered shall right this wronged civilian, – never fear,

  Mister Clive, for – though a clerk – you bore yourself – suppose we say –

  Just as would beseem a soldier!”

  ‘“Gentlemen, attention – pray!

  First, one word!”

  ‘I passed each speaker severally in review.

  When I had precise their number, names and styles, and fully knew

  Over whom my supervision thenceforth must extend, – why, then –

  [170] “Some five minutes since, my life lay – as you all saw, gentlemen –

  At the mercy of your friend there. Not a single voice was raised

  In arrest of judgement, not one tongue – before my powder blazed –

  Ventured ‘Can it be the youngster blundered, really seemed to mark

  Some irregular proceeding? We conjecture in the dark,

  Guess at random, – still, for sake of fair play – what if for a freak,

  In a fit of absence, – such things have been! – if our friend proved weak

  – What’s the phrase? – corrected fortune! Look into the case, at least!’

  Who dared interpose between the altar’s victim and the priest?

  Yet he spared me! You eleven! Whosoever, all or each,

  [180] To the disadvantage of the man who spared me, utters speech

  – To his face, behind his back, – that speaker has to do with me:

  Me who promise, if positions change and mine the chance should be,

  Not to imitate your friend and waive advantage!”

  ‘Twenty-five

  Years ago this matter happened: and ’tis certain,’ added Clive,

  ‘Never, to my knowledge, did Sir Cocky have a single breath

  Breathed against him: lips were closed throughout his life, or since his death,

  For if he be dead or living I can tell no more than you.

  All I know is – Cocky had one chance more; how he used it, – grew

  Out of such unlucky habits, or relapsed, and back again

  [190] Brought the late-ejected devil with a score more in his train, –

  That’s for you to judge. Reprieval I procured, at any rate.