Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  (Whate’er the chance) which first arresting eye, warned soul

  That, under wrong enough and ravage, lay the whole

  O’ the loveliness it “loved” — I take the accepted phrase?

  LI.

  So I account for tastes: each chooses, none gainsays

  The fancy of his fellow, a paradise for him,

  A hell for all beside. You can but crown the brim

  O’ the cup; if it be full, what matters less or more?

  Let each, i’ the world, amend his love, as I, o’ the shore

  My sketch, and the result as undisputed be!

  Their handiwork to them, and my Elvire to me:

  — Result more beautiful than beauty’s self, when lo,

  What was my Rafael turns my Michelagnolo!

  LII.

  For, we two boast, beside our pearl, a diamond.

  I’ the palace-gallery, the corridor beyond,

  Upheaves itself a marble, a magnitude man-shaped

  As snow might be. One hand, — the Master’s, — smoothed and scraped

  That mass, he hammered on and hewed at, till he hurled

  Life out of death, and left a challenge: for the world,

  Death still, — since who shall dare, close to the image, say

  If this be purposed Art, or mere mimetic play

  Of Nature? — wont to deal with crag or cloud, as stuff

  To fashion novel forms, like forms we know, enough

  For recognition, but enough unlike the same,

  To leave no hope ourselves may profit by her game;

  Death therefore to the world. Step back a pace or two!

  And then, who dares dispute the gradual birth its due

  Of breathing life, or breathless immortality,

  Where out she stands, and yet stops short, half bold, half shy,

  Hesitates on the threshold of things, since partly blent

  With stuff she needs must quit, her native element

  I’ the mind o’ the Master, — what’s the creature, deardivine

  Yet earthly-awful too, so manly-feminine,

  Pretends this white advance? What startling brain-escape

  Of Michelagnolo takes elemental shape?

  I think he meant the daughter of the old man o’ the sea,

  Emerging from her wave, goddess Eidotheé —

  She who, in elvish sport, spite with benevolence

  Mixed Mab wise up, must needs instruct the Hero whence

  Salvation dawns o’er that mad misery of his isle.

  Yes, she imparts to him, by what a pranksome wile

  He may surprise her sire, asleep beneath a rock,

  When he has told their tale, amid his web-foot flock

  Of sea-beasts, “fine fat seals with bitter breath!” laughs she

  At whom she likes to save, no less: Eidotheé,

  Whom you shall never face evolved, in earth, in air,

  In wave; but, manifest i’ the soul’s domain, why, there

  She ravishingly moves to meet you, all through aid

  O’ the soul! Bid shine what should, dismiss into the shade

  What should not be, — and there triumphs the paramount

  Emprise o’ the Master! But, attempt to make account

  Of what the sense, without soul’s help, perceives? I bought

  That work — (despite plain proof, whose hand it was had wrought

  I’ the rough: I think we trace the tool of triple tooth,

  Here, there and everywhere) — bought dearly that uncouth

  Unwieldy bulk, for just ten dollars — ”Bulk, would fetch —

  Converted into lime — some five pauls!” grinned a wretch,

  Who, bound on business, paused to hear the bargaining,

  And would have pitied me “but for the fun o’ the thing!”

  LIII.

  Shall such a wretch be — you? Must — while I show Elvire

  Shaming all other forms, seen as I see her here

  I’ the soul, — this other-you perversely look outside,

  And ask me, “Where i’ the world is charm to be descried

  I’ the tall thin personage, with paled eye, pensive face,

  Any amount of love, and some remains of grace?”

  See yourself in my soul!

  LIV.

  And what a world for each

  Must somehow be i’ the soul, — accept that mode of speech, —

  Whether an aura gird the soul, wherein it seems

  To float and move, a belt of all the glints and gleams

  It struck from out that world, its weaklier fellows found

  So dead and cold; or whether these not so much surround,

  As pass into the soul itself, add worth to worth,

  As wine enriches blood, and straightway send it forth,

  Conquering and to conquer, through all eternity,

  That’s battle without end.

  LV.

  I search but cannot see

  What purpose serves the soul that strives, or world it tries

  Conclusions with, unless the fruit of victories

  Stay, one and all, stored up and guaranteed its own

  For ever, by some mode whereby shall be made known

  The gain of every life. Death reads the title clear —

  What each soul for itself conquered from out things here:

  Since, in the seeing soul, all worth lies, I assert, —

  And nought i’ the world, which, save for soul that sees, inert

  Was, is, and would be ever, — stuff for transmuting, — null

  And void until man’s breath evoke the beautiful —

  But, touched aright, prompt yields each particle its tongue

  Of elemental flame, — no matter whence flame sprung

  From gums and spice, or else from straw and rottenness,

  So long as soul has power to make them burn, express

  What lights and warms henceforth, leaves only ash behind,

  Howe’er the chance: if soul be privileged to find

  Food so soon that, by first snatch of eye, suck of breath,

  It can absorb pure life: or, rather, meeting death

  I’ the shape of ugliness, by fortunate recoil

  So put on its resource, it find therein a foil

  For a new birth of life, the challenged soul’s response

  To ugliness and death, — creation for the nonce.

  LVI.

  I gather heart through just such conquests of the soul,

  Through evocation out of that which, on the whole,

  Was rough, ungainly, partial accomplishment, at best,

  And — what, at worst, save failure to spit at and detest? —

  — Through transference of all, achieved in visible things,

  To where, secured from wrong, rest soul’s imaginings —

  Through ardour to bring help just where completion halts,

  Do justice to the purpose, ignore the slips and faults —

  And, last, through waging with deformity a fight

  Which wrings thence, at the end, precise its opposite.

  I praise the loyalty o’ the scholar, — stung by taunt

  Of fools “Does this evince thy Master men so vaunt?

  Did he then perpetrate the plain abortion here?”

  Who cries “His work am I! full fraught by him, I clear

  His fame from each result of accident and time,

  Myself restore his work to its fresh morning-prime,

  Not daring touch the mass of marble, fools deride,

  But putting my idea in plaster by its side,

  His, since mine; I, he made, vindicate who made me!”

  LVII.

  For, you must know, I too achieved Eidotheé,

  In silence and by night — dared justify the lines

  Plain to my soul, although, to sense, that triple-tine’s

  Achievement halt half-way, break down, or leave a blank.

  If s
he stood forth at last, the Master was to thank!

  Yet may there not have smiled approval in his eyes —

  That one at least was left who, born to recognize

  Perfection in the piece imperfect, worked, that night,

  In silence, such his faith, until the apposite

  Design was out of him, truth palpable once more?

  And then, — for at one blow, its fragments strewed the floor, —

  Recalled the same to live within his soul as heretofore.

  LVIII.

  And, even as I hold and have Eidotheé,

  I say, I cannot think that gain, — which would not be

  Except a special soul had gained it, — that such gain

  Can ever be estranged, do aught but appertain

  Immortally, by right firm, indefeasible,

  To who performed the feat, through God’s grace and man’s will!

  Gain, never shared by those who practised with earth’s stuff,

  And spoiled whate’er they touched, leaving its roughness rough,

  Its blankness bare, and, when the ugliness opposed,

  Either struck work or laughed “He doted or he dozed!”

  LIX.

  While, oh, how all the more will love become intense

  Hereafter, when “to love” means yearning to dispense,

  Each soul, its own amount of gain through its own mode

  Of practising with life, upon some soul which owed

  Its treasure, all diverse and yet in worth the same,

  To new work and changed way! Things furnish you rose-flame,

  Which burn up red, green, blue, nay, yellow more than needs,

  For me, I nowise doubt; why doubt a time succeeds

  When each one may impart, and each receive, both share

  The chemic secret, learn, — where I lit force, why there

  You drew forth lambent pity, — where I found only food

  For self-indulgence, you still blew a spark at brood

  I’ the greyest ember, stopped not till self-sacrifice imbued

  Heaven’s face with flame? What joy, when each may supplement

  The other, changing each as changed, till, wholly blent,

  Our old things shall be new, and, what we both ignite,

  Fuse, lose the varicolor in achromatic white!

  Exemplifying law, apparent even now

  In the eternal progress, — love’s law, which I avow

  And thus would formulate: each soul lives, longs and works

  For itself, by itself, — because a lodestar lurks,

  An other than itself, — in whatsoe’er the niche

  Of mistiest heaven it hide, whoe’er the Glumdalclich

  May grasp the Gulliver: or it, or he, or she —

  Theosutos e broteios eper kekramene, —

  (For fun’s sake, where the phrase has fastened, leave it fixed!

  So soft it says, — ”God, man, or both together mixed”!)

  This, guessed at through the flesh, by parts which prove the whole,

  This constitutes the soul discernible by soul

  — Elvire, by me!

  LX.

  “And then” — (pray you, permit remain

  This hand upon my arm! — your cheek dried, if you deign,

  Choosing my shoulder) — ”then” — (Stand up for, boldly state

  The objection in its length and breadth!) “you abdicate,

  With boast yet on your lip, soul’s empire, and accept

  The rule of sense; the Man, from monarch’s throne has stept —

  Leapt, rather, at one bound, to base, and there lies, Brute.

  You talk of soul, — how soul, in search of soul to suit,

  Must needs review the sex, the army, rank and file

  Of womankind, report no face nor form so vile

  But that a certain worth, by certain signs, may thence

  Evolve itself and stand confessed — to soul — by sense.

  Sense? Oh, the loyal bee endeavours for the hive!

  Disinterested hunts the flower-field through, alive

  Not one mean moment, no, — suppose on flower he light, —

  To his peculiar drop, petal-dew perquisite,

  Matter-of-course snatched snack: unless he taste, how try?

  This, light on tongue-tip laid, allows him pack his thigh,

  Transport all he counts prize, provision for the comb,

  Food for the future day, — a banquet, but at home!

  Soul? Ere you reach Fifine’s, some flesh may be to pass!

  That bombéd brow, that eye, a kindling chrysopras,

  Beneath its stiff black lash, inquisitive how speeds

  Each functionary limb, how play of foot succeeds,

  And how you let escape or duly sympathize

  With gastroknemian grace, — true, your soul tastes and tries,

  And trifles time with these, but, fear not, will arrive

  At essence in the core, bring honey home to hive,

  Brain-stock and heart-stuff both — to strike objectors dumb —

  Since only soul affords the soul fit pabulum!

  Be frank for charity! Who is it you deceive —

  Yourself or me or God, with all this make-believe?”

  LXI.

  And frank I will respond as you interrogate.

  Ah, Music, wouldst thou help! Words struggle with the weight

  So feebly of the False, thick element between

  Our soul, the True, and Truth! which, but that intervene

  False shows of things, were reached as easily by thought

  Reducible to word, as now by yearnings wrought

  Up with thy fine free force, oh Music, that canst thrid,

  Electrically win a passage through the lid

  Of earthly sepulchre, our words may push against,

  Hardly transpierce as thou! Not dissipate, thou deign’st,

  So much as tricksily elude what words attempt

  To heave away, i’ the mass, and let the soul, exempt

  From all that vapoury obstruction, view, instead

  Of glimmer underneath, a glory overhead.

  Not feebly, like our phrase, against the barrier go

  In suspirative swell the authentic notes I know,

  By help whereof, I would our souls were found without

  The pale, above the dense and dim which breeds the doubt!

  But Music, dumb for you, withdraws her help from me;

  And, since to weary words recourse again must be,

  At least permit they rest their burthen here and there,

  Music-like: cover space! My answer, — need you care

  If it exceed the bounds, reply to questioning

  You never meant should plague? Once fairly on the wing,

  Let me flap far and wide!

  LXII.

  For this is just the time,

  The place, the mood in you and me, when all things chime.

  Clash forth life’s common chord, whence, list how there ascend

  Harmonics far and faint, till our perception end, —

  Reverberated notes whence we construct the scale

  Embracing what we know and feel and are! How fail

  To find or, better, lose your question, in this quick

  Reply which nature yields, ample and catholic?

  For, arm in arm, we two have reached, nay, passed, you see,

  The village-precinct; sun sets mild on Sainte Marie —

  We only catch the spire, and yet I seem to know

  What’s hid i’ the turn o’ the hill: how all the graves must glow

  Soberly, as each warms its little iron cross,

  Flourished about with gold, and graced (if private loss

  Be fresh) with stiff rope-wreath of yellow crisp beadblooms

  Which tempt down birds to pay their supper, mid the tombs,

  With prattle good as song, amuse the dead awhile,

  If couched they hear beneath the matt
ed camomile!

  LXIII.

  Bid them good-bye before last friend has sung and supped!

  Because we pick our path and need our eyes, — abrupt

  Descent enough, — but here’s the beach, and there’s the bay,

  And, opposite, the streak of Île Noirmoutier.

  Thither the waters tend; they freshen as they haste,

  At feel o’ the night-wind, though, by cliff and cliff embraced,

  This breadth of blue retains its self-possession still;

  As you and I intend to do, who take our fill

  Of sights and sounds — soft sound, the countless hum and skip

  Of insects we disturb, and that good fellowship

  Of rabbits our foot-fall sends huddling, each to hide

  He best knows how and where; and what whirred past, wings wide?

  That was an owl, their young may justlier apprehend!

  Though you refuse to speak, your beating heart, my friend,

  I feel against my arm, — though your bent head forbids

  A look into your eyes, yet, on my cheek, their lids

  That ope and shut, soft send a silken thrill the same.

  Well, out of all and each these nothings, comes — what came

  Often enough before, the something that would aim

  Once more at the old mark: the impulse to at last

  Succeed where hitherto was failure in the past,

  And yet again essay the adventure. Clearlier sings

  No bird to its couched corpse “Into the truth of things —

  Out of their falseness rise, and reach thou, and remain!”

  LXIV.

  “That rise into the true out of the false — explain?”

  May an example serve? In yonder bay I bathed,

  This sunny morning: swam my best, then hung, half swathed

  With chill, and half with warmth, i’ the channel’s midmost deep:

  You know how one — not treads, but stands in water? Keep

  Body and limbs below, hold head back, uplift chin,

  And, for the rest, leave care! If brow, eyes, mouth, should win

  Their freedom, — excellent! If they must brook the surge,

  No matter though they sink, let but the nose emerge.

  So, all of me in brine lay soaking: did I care

  One jot? I kept alive by man’s due breath of air

  I’ the nostrils, high and dry. At times, o’er these would run

  The ripple, even wash the wavelet, — morning’s sun

  Tempted advance, no doubt: and always flash of froth,

  Fish-outbreak, bubbling by, would find me nothing loth

  To rise and look around; then all was overswept

  With dark and death at once. But trust the old adept!

  Back went again the head, a merest motion made,