Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Fin-fashion, either hand, and nostril soon conveyed

  Assurance light and life were still in reach as erst:

  Always the last and, — wait and watch, — sometimes the first.

  Try to ascend breast-high? wave arms wide free of tether?

  Be in the air and leave the water altogether?

  Under went all again, till I resigned myself

  To only breathe the air, that’s footed by an elf,

  And only swim the water, that’s native to a fish.

  But there is no denying that, ere I curbed my wish,

  And schooled my restive arms, salt entered mouth and eyes

  Often enough — sun, sky, and air so tantalize!

  Still, the adept swims, this accorded, that denied;

  Can always breathe, sometimes see and be satisfied!

  LXV.

  I liken to this play o’ the body, — fruitless strife

  To slip the sea and hold the heaven, — my spirit’s life

  ‘Twixt false, whence it would break, and true, where it would bide.

  I move in, yet resist, am upborne every side

  By what I beat against, an element too gross

  To live in, did not soul duly obtain her dose

  Of life-breath, and inhale from truth’s pure plenitude

  Above her, snatch and gain enough to just illude

  With hope that some brave bound may baffle evermore

  The obstructing medium, make who swam henceforward soar:

  — Gain scarcely snatched when, foiled by the very effort, sowse,

  Underneath ducks the soul, her truthward yearnings dowse

  Deeper in falsehood! ay, but fitted less and less

  To bear in nose and mouth old briny bitterness

  Proved alien more and more: since each experience proves

  Air — the essential good, not sea, wherein who moves

  Must thence, in the act, escape, apart from will or wish.

  Move a mere hand to take waterweed, jelly-fish,

  Upward you tend! And yet our business with the sea

  Is not with air, but just o’ the water, watery:

  We must endure the false, no particle of which

  Do we acquaint us with, but up we mount a pitch

  Above it, find our head reach truth, while hands explore

  The false below: so much while here we bathe, — no more!

  LXVI.

  Now, there is one prime point (hear and be edified!)

  One truth more true for me than any truth beside —

  To-wit, that I am I, who have the power to swim,

  The skill to understand the law whereby each limb

  May bear to keep immersed, since, in return, made sure

  That its mere movement lifts head clean through coverture.

  By practice with the false, I reach the true? Why, thence

  It follows, that the more I gain self-confidence,

  Get proof I know the trick, can float, sink, rise, at will,

  The better I submit to what I have the skill

  To conquer in my turn, even now, and by and by

  Leave wholly for the land, and there laugh, shake me dry

  To last drop, saturate with noonday — no need more

  Of wet and fret, plagued once: on Pornic’s placid shore,

  Abundant air to breathe, sufficient sun to feel!

  Meantime I buoy myself: no whit my senses reel

  When over me there breaks a billow; nor, elate

  Too much by some brief taste, I quaff intemperate

  The air, o’ertop breast-high the wave-environment.

  Full well I know the thing I grasp, as if intent

  To hold, — my wandering wave, — will not be grasped at all:

  The solid-seeming grasped, the handful great or small

  Must go to nothing, glide through fingers fast enough;

  But none the less, to treat liquidity as stuff —

  Though failure — certainly succeeds beyond its aim,

  Sends head above, past thing that hands miss, all the same.

  LXVII.

  So with this wash o’ the world, wherein life-long we drift;

  We push and paddle through the foam by making shift

  To breathe above at whiles when, after deepest duck

  Down underneath the show, we put forth hand and pluck

  At what seems somehow like reality — a soul.

  I catch at this and that, to capture and control,

  Presume I hold a prize, discover that my pains

  Are run to nought: my hands are baulked, my head regains

  The surface where I breathe and look about, a space.

  The soul that helped me mount? Swallowed up in the race

  O’ the tide, come who knows whence, gone gaily who knows where!

  I thought the prize was mine; I flattered myself there.

  It did its duty, though: I felt it, it felt me,

  Or, where I look about and breathe, I should not be.

  The main point is — the false fluidity was bound

  Acknowledge that it frothed o’er substance, nowise found

  Fluid, but firm and true. Man, outcast, “howls,” — at rods? —

  If “sent in playful spray a-shivering to his gods!”

  Childishest childe, man makes thereby no bad exchange.

  Stay with the flat-fish, thou! We like the upper range

  Where the “gods” live, perchance the dæmons also dwell:

  Where operates a Power, which every throb and swell

  Of human heart invites that human soul approach,

  “Sent” near and nearer still, however “spray” encroach

  On “shivering” flesh below, to altitudes, which gained,

  Evil proves good, wrong right, obscurity explained,

  And “howling” childishness. Whose howl have we to thank,

  If all the dogs ‘gan bark and puppies whine, till sank

  Each yelper’s tail ‘twixt legs? for Huntsman Commonsense

  Came to the rescue, bade prompt thwack of thong dispense

  Quiet i’ the kennel; taught that ocean might be blue,

  And rolling and much more, and yet the soul have, too,

  Its touch of God’s own flame, which He may so expand

  “Who measurèd the waters i’ the hollow of His hand”

  That ocean’s self shall dry, turn dew-drop in respect

  Of all-triumphant fire, matter with intellect

  Once fairly matched; bade him who egged on hounds to bay,

  Go curse, i’ the poultry yard, his kind: “there let him lay”

  The swan’s one addled egg: which yet shall put to use,

  Rub breast-bone warm against, so many a sterile goose!

  LXVIII.

  No, I want sky not sea, prefer the larks to shrimps,

  And never dive so deep but that I get a glimpse

  O’ the blue above, a breath of the air around. Elvire,

  I seize — by catching at the melted beryl here,

  The tawny hair that just has trickled off, — Fifine!

  Did not we two trip forth to just enjoy the scene,

  The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage,

  Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage —

  Dabble, and there an end, with foam and froth o’er face,

  Till suddenly Fifine suggested change of place?

  Now we taste æther, scorn the wave, and interchange apace

  No ordinary thoughts, but such as evidence

  The cultivated mind in both. On what pretence

  Are you and I to sneer at who lent help to hand,

  And gave the lucky lift?

  LXIX.

  Still sour? I understand!

  One ugly circumstance discredits my fair plan —

  That Woman does the work; I waive the help of Man.

  “Why should experiment be tried with only waves,

  When solid sp
ars float round? Still some Thalassia saves

  Too pertinaciously, as though no Triton, bluff

  As e’er blew brine from conch, were free to help enough!

  Surely, to recognize a man, his mates serve best!

  Why is there not the same or greater interest

  In the strong spouse as in the pretty partner, pray,

  Were recognition just your object, as you say,

  Amid this element o’ the false?”

  LXX.

  We come to terms.

  I need to be proved true; and nothing so confirms

  One’s faith in the prime point that one’s alive, not dead,

  In all Descents to Hell whereof I ever read,

  As when a phantom there, male enemy or friend,

  Or merely stranger-shade, is struck, is forced suspend

  His passage: “You that breathe, along with us the ghosts?”

  Here, why must it be still a woman that accosts?

  LXXI.

  Because, one woman’s worth, in that respect, such hairy hosts

  Of the other sex and sort! Men? Say you have the power

  To make them yours, rule men, throughout life’s little hour,

  According to the phrase; what follows? Men, you make,

  By ruling them, your own: each man for his own sake

  Accepts you as his guide, avails him of what worth

  He apprehends in you to sublimate his earth

  With fire: content, if so you convoy him through night,

  That you shall play the sun, and he, the satellite,

  Pilfer your light and heat and virtue, starry pelf,

  While, caught up by your course, he turns upon himself.

  Women rush into you, and there remain absorbed.

  Beside, ‘t is only men completely formed, full-orbed,

  Are fit to follow track, keep pace, illustrate so

  The leader: any sort of woman may bestow

  Her atom on the star, or clod she counts for such, —

  Each little making less bigger by just that much.

  Women grow you, while men depend on you at best.

  And what dependence! Bring and put him to the test,

  Your specimen disciple, a handbreadth separate

  From you, he almost seemed to touch before! Abate

  Complacency you will, I judge, at what ‘s divulged!

  Some flabbiness you fixed, some vacancy outbulged,

  Some — much — nay, all, perhaps, the outward man’s your work:

  But, inside man? — find him, wherever he may lurk,

  And where’s a touch of you in his true self?

  LXXII.

  I wish

  Some wind would waft this way a glassy bubble-fish

  O’ the kind the sea inflates, and show you, once detached

  From wave . . . or no, the event is better told than watched:

  Still may the thing float free, globose and opaline

  All over, save where just the amethysts combine

  To blue their best, rim-round the sea-flower with a tinge

  Earth’s violet never knew! Well, ‘neath that gem-tipped fringe,

  A head lurks — of a kind — that acts as stomach too;

  Then comes the emptiness which out the water blew

  So big and belly-like, but, dry of water drained,

  Withers away nine-tenths. Ah, but a tenth remained!

  That was the creature’s self: no more akin to sea,

  Poor rudimental head and stomach, you agree,

  Than sea’s akin to sun who yonder dips his edge.

  LXXIII.

  But take the rill which ends a race o’er yonder ledge

  O’ the fissured cliff, to find its fate in smoke below!

  Disengage that, and ask — what news of life, you know

  It led, that long lone way, through pasture, plain and waste?

  All’s gone to give the sea! no touch of earth, no taste

  Of air, reserved to tell how rushes used to bring

  The butterfly and bee, and fisher-bird that’s king

  O’ the purple kind, about the snow-soft silver-sweet

  Infant of mist and dew; only these atoms fleet,

  Embittered evermore, to make the sea one drop

  More big thereby — if thought keep count where sense must stop.

  LXXIV.

  The full-blown ingrate, mere recipient of the brine,

  That takes all and gives nought, is Man; the feminine

  Rillet that, taking all and giving nought in turn,

  Goes headlong to her death i’ the sea, without concern

  For the old inland life, snow-soft and silver-clear,

  That’s woman — typified from Fifine to Elvire.

  LXXV.

  Then, how diverse the modes prescribed to who would deal

  With either kind of creature! ‘T is Man, you seek to seal

  Your very own? Resolve, for first step, to discard

  Nine-tenths of what you are! To make, you must be marred, —

  To raise your race, must stoop, — to teach them aught, must learn

  Ignorance, meet half-way what most you hope to spurn

  I’ the sequel. Change yourself, dissimulate the thought

  And vulgarize the word, and see the deed be brought

  To look like nothing done with any such intent

  As teach men — though perchance it teach, by accident!

  So may you master men: assured that if you show

  One point of mastery, departure from the low

  And level, — head or heart-revolt at long disguise,

  Immurement, stifling soul in mediocrities, —

  If inadvertently a gesture, much more, word

  Reveal the hunter no companion for the herd,

  His chance of capture’s gone. Success means, they may snuff,

  Examine, and report, — a brother, sure enough,

  Disports him in brute-guise; for skin is truly skin,

  Horns, hoofs are hoofs and horns, and all, outside and in,

  Is veritable beast, whom fellow-beasts resigned

  May follow, made a prize in honest pride, behind

  One of themselves and not creation’s upstart lord!

  Well, there’s your prize i’ the pound — much joy may it afford

  My Indian! Make survey and tell me, — was it worth

  You acted part so well, went all-fours upon earth

  The live-long day, brayed, belled, and all to bring to pass

  That stags should deign eat hay when winter stints them grass?

  LXXVI.

  So much for men, and how disguise may make them mind

  Their master. But you have to deal with womankind?

  Abandon stratagem for strategy! Cast quite

  The vile disguise away, try truth clean-opposite

  Such creep-and-crawl, stand forth all man and, might it chance,

  Somewhat of angel too! — whate’er inheritance,

  Actual on earth, in heaven prospective, be your boast,

  Lay claim to! Your best self revealed at uttermost, —

  That’s the wise way o’ the strong! And e’en should falsehood tempt

  The weaker sort to swerve, — at least the lie’s exempt

  From slur, that’s loathlier still, of aiming to debase

  Rather than elevate its object. Mimic grace,

  Not make deformity your mask! Be sick by stealth,

  Nor traffic with disease — malingering in health!

  No more of: “Countrymen, I boast me one like you —

  My lot, the common strength, the common weakness too!

  I think the thoughts you think; and if I have the knack

  Of fitting thoughts to words, you peradventure lack,

  Envy me not the chance, yourselves more fortunate!

  Many the loaded ship self-sunk through treasure-freight,

  Many the pregnant brain brought never child to birth,

&n
bsp; Many the great heart broke beneath its girdle-girth!

  Be mine the privilege to supplement defect,

  Give dumbness voice, and let the labouring intellect

  Find utterance in word, or possibly in deed!

  What though I seem to go before? ‘t is you that lead!

  I follow what I see so plain — the general mind

  Projected pillar-wise, flame kindled by the kind,

  Which dwarfs the unit — me — to insignificance!

  Halt you, I stop forthwith, — proceed, I too advance!”

  LXXVII.

  Ay, that’s the way to take with men you wish to lead,

  Instruct and benefit. Small prospect you succeed

  With women so! Be all that’s great and good and wise,

  August, sublime — swell out your frog the right ox-size —

  He’s buoyed like a balloon, to soar, not burst, you ‘ll see!

  The more you prove yourself, less fear the prize will flee

  The captor. Here you start after no pompous stag

  Who condescends be snared, with toss of horn, and brag

  Of bray, and ramp of hoof; you have not to subdue

  The foe through letting him imagine he snares you!

  ‘T is rather with . . .

  LXXVIII.

  Ah, thanks! quick — where the dipping disk

  Shows red against the rise and fall o’ the fin! there frisk

  In shoal the — porpoises? Dolphins, they shall and must

  Cut through the freshening clear — dolphins, my instance just!

  ‘T is fable, therefore truth: who has to do with these,

  Needs never practise trick of going hands and knees

  As beasts require. Art fain the fish to captivate?

  Gather thy greatness round, Arion! Stand in state,

  As when the banqueting thrilled conscious — like a rose

  Throughout its hundred leaves at that approach it knows

  Of music in the bird — while Corinth grew one breast

  A-throb for song and thee; nay, Periander pressed

  The Methymnæan hand, and felt a king indeed, and guessed

  How Phoebus’ self might give that great mouth of the gods

  Such a magnificence of song! The pillar nods,

  Rocks roof, and trembles door, gigantic, post and jamb,

  As harp and voice rend air — the shattering dithyramb!

  So stand thou, and assume the robe that tingles yet

  With triumph; strike the harp, whose every golden fret

  Still smoulders with the flame, was late at fingers’ end —

  So, standing on the bench o’ the ship, let voice expend

  Thy soul, sing, unalloyed by meaner mode, thine own,

  The Orthian lay; then leap from music’s lofty throne,