Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Is your charge to stay with me till I die?

  Be tacit as your bench, then! Use your ears,

  I use my tongue: how glibly yours will run

  At pleasant supper-time . . . God’s curse! . . . to-night

  When all the guests jump up, begin so brisk

  “Welcome, his Eminence who shrived the wretch!

  “Now we shall have the Abate’s story!”

  Life!

  How I could spill this overplus of mine

  Among those hoar-haired, shrunk-shanked, odds and ends

  Of body and soul, old age is chewing dry!

  Those windle-straws that stare while purblind death

  Mows here, mows there, makes hay of juicy me,

  And misses, just the bunch of withered weed,

  Would brighten hell and streak its smoke with flame!

  How the life I could shed yet never shrink,

  Would drench their stalks with sap like grass in May!

  Is it not terrible, I entreat you, Sirs?

  Such manifold and plenitudinous life,

  Prompt at death’s menace to give blow for threat,

  Answer his “Be thou not!” by “Thus I am!” —

  Terrible so to be alive yet die?

  How I live, how I see! so, — how I speak!

  Lucidity of soul unlocks the lips:

  I never had the words at will before.

  How I see all my folly at a glance!

  “A man requires a woman and a wife:”

  There was my folly; I believed the saw:

  I knew that just myself concerned myself,

  Yet needs must look for what I seemed to lack,

  In a woman, — why, the woman’s in the man!

  Fools we are, how we learn things when too late!

  Overmuch life turns round my woman-side;

  The male and female in me, mixed before,

  Settle of a sudden: I’m my wife outright

  In this unmanly appetite for truth,

  This careless courage as to consequence,

  This instantaneous sight through things and through,

  This voluble rhetoric, if you please, — ’tis she!

  Here you have that Pompilia whom I slew,

  Also the folly for which I slew her!

  Fool!

  And, fool-like, what is it I wander from?

  What, of the sharpness of your iron tooth?

  Ah, — that I know the hateful thing: this way.

  I chanced to stroll forth, many a good year gone,

  One warm Spring eve in Rome, and unaware

  Looking, mayhap, to count what stars were out,

  Came on your huge axe in a frame, that falls

  And so cuts off a man’s head underneath,

  Mannaia, — thus we made acquaintance first,

  Out of the way, in a bye-part o’ the town,

  At the Mouth-of-Truth o’ the river-side, you know:

  One goes by the Capitol: and wherefore coy,

  Retiring out of crowded noisy Rome?

  Because a very little time ago

  It had done service, chopped off head from trunk,

  Belonging to a fellow whose poor house

  The thing had made a point to stand before.

  Felice Whatsoever-was-the-name

  Who stabled buffaloes and so gained bread,

  (Our clowns unyoke them in the ground hard by)

  And, after use of much improper speech,

  Had struck at Duke Some-title-or-other’s face,

  Because he kidnapped, carried away and kept

  Felice’s sister that would sit and sing

  I’ the filthy doorway while she plaited fringe

  To deck the brutes with, — on their gear it goes, —

  The good girl with the velvet in her voice.

  So did the Duke, so did Felice, so

  Did Justice, intervening with her axe.

  There the man-mutilating engine stood

  At ease, both gay and grim, like a Swiss guard

  Off duty, — purified itself as well,

  Getting dry, sweet and proper for next week, —

  And doing incidental good, ‘twas hoped

  To the rough lesson-lacking populace

  Who now and then, forsooth, must right their wrongs!

  There stood the twelve-foot square of scaffold, railed

  Considerately round to elbow-height:

  (Suppose an officer should tumble thence

  And sprain his ankle and be lame a month,

  Through starting when the axe fell and head too?)

  Railed likewise were the steps whereby ‘twas reached.

  All of it painted red: red, in the midst,

  Ran up two narrow tall beams barred across,

  Since from the summit, some twelve feet to reach,

  The iron plate with the sharp shearing edge

  Had . . . slammed, jerked, shot or slid, — I shall find which!

  There it lay quiet, fast in its fit place,

  The wooden half-moon collar, now eclipsed

  By the blade which blocked its curvature: apart,

  The other half, — the under half-moon board

  Which, helped by this, completes a neck’s embrace, —

  Joined to a sort of desk that wheels aside

  Out of the way when done with, — down you kneel,

  In you’re wheeled, over you the other drops,

  Tight you are clipped, whiz, there’s the blade on you,

  Out trundles body, down flops head on floor,

  And where’s your soul gone? That, too, I shall find!

  This kneeling-place was red, red, never fear!

  But only slimy-like with paint, not blood,

  For why? a decent pitcher stood at hand,

  A broad dish to hold sawdust, and a broom

  By some unnamed utensil, — scraper-rake, —

  Each with a conscious air of duty done.

  Underneath, loungers, — boys and some few men, —

  Discoursed this platter and the other tool,

  Just as, when grooms tie up and dress a steed,

  Boys lounge and look on, and elucubrate

  What the round brush is used for, what the square, —

  So was explained — to me the skill-less man —

  The manner of the grooming for next world

  Undergone by Felice What’s-his-name.

  There’s no such lovely month in Rome as May —

  May’s crescent is no half-moon of red plank,

  And came now tilting o’er the wave i’ the west,

  One greenish-golden sea, right ‘twixt those bars

  Of the engine — I began acquaintance with,

  Understood, hated, hurried from before,

  To have it out of sight and cleanse my soul!

  Here it is all again, conserved for use:

  Twelve hours hence I may know more, not hate worse.

  That young May-moon-month! Devils of the deep!

  Was not a Pope then Pope as much as now?

  Used not he chirrup o’er the Merry Tales,

  Chuckle, — his nephew so exact the wag

  To play a jealous cullion such a trick

  As wins the wife i’ the pleasant story! Well?

  Why do things change? Wherefore is Rome un-Romed?

  I tell you, ere Felice’s corpse was cold,

  The Duke, that night, threw wide his palace-doors,

  Received the compliments o’ the quality,

  For justice done him, — bowed and smirked his best,

  And in return passed round a pretty thing,

  A portrait of Felice’s sister’s self,

  Florid old rogue Albano’s masterpiece,

  As — better than virginity in rags —

  Bouncing Europa on the back o’ the bull:

  They laughed and took their road the safelier home.

  Ah, but times change, there’s quite another Pope,

  I do
the Duke’s deed, take Felice’s place,

  And, being no Felice, lout and clout,

  Stomach but ill the phrase “I lose my head!”

  How euphemistic! Lose what? Lose your ring,

  Your snuff-box, tablets, kerchief! — but, your head?

  I learnt the process at an early age;

  ‘Twas useful knowledge in those same old days,

  To know the way a head is set on neck.

  My fencing-master urged “Would you excel?

  “Rest not content with mere bold give-and-guard,

  “Nor pink the antagonist somehow-anyhow, —

  “See me dissect a little, and know your game!

  “Only anatomy makes a thrust the thing.”

  Oh Cardinal, those lithe live necks of ours!

  Here go the vertebræ, here’s Atlas, here

  Axis, and here the symphyses stop short,

  So wisely and well, — as, o’er a corpse, we cant, —

  And here’s the silver cord which . . . what’s our word?

  Depends from the gold bowl, which loosed (not “lost”)

  Lets us from heaven to hell, — one chop, we’re loose!

  “And not much pain i’ the process,” quoth the sage:

  Who told him? Not Felice’s ghost, I think!

  Such “losing” is scarce Mother Nature’s mode.

  She fain would have cord ease itself away,

  Worn to a thread by threescore years and ten,

  Snap while we slumber: that seems bearable:

  I’m told one clot of blood extravasate

  Ends one as certainly as Roland’s sword, —

  One drop of lymph suffused proves Oliver’s mace, —

  Intruding, either of the pleasant pair,

  On the arachnoid tunic of my brain.

  That’s Nature’s way of loosing cord! — but Art,

  How of Art’s process with the engine here?

  When bowl and cord alike are crushed across,

  Bored between, bruised through? Why, if Fagon’s self,

  The French Court’s pride, that famed practitioner,

  Would pass his cold pale lightning of a knife

  Pistoja-ware, adroit ‘twixt joint and joint,

  With just a “See how facile, gentlefolks!” —

  The thing were not so bad to bear! Brute force

  Cuts as he comes, breaks in, breaks on, breaks out

  O’ the hard and soft of you: is that the same?

  A lithe snake thrids the hedge, makes throb no leaf:

  A heavy ox sets chest to brier and branch,

  Bursts somehow through, and leaves one hideous hole

  Behind him!

  And why, why must this needs be?

  Oh, if men were but good! They are not good,

  Nowise like Peter: people called him rough,

  But if, as I left Rome, I spoke the Saint,

  — ”Petrus, quo vadis?” — doubtless, I should hear,

  “To free the prisoner and forgive his fault!

  “I plucked the absolute dead from God’s own bar,

  “And raised up Dorcas, — why not rescue thee?”

  What would cost such nullifying word?

  If Innocent succeeds to Peter’s place,

  Let him think Peter’s thought, speak Peter’s speech!

  I say, he is bound to it: friends, how say you?

  Concede I be all one bloodguiltiness

  And mystery of murder in the flesh,

  Why should that fact keep the Pope’s mouth shut fast?

  He execrates my crime, — good! — sees hell yawn

  One inch from the red plank’s end which I press, —

  Nothing is better! What’s the consequence?

  How does a Pope proceed that knows his cue?

  Why, leaves me linger out my minute here,

  Since close on death come judgment and the doom,

  Nor cribs at dawn its pittance from a sheep

  Destined ere dewfall to be butcher’s-meat!

  Think, Sirs, if I had done you any harm,

  And you require the natural revenge,

  Suppose, and so intend to poison me,

  — Just as you take and slip into my draught

  The paperful of powder that clears scores,

  You notice on my brow a certain blue:

  How you both overset the wine at once!

  How you both smile! “Our enemy has the plague!

  “Twelve hours hence he’ll be scraping his bones bare

  “Of that intolerable flesh, and die,

  “Frenzied with pain: no need for poison here!

  “Step aside and enjoy the spectacle!”

  Tender for souls are you, Pope Innocent!

  Christ’s maxim is — one soul outweighs the world:

  Respite me, save a soul, then, curse the world!

  “No,” venerable sire, I hear you smirk,

  “No: for Christ’s gospel changes names, not things,

  “Renews the obsolete, does nothing more!

  “Our fire-new gospel is retinkered law,

  “Our mercy, justice, — Jove’s rechristened God —

  “Nay, whereas, in the popular conceit,

  “‘Tis pity that old harsh Law somehow limps,

  “Lingers on earth, although Law’s day be done, —

  “Else would benignant Gospel interpose,

  “Not furtively as now, but bold and frank

  “O’erflutter us with healing in her wings, —

  “Law is all harshness, Gospel were all love! —

  “We like to put it, on the contrary, —

  “Gospel takes up the rod which Law lets fall;

  “Mercy is vigilant when justice sleeps;

  “Does Law let Guido taste the Gospel-grace?

  “The secular arm allow the spiritual power

  “To act for once? — what compliment so fine

  “As that the Gospel handsomely be harsh,

  “Thrust back Law’s victim on the nice and coy?”

  Yes, you do say so, — else you would forgive

  Me, whom Law dares not touch but tosses you!

  Don’t think to put on the professional face!

  You know what I know, — casuists as you are,

  Each nerve must creep, each hair start, sting, and stand,

  At such illogical inconsequence!

  Dear my friends, do but see! A murder’s tried,

  There are two parties to the cause: I’m one,

  — Defend myself, as somebody must do:

  I have the best o’ the battle: that’s a fact.

  Simple fact, — fancies find no place beside:

  What though half Rome condemned me? Half approved:

  And, none disputes, the luck is mine at last,

  All Rome, i’ the main, acquits me: whereupon

  What has the Pope to ask but “How finds Law?”

  “I find,” replies Law, “I have erred this while:

  “Guilty or guiltless, Guido proves a priest,

  “No layman: he is therefore yours, not mine:

  “I bound him: loose him, you whose will is Christ’s!”

  And now what does this Vicar of the Lord,

  Shepherd o’ the flock, — one of whose charge bleats sore

  For crook’s help from the quag wherein it drowns?

  Law suffers him put forth the crumpled end, —

  His pleasure is to turn staff, use the point,

  And thrust the shuddering sheep he calls a wolf,

  Back and back, down and down to where hell gapes!

  “Guiltless,” cries Law — ”Guilty,” corrects the Pope!

  “Guilty,” for the whim’s sake! “Guilty,” he somehow thinks,

  And anyhow says: ‘tis truth; he dares not lie!

  Others should do the lying. That’s the cause

  Brings you both here: I ought in decency

  Confess to you that I deserve my fate,

  Am guilty, a
s the Pope thinks, — ay, to the end,

  Keep up the jest, lie on, lie ever, lie

  I’ the latest gasp of me! What reason, Sirs?

  Because to-morrow will succeed to-day

  For you, though not for me: and if I stick

  Still to the truth, declare with my last breath,

  I die an innocent and murdered man, —

  Why, there’s the tongue of Rome will wag a-pace

  This time to-morrow, — don’t I hear the talk!

  “So, to the last he proved impenitent?

  “Pagans have said as much of martyred saints!

  “Law demurred, washed her hands of the whole case.

  “Prince Somebody said this, Duke Something, that.

  “Doubtless the man’s dead, dead enough, don’t fear!

  “But, hang it, what if there have been a spice,

  “A touch of . . . eh? You see, the Pope’s so old,

  “Some of us add, obtuse, — age never slips

  “The chance of shoving youth to face death first!”

  And so on. Therefore to suppress such talk

  You two come here, entreat I tell you lies,

  And end, the edifying way. I end,

  Telling the truth! Your self-styled shepherd thieves!

  A thief — and how thieves hate the wolves we know:

  Damage to theft, damage to thrift, all’s one!

  The red hand is sworn foe of the black jaw!

  That’s only natural, that’s right enough:

  But why the wolf should compliment the thief

  With the shepherd’s title, bark out life in thanks,

  And, spiteless, lick the prong that spits him, — eh,

  Cardinal? My Abate, scarcely thus!

  There, let my sheepskin-garb, a curse on’t go —

  Leave my teeth free if I must show my shag!

  Repent? What good shall follow? If I pass

  Twelve hours repenting, will that fact hook fast

  The thirteenth at the horrid dozen’s end?

  If I fall forthwith at your feet, gnash, tear,

  Foam, rave, to give your story the due grace,

  Will that assist the engine half-way back

  Into its hiding-house? — boards, shaking now,

  Bone against bone, like some old skeleton bat

  That wants, now winter’s dead, to wake and prey!

  Will howling put the spectre back to sleep?

  Ah, but I misconceive your object, Sirs!

  Since I want new life like the creature, — life

  Being done with here, begins i’ the world away:

  I shall next have “Come, mortals, and be judged!”

  There’s but a minute betwixt this and then:

  So, quick, be sorry since it saves my soul!

  Sirs, truth shall save it, since no lies assist!

  Hear the truth, you, whatever you style yourselves,

  Civilisation and society!