Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Vented your fustian, let myself be streaked

  Like tone-fool with your ochre and carmine,

  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 baulk

  These troublesome fellows-liars, one and all,

  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!

  What 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,

  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,

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

  Nelson for setting spy-glass to blind eye

  Any 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, ‘t is never pure and full belief;

  Those furthest in the quagmire, — don’t suppose

  They strayed there with no warning, got no chance

  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”: ‘t was 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?

  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,

  “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 judgment-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 —

  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!

  — 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

  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,

  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

  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!

  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:

  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 pre
ss —

  (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

  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 to-day

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

  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,

  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,

  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,

  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 to-day.

  “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

  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;

  ‘T is settled, we’ve some way of intercourse

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

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

  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

  With firm expectancy and a frank look-out

  For his own allotment, his especial share

  I’ the secret, — his particular ghost, in fine?

  I mean, a person born to look that way,

  Since natures differ: take the painter-sort,

  One man lives fifty years in ignorance

  Whether grass be green or red, — ”No kind of eye

  “For colour,” say you; while another picks

  And puts away even pebbles, when a child,

  Because of bluish spots and pinky veins —

  “Give him forthwith a paint-box!” Just the same

  Was I born . . . “medium,” you won’t let me say, —

  Well, seer of the supernatural

  Everywhen, everyhow and everywhere, —

  Will that do?

  I and all such boys of course

  Started with the same stock of Bible-truth;

  Only, — what in the rest you style their sense,

  Instinct, blind reasoning but imperative,

  This, betimes, taught them the old world had one law

  And ours another: “New world, new laws,” cried they:

  “None but old laws, seen everywhere at work,”

  Cried I, and by their help explained my life

  The Jews’ way, still a working way to me.

  Ghosts made the noises, fairies waved the lights,

  Or Santa Claus slid down on New Year’s Eve

  And stuffed with cakes the stocking at my bed,

  Changed the worn shoes, rubbed clean the fingered slate

  O’ the sum that came to grief the day before.

  This could not last long: soon enough I found

  Who had worked wonders thus, and to what end:

  But did I find all easy, like my mates?

  Henceforth no supernatural any more?

  Not a whit: what projects the billiard-balls?

  “A cue,” you answer: “Yes, a cue,” said I;

  “But what hand, off the cushion, moved the cue?

  “What unseen agency, outside the world,

  “Prompted its puppets to do this and that,

  “Put cakes and shoes and slates into their mind,

  “These mothers and aunts, nay even schoolmasters?”

  Thus high I sprang, and there have settled since.

  Just so I reason, in sober earnest still,

  About the greater godsends, what you call

  The serious gains and losses of my life.

  What do I know or care about your world

  Which either is or seems to be? This snap

  O’ my fingers, sir! My care is for myself;

  Myself am whole and sole reality

  Inside a raree-show and a market-mob

  Gathered about it: that ‘s the use of things.

  ‘T is easy saying they serve vast purposes,

  Advantage their grand selves: be it true or false,

  Each thing may have two uses. What ‘s a star?

  A world, or a world’s sun: doesn’t it serve

  As taper also, time-piece, weather-glass,

  And almanac? Are stars not set for signs

  When we should shear our sheep, sow corn, prune trees?

  The Bible says so.

  Well, I add one use

  To all the acknowledged uses, and declare

  If I spy Charles’s Wain at twelve to-night,

  It warns me, “Go, nor lose another day,

  And have your hair cut, Sludge!” You laugh: and why?

  Were such a sign too hard for God to give?

  No: but Sludge seems too little for such grace:

  Thank you, sir! So you think, so does not Sludge!

  When you and good men gape at Providence,

  Go into history and bid us mark

  Not merely powder-plots prevented, crowns

  Kept on kings’ heads by miracle enough,

  But private mercies — oh, you’ve told
me, sir,

  Of such interpositions! How yourself

  Once, missing on a memorable day

  Your handkerchief — just setting out, you know, —

  You must return to fetch it, lost the train,

  And saved your precious self from what befell

  The thirty-three whom Providence forgot.

  You tell, and ask me what I think of this?

  Well, sir, I think then, since you needs must know,

  What matter had you and Boston city to boot

  Sailed skyward, like burnt onion-peelings? Much

  To you, no doubt: for me — undoubtedly

  The cutting of my hair concerns me more,

  Because, however sad the truth may seem,

  Sludge is of all-importance to himself.

  You set apart that day in every year

  For special thanksgiving, were a heathen else:

  Well, I cannot boast the like escape,

  Suppose I said “I don’t thank Providence

  “For my part, owing it no gratitude”?

  “Nay, but you owe as much” — you’d tutor me,

  “You, every man alive, for blessings gained

  “In every hour o’ the day, could you but know!

  “I saw my crowning mercy: all have such,

  “Could they but see!” Well, sir, why don’t they see?

  “Because they won’t look, — or perhaps, they can’t.”

  Then, sir, suppose I can, and will, and do

  Look, microscopically as is right,

  Into each hour with its infinitude

  Of influences at work to profit Sludge?

  For that’s the case: I’ve sharpened up my sight

  To spy a providence in the fire’s going out,

  The kettle’s boiling, the dime’s sticking fast

  Despite the hole i’ the pocket. Call such facts

  Fancies, too petty a work for Providence,

  And those same thanks which you exact from me

  Prove too prodigious payment: thanks for what,

  If nothing guards and guides us little men?

  No, no, sir! You must put away your pride,

  Resolve to let Sludge into partnership!

  I live by signs and omens: looked at the roof

  Where the pigeons settle — ”If the further bird,

  “The white, takes wing first, I’ll confess when thrashed;

  “Not, if the blue does” — so I said to myself

  Last week, lest you should take me by surprise:

  Off flapped the white, — and I ‘m confessing, sir!

  Perhaps ‘t is Providence’s whim and way

  With only me, i’ the world: how can you tell?

  “Because unlikely!” Was it likelier, now,

  That this our one out of all worlds beside,

  The what-d’you-call ‘em millions, should be just

  Precisely chosen to make Adam for,