Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Thus will it be with us when the books ope

  And we stand at the bar on judgment-day.

  Well then, I have a mind to speak, see cause

  To relume the quenched flax by this dreadful light,

  Burn my soul out in showing you the truth.

  I heard, last time I stood here to be judged,

  What is priest’s-duty, — labour to pluck tares

  And weed the corn of Molinism; let me

  Make you hear, this time, how, in such a case,

  Man, be he in the priesthood or at plough,

  Mindful of Christ or marching step by step

  With . . . what’s his style, the other potentate

  Who bids have courage and keep honour safe,

  Nor let minuter admonition teaze?

  How he is bound, better or worse, to act.

  Earth will not end through this misjudgment, no!

  For you and the others like you sure to come,

  Fresh work is sure to follow, — wickedness

  That wants withstanding. Many a man of blood,

  Many a man of guile will clamour yet,

  Bid you redress his grievance, — as he clutched

  The prey, forsooth a stranger stepped between,

  And there’s the good gripe in pure waste! My part

  Is done; i’ the doing it, I pass away

  Out of the world. I want no more with earth.

  Let me, in heaven’s name, use the very snuff

  O’ the taper in one last spark shall show truth

  For a moment, show Pompilia who was true!

  Not for her sake, but yours: if she is dead,

  Oh, Sirs, she can be loved by none of you

  Most or least priestly! Saints, to do us good,

  Must be in heaven, I seem to understand:

  We never find them saints before, at least.

  Be her first prayer then presently for you —

  She had done the good to me . . .

  What is all this?

  There, I was born, have lived, shall die, a fool!

  This is a foolish outset: — might with cause

  Give colour to the very lie o’ the man,

  The murderer, — make as if I loved his wife,

  In the way he called love. He is the fool there!

  Why, had there been in me the touch of taint,

  I had picked up so much of knaves’-policy

  As hide it, keep one hand pressed on the place

  Suspected of a spot would damn us both.

  Or no, not her! — not even if any of you

  Dares think that I, i’ the face of death, her death

  That’s in my eyes and ears and brain and heart,

  Lie, — if he does, let him! I mean to say,

  So he stop there, stay thought from smirching her

  The snow-white soul that angels fear to take

  Untenderly. But, all the same, I know

  I too am taintless, and I bare my breast.

  You can’t think, men as you are, all of you,

  But that, to hear thus suddenly such an end

  Of such a wonderful white soul, that comes

  Of a man and murderer calling the white black,

  Must shake me, trouble and disadvantage. Sirs,

  Only seventeen!

  Why, good and wise you are!

  You might at the beginning stop my mouth:

  So, none would be to speak for her, that knew.

  I talk impertinently, and you bear,

  All the same. This it is to have to do

  With honest hearts: they easily may err,

  But in the main they wish well to the truth.

  You are Christians; somehow, no one ever plucked

  A rag, even, from the body of the Lord,

  To wear and mock with, but, despite himself,

  He looked the greater and was the better. Yes,

  I shall go on now. Does she need or not

  I keep calm? Calm I’ll keep as monk that croons

  Transcribing battle, earthquake, famine, plague,

  From parchment to his cloister’s chronicle.

  Not one word more from the point now!

  I begin.

  Yes, I am one of your body and a priest.

  Also I am a younger son o’ the House

  Oldest now, greatest once, in my birth-town

  Arezzo, I recognise no equal there —

  (I want all arguments, all sorts of arms

  That seem to serve, — use this for a reason, wait!)

  Not therefore thrust into the Church, because

  O’ the piece of bread one gets there. We were first

  Of Fiesole, that rings still with the fame

  Of Capo-in-Sacco our progenitor:

  When Florence ruined Fiesole, our folk

  Migrated to the victor-city, and there

  Flourished, — our palace and our tower attest,

  In the Old Mercato, — this was years ago,

  Four hundred, full, — no, it wants fourteen just.

  Our arms are those of Fiesole itself,

  The shield quartered with white and red: a branch

  Are the Salviati of us, nothing more.

  That were good help to the Church? But better still —

  Not simply for the advantage of my birth

  I’ the way of the world, was I proposed for priest;

  But because there’s an illustration, late

  I’ the day, that’s loved and looked to as a saint

  Still in Arezzo, he was bishop of,

  Sixty years since: he spent to the last doit

  His bishop’s-revenue among the poor,

  And used to tend the needy and the sick,

  Barefoot, because of his humility.

  He it was, — when the Granduke Ferdinand

  Swore he would raze our city, plough the place

  And sow it with salt, because we Aretines

  Had tied a rope about the neck, to hale

  The statue of his father from its base

  For hate’s sake, — he availed by prayers and tears

  To pacify the Duke and save the town.

  This was my father’s father’s brother. You see,

  For his sake, how it was I had a right

  To the self-same office, bishop in the egg,

  So, grew i’ the garb and prattled in the school,

  Was made expect, from infancy almost,

  The proper mood o’ the priest; till time ran by

  And brought the day when I must read the vows,

  Declare the world renounced and undertake

  To become priest and leave probation, — leap

  Over the ledge into the other life,

  Having gone trippingly hitherto up to the height

  O’er the wan water. Just a vow to read!

  I stopped short awe-struck. “How shall holiest flesh

  “Engage to keep such vow inviolate,

  “How much less mine, — I know myself too weak,

  “Unworthy! Choose a worthier stronger man!”

  And the very Bishop smiled and stopped the mouth

  In its mid-protestation. “Incapable?

  “Qualmish of conscience? Thou ingenuous boy!

  “Clear up the clouds and cast thy scruples far!

  “I satisfy thee there’s an easier sense

  “Wherein to take such vow than suits the first

  “Rough rigid reading. Mark what makes all smooth,

  “Nay, has been even a solace to myself!

  “The Jews who needs must, in their synagogue,

  “Utter sometimes the holy name of God,

  “A thing their superstition boggles at,

  “Pronounce aloud the ineffable sacrosanct, —

  “How does their shrewdness help them? In this wise;

  “Another set of sounds they substitute,

  “Jumble so consonants and vowels — how

  “Should I know? — that there grows
from out the old

  “Quite a new word that means the very same —

  “And o’er the hard place slide they with a smile.

  “Giuseppe Maria Caponsacchi mine,

  “Nobody wants you in these latter days

  “To prop the Church by breaking your back-bone, —

  “As the necessary way was once, we know,

  “When Dioclesian flourished and his like;

  “That building of the buttress-work was done

  “By martyrs and confessors: let it bide,

  “Add not a brick, but, where you see a chink,

  “Stick in a sprig of ivy or root a rose

  “Shall make amends and beautify the pile!

  “We profit as you were the painfullest

  “O’ the martyrs, and you prove yourself a match

  “For the cruellest confessor ever was,

  “If you march boldly up and take your stand

  “Where their blood soaks, their bones yet strew the soil,

  “And cry ‘Take notice, I the young and free

  “‘And well-to-do i’ the world, thus leave the world,

  “‘Cast in my lot thus with no gay young world

  “‘But the grand old Church: she tempts me of the two!’

  “Renounce the world? Nay, keep and give it us!

  “Let us have you, and boast of what you bring.

  “We want the pick o’ the earth to practise with,

  “Not its offscouring, halt and deaf and blind

  “In soul and body. There’s a rubble-stone

  “Unfit for the front o’ the building, stuff to stow

  “In a gap behind and keep us weather-tight;

  “There’s porphyry for the prominent place. Good lack!

  “Saint Paul has had enough and to spare, I trow,

  “Of ragged run-away Onesimus:

  “He wants the right-hand with the signet-ring

  “Of King Agrippa, now, to shake and use.

  “I have a heavy scholar cloistered up

  “Close under lock and key, kept at his task

  “Of letting Fenelon know the fool he is,

  “In a book I promise Christendom next Spring.

  “Why, if he covets so much meat, the clown,

  “As a lark’s wing next Friday, or, any day,

  “Diversion beyond catching his own fleas,

  “He shall be properly swinged, I promise him.

  “But you, who are so quite another paste

  “Of a man, — do you obey me? Cultivate

  “Assiduous, that superior gift you have

  “Of making madrigals — (who told me? Ah!)

  “Get done a Marinesque Adoniad straight

  “With a pulse o’ the blood a-pricking, here and there

  “That I may tell the lady, ‘And he’s ours!”‘

  So I became a priest: those terms changed all,

  I was good enough for that, nor cheated so;

  I could live thus and still hold head erect.

  Now you see why I may have been before

  A fribble and coxcomb, yet, as priest, break word

  Nowise, to make you disbelieve me now.

  I need that you should know my truth. Well, then,

  According to prescription did I live,

  — Conformed myself, both read the breviary

  And wrote the rhymes, was punctual to my place

  I’ the Pieve, and as diligent at my post

  Where beauty and fashion rule. I throve apace,

  Sub-deacon, Canon, the authority

  For delicate play at tarocs, and arbiter

  O’ the magnitude of fan-mounts: all the while

  Wanting no whit the advantage of a hint

  Benignant to the promising pupil, — thus:

  “Enough attention to the Countess now,

  “The young one; ‘tis her mother rules the roast,

  “We know where, and puts in a word: go pay

  “Devoir to-morrow morning after mass!

  “Break that rash promise to preach, Passion-week!

  “Has it escaped you the Archbishop grunts

  “And snuffles when one grieves to tell his Grace

  “No soul dares treat the subject of the day

  “Since his own masterly handling it (ha, ha!)

  “Five years ago, — when somebody could help

  “And touch up an odd phrase in time of need,

  “(He, he!) — and somebody helps you, my son!

  “Therefore, don’t prove so indispensable

  “At the Pieve, sit more loose i’ the seat, nor grow

  “A fixture by attendance morn and eve!

  “Arezzo’s just a haven midway Rome —

  “Rome’s the eventual harbour, — make for port,

  “Crowd sail, crack cordage! And your cargo be

  “A polished presence, a genteel manner, wit

  “At will, and tact at every pore of you!

  “I sent our lump of learning, Brother Clout,

  “And Father Slouch, our piece of piety,

  “To see Rome and try suit the Cardinal.

  “Thither they clump-clumped, beads and book in hand,

  “And ever since ‘tis meat for man and maid

  “How both flopped down, prayed blessing on bent pate

  “Bald many an inch beyond the tonsure’s need,

  “Never once dreaming, the two moony dolts,

  “There’s nothing moves his Eminence so much

  “As — far from all this awe at sanctitude —

  “Heads that wag, eyes that twinkle, modified mirth

  “At the closet-lectures on the Latin tongue

  “A lady learns so much by, we know where.

  “Why, body o’ Bacchus, you should crave his rule

  “For pauses in the elegiac couplet, chasms

  “Permissible only to Catullus! There!

  “Now go do duty: brisk, break Priscian’s head

  “By reading the day’s office — there’s no help.

  “You’ve Ovid in your poke to plaster that;

  “Amen’s at the end of all: then sup with me!”

  Well, after three or four years of this life,

  In prosecution of my calling, I

  Found myself at the theatre one night

  With a brother Canon, in a mood and mind

  Proper enough for the place, amused or no:

  When I saw enter, stand, and seat herself

  A lady, young, tall, beautiful, strange, and sad.

  It was as when, in our cathedral once,

  As I got yawningly through matin-song,

  I saw facchini bear a burden up,

  Base it on the high-altar, break away

  A board or two, and leave the thing inside

  Lofty and lone: and lo, when next I looked,

  There was the Rafael! I was still one stare,

  When — ”Nay, I’ll make her give you back your gaze” —

  Said Canon Conti; and at the word he tossed

  A paper-twist of comfits to her lap,

  And dodged and in a trice was at my back

  Nodding from over my shoulder. Then she turned,

  Looked our way, smiled the beautiful sad strange smile.

  “Is not she fair? ‘Tis my new cousin,” said he:

  “The fellow lurking there i’ the black o’ the box

  “Is Guido, the old scapegrace: she’s his wife,

  “Married three years since: how his Countship sulks!

  “He has brought little back from Rome beside,

  “After the bragging, bullying. A fair face,

  “And — they do say — a pocket-full of gold

  “When he can worry both her parents dead.

  “I don’t go much there, for the chamber’s cold

  “And the coffee pale. I got a turn at first

  “Paying my duty, — I observed they crouched

  “ — The two old frightened family spectres,
close

  “In a corner, each on each like mouse on mouse

  “I’ the cat’s cage: ever since, I stay at home.

  “Hallo, there’s Guido, the black, mean, and small,

  “Bends his brows on us — please to bend your own

  “On the shapely nether limbs of Light-skirts there

  “By way of a diversion! I was a fool

  “To fling the sweetmeats. Prudence, for God’s love!

  “To-morrow I’ll make my peace, e’en tell some fib,

  “Try if I can’t find means to take you there.”

  That night and next day did the gaze endure,

  Burnt to my brain, as sunbeam thro’ shut eyes,

  And not once changed the beautiful sad strange smile.

  At vespers Conti leaned beside my seat

  I’ the choir, — part said, part sung — ”In ex-cel-sis —

  “All’s to no purpose: I have louted low,

  “But he saw you staring — quia sub — don’t incline

  “To know you nearer: him we would not hold

  “For Hercules, — the man would lick your shoe

  “If you and certain efficacious friends

  “Managed him warily, — but there’s the wife:

  “Spare her, because he beats her, as it is,

  “She’s breaking her heart quite fast enough — jam tu —

  “So, be you rational and make amends

  “With little Light-skirts yonder — in secula

  “Secu-lo-o-o-o-rum. Ah, you rogue! Every one knows

  “What great dame she makes jealous: one against one,

  “Play, and win both!”

  Sirs, ere the week was out,

  I saw and said to myself “Light-skirts hides teeth

  “Would make a dog sick, — the great dame shows spite

  “Should drive a cat mad: ‘tis but poor work this —

  “Counting one’s fingers till the sonnet’s crowned.

  “I doubt much if Marino really be

  “A better bard than Dante after all.

  “‘Tis more amusing to go pace at eve

  “I’ the Duomo, — watch the day’s last gleam outside

  “Turn, as into a skirt of God’s own robe,

  “Those lancet-windows’ jewelled miracle, —

  “Than go eat the Archbishop’s ortolans,

  “Digest his jokes. Luckily Lent is near:

  “Who cares to look will find me in my stall

  “At the Pieve, constant to this faith at least —

  “Never to write a canzonet any more.”

  So, next week, ‘twas my patron spoke abrupt,

  In altered guise, “Young man, can it be true

  “That after all your promise of sound fruit,

  “You have kept away from Countess young or old

  “And gone play truant in church all day long?

  “Are you turning Molinist?” I answered quick