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Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

Page 166

by Robert Browning


  Clear the arena forthwith! lest the tread

  Of too-much-tried impatience trample out

  Solid and unsubstantial to one blank

  Mud-mixture, picturesque to nobody, —

  And, task done, quarrel with the parts intact

  Whence came the filtered fine dust, whence the crash

  Bides but its time to follow. Quick conclude

  Removal, time effects so tardily,

  Of what is plain obstruction; rubbish cleared,

  Let partial-ruin stand while ruin may,

  And serve world’s use, since use is manifold.

  Repair wreck, stanchion wall to heart’s content,

  But never think of renovation pure

  And simple, which involves creation too.

  Transform and welcome! Yon tall tower may help

  (Though built to be a belfry and nought else)

  Some Father Secchi to tick Venus off

  In transit: never bring there bell again,

  To damage him aloft, brain us below,

  When new vibrations bury both in brick!”

  Monsieur Léonce Miranda, furnishing

  The application at his cost, poor soul!

  Was instanced how, — because the world lay strewn

  With ravage of opinions in his path,

  And neither he, nor any friendly wit,

  Knew and could teach him which was firm, which frail,

  In his adventure to walk straight through life

  The partial-ruin, — in such enterprise,

  He straggled into rubbish, struggled on,

  And stumbled out again observably.

  “Yon buttress still can back me up,” he judged:

  And at a touch down came both he and it.

  “A certain statue, I was warned against,

  Now, by good fortune, lies well under foot,

  And cannot tempt to folly any more:”

  So, lifting eye, aloft since safety lay,

  What did he light on? the Idalian shape,

  The undeposed, erectly Victrix still!

  “These steps ascend the labyrinthine stair

  Whence, darkling and on all-fours, out I stand

  Exalt and safe, and bid low earth adieu —

  For so instructs ‘Advice to who would climb:’“

  And all at once the climbing landed him

  — Where, is my story.

  Take its moral first.

  Do you advise a climber? Have respect

  To the poor head, with more or less of brains

  To spill, should breakage follow your advice!

  Head-break to him will be heart-break to you

  For having preached “Disturb no ruins here!

  Are not they crumbling of their own accord?

  Meantime, let poets, painters keep a prize!

  Beside, a sage pedestrian picks his way.”

  A sage pedestrian — such as you and I!

  What if there trip, in merry carelessness,

  And come to grief, a weak and foolish child?

  Be cautious how you counsel climbing, then!

  Are you adventurous and climb yourself?

  Plant the foot warily, accept a staff,

  Stamp only where you probe the standing-point,

  Move forward, well assured that move you may:

  Where you mistrust advance, stop short, there stick!

  This makes advancing slow and difficult?

  Hear what comes of the endeavour of brisk youth

  To foot it fast and easy! Keep this same

  Notion of outside mound and inside mash,

  Towers yet intact round turfy rottenness,

  Symbolic partial-ravage, — keep in mind!

  Here fortune placed his feet who first of all

  Found no incumbrance, till head found . . . But hear!

  This son and heir then of the jeweller,

  Monsieur Léonce Miranda, at his birth,

  Mixed the Castilian passionate blind blood

  With answerable gush, his mother’s gift,

  Of spirit, French and critical and cold.

  Such mixture makes a battle in the brain,

  Ending as faith or doubt gets uppermost;

  Then will has way a moment, but no more:

  So nicely-balanced are the adverse strengths,

  That victory entails reverse next time.

  The tactics of the two are different

  And equalize the odds: for blood comes first,

  Surrounding life with undisputed faith.

  But presently, a new antagonist,

  By scarce-suspected passage in the dark,

  Steals spirit, fingers at each crevice found

  Athwart faith’s stronghold, fronts the astonished man:

  “Such pains to keep me far, yet here stand I,

  Your doubt inside the faith-defence of you!”

  With faith it was friends bulwarked him about

  From infancy to boyhood; so, by youth,

  He stood impenetrably circuited,

  Heaven-high and low as hell: what lacked he thus,

  Guarded against aggression, storm or sap?

  What foe would dare approach? Historic Doubt?

  Ay, were there some half-knowledge to attack!

  Batter doubt’s best, sheer ignorance will beat.

  Acumen metaphysic? — drills its way

  Through what, I wonder! A thick feather-bed

  Of thoughtlessness, no operating tool —

  Framed to transpierce the flint-stone — fumbles at,

  With chance of finding an impediment!

  This Ravissante, now: when he saw the church

  For the first time, and to his dying-day,

  His firm belief was that the name fell fit

  From the Delivering Virgin, niched and known;

  As if there wanted records to attest

  The appellation was a pleasantry,

  A pious rendering of Rare Vissante,

  The proper name which erst our province bore.

  He would have told you that Saint Aldabert

  Founded the church, (Heaven early favoured France,)

  About the second century from Christ;

  Though the true man was Bishop of Raimbaux,

  Eleventh in succession, Eldobert,

  Who flourished after some six hundred years.

  He it was brought the image “from afar,”

  (Made out of stone the place produces still)

  “Infantine Art divinely artless,” (Art

  In the decrepitude of Decadence,)

  And set it up a-working miracles

  Until the Northmen’s fury laid it low,

  Not long, however: an egregious sheep,

  Zealous with scratching hoof and routing horn,

  Unearthed the image in good Mailleville’s time,

  Count of the country. “If the tale be false,

  Why stands it carved above the portal plain?”

  Monsieur Léonce Miranda used to ask.

  To Londres went the prize in solemn pomp,

  But, liking old abode and loathing new,

  Was borne — this time, by angels — back again.

  And, reinaugurated, miracle

  Succeeded miracle, a lengthy list,

  Until indeed the culmination came —

  Archbishop Chaumont prayed a prayer and vowed

  A vow — gained prayer and paid vow properly —

  For the conversion of Prince Vertgalant.

  These facts, sucked in along with mother’s-milk,

  Monsieur Léonce Miranda would dispute

  As soon as that his hands were flesh and bone,

  Milk-nourished two-and-twenty years before.

  So fortified by blind Castilian blood,

  What say you to the chances of French cold

  Critical spirit, should Voltaire besiege

  “Alp, Apennine, and fortified redoubt”?

  Ay, would such spirit please to play
faith’s game

  Faith’s way, attack where faith defends so well!

  But then it shifts, tries other strategy.

  Coldness grows warmth, the critical becomes

  Unquestioning acceptance. “Share and share

  Alike in facts, to truth add other truth!

  Why with old truth needs new truth disagree?”

  Thus doubt was found invading faith, this time,

  By help of not the spirit but the flesh:

  Fat Rabelais chuckled, where faith lay in wait

  For lean Voltaire’s grimace — French, either foe.

  Accordingly, while round about our friend

  Ran faith without a break which learned eye

  Could find at two-and-twenty years of age,

  The twenty-two-years-old frank footstep soon

  Assured itself there spread a standing-space

  Flowery and comfortable, nowise rock

  Nor pebble-pavement roughed for champion’s tread

  Who scorns discomfort, pacing at his post.

  Tall, long-limbed, shoulder right and shoulder left,

  And ‘twixt acromia such a latitude,

  Black heaps of hair on head, and blacker bush

  O’er-rioting chin, cheek and throat and chest, —

  His brown meridional temperament

  Told him — or rather pricked into his sense

  Plainer than language — ”Pleasant station here!

  Youth, strength, and lustihood can sleep on turf

  Yet pace the stony platform afterward:

  First signal of a foe and up they start!

  Saint Eldobert, at all such vanity,

  Nay — sinfulness, had shaken head austere.

  Had he? But did Prince Vertgalant? And yet,

  After how long a slumber, of what sort,

  Was it, he stretched octogenary joints

  And, nigh on Day-of-Judgment trumpet-blast,

  Jumped up and manned wall, brisk as any bee?”

  Nor Rabelais nor Voltaire, but Sganarelle,

  You comprehend, was pushing through the chink!

  That stager in the saint’s correct costume,

  Who ever has his speech in readiness

  For thickhead juvenility at fault:

  “Go pace yon platform and play sentinel!

  You won’t? The worse! but still a worse might hap.

  Stay then, provided that you keep in sight

  The battlement, one bold leap lands you by!

  Resolve not desperately ‘Wall or turf,

  Choose this, choose that, but no alternative!’

  No! Earth left once were left for good and all:

  ‘With Heaven you may accommodate yourself.’“

  Saint Eldobert — I much approve his mode;

  With sinner Vertgalant I sympathize;

  But histrionic Sganarelle, who prompts

  While pulling back, refuses yet concedes, —

  Whether he preach in chair, or print in book,

  Or whisper due sustainment to weak flesh,

  Counting his sham beads threaded on a lie —

  Surely, one should bid pack that mountebank!

  Surely, he must have momentary fits

  Of self-sufficient stage-forgetfulness,

  Escapings of the actor-lassitude

  When he allows the grace to show the grin,

  Which ought to let even thickheads recognize

  (Through all the busy and benefic part, —

  Bridge-building, or rock-riving, or good clean

  Transport of church and congregation both

  From this to that place with no harm at all,)

  The Devil, that old stager, at his trick

  Of general utility, who leads

  Downward, perhaps, but fiddles all the way!

  Therefore, no sooner does our candidate

  For saintship spotlessly emerge soul-cleansed

  From First Communion to mount guard at post,

  Paris-proof, top to toe, than up there starts

  The Spirit of the Boulevard — you know Who —

  With jocund “So, a structure fixed as fate,

  Faith’s tower joins on to tower, no ring more round,

  Full fifty years at distance, too, from youth!

  Once reach that precinct and there fight your best,

  As looking back you wonder what has come

  Of daisy-dappled turf you danced across!

  Few flowers that played with youth shall pester age,

  However age esteem the courtesy;

  And Eldobert was something past his prime,

  Stocked Caen with churches ere he tried hand here.

  Saint-Sauveur, Notre-Dame, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Jean

  Attest his handiwork commenced betimes.

  He probably would preach that turf is mud.

  Suppose it mud, through mud one picks a way,

  And when, clay-clogged, the struggler steps to stone,

  He uncakes shoe, arrives in manlier guise

  Than carried pick-a-back by Eldobert

  Big-baby-fashion, lest his leathers leak!

  All that parade about Prince Vertgalant

  Amounts to — your Castilian helps enough —

  Inveni ovem quæ perierat:

  But ask the pretty votive statue-thing

  What the lost sheep’s meantime amusements were

  Till the Archbishop found him! That stays blank:

  They washed the fleece well and forgot the rest.

  Make haste, since time flies, to determine, though!”

  Thus opportunely took up parable, —

  Admonishing Miranda just emerged

  Pure from The Ravissante and Paris-proof, —

  Saint Sganarelle: then slipped aside, changed mask,

  And made re-entry as a gentleman

  Born of the Boulevard, with another speech

  I spare you.

  So, the year or two revolved,

  And ever the young man was dutiful

  To altar and to hearth: had confidence

  In the whole Ravissantish history.

  Voltaire? Who ought to know so much of him, —

  Old sciolist, whom only boys think sage, —

  As one whose father’s house upon the Quai

  Neighboured the very house where that Voltaire

  Died mad and raving, not without a burst

  Of squibs and crackers too significant?

  Father and mother hailed their best of sons,

  Type of obedience, domesticity,

  Never such an example inside doors!

  Outside, as well not keep too close a watch;

  Youth must be left to some discretion there.

  And what discretion proved, I find deposed

  At Vire, confirmed by his own words: to wit,

  How, with the sprightliness of twenty-five,

  Five — and not twenty, for he gave their names

  With laudable precision — were the few

  Appointed by him unto mistress-ship;

  While, meritoriously the whole long week

  A votary of commerce only, week

  Ended, “at shut of shop on Saturday,

  Do I, as is my wont, get drunk,” he writes

  In airy record to a confidant.

  “Bragging and lies!” replied the apologist:

  “And do I lose by that?” laughed Somebody

  At the Court-edge a-tiptoe, mid the crowd,

  In his own clothes, a-listening to men’s Law.

  Thus while, prospectively a combatant,

  The volunteer bent brows, clenched jaws, and fierce

  Whistled the march-tune “Warrior to the wall!”

  Something like flowery laughters round his feet

  Tangled him of a sudden with “Sleep first!”

  And fairly flat upon the turf sprawled he

  And let strange creatures make his mouth their home.

  Anyhow, ‘t is the nature of the soul
/>   To seek a show of durability,

  Nor, changing, plainly be the slave of change.

  Outside the turf, the towers: but, round the turf,

  A tent may rise, a temporary shroud,

  Mock-faith to suit a mimic dwelling-place:

  Tent which, while screening jollity inside

  From the external circuit — evermore

  A menace to who lags when he should march —

  Yet stands a-tremble, ready to collapse

  At touch of foot: turf is acknowledged grass,

  And grass, though pillowy, held contemptible

  Compared with solid rock, the rampired ridge.

  To truth a pretty homage thus we pay

  By testifying — what we dally with,

  Falsehood, (which, never fear we take for truth!)

  We may enjoy, but then — how we despise!

  Accordingly, on weighty business bound,

  Monsieur Léonce Miranda stooped to play,

  But, with experience, soon reduced the game

  To principles, and thenceforth played by rule:

  Rule, dignifying sport as sport, proclaimed

  No less that sport was sport and nothing more.

  He understood the worth of womankind, —

  To furnish man — provisionally — sport:

  Sport transitive — such earth’s amusements are:

  But, seeing that amusements pall by use,

  Variety therein is requisite.

  And since the serious work of life were wronged

  Should we bestow importance on our play,

  It follows, in such womankind-pursuit,

  Cheating is lawful chase. We have to spend

  An hour — they want a lifetime thrown away:

  We seek to tickle sense — they ask for soul,

  As if soul had no higher ends to serve!

  A stag-hunt gives the royal creature law:

  Bat-fowling is all fair with birds at roost,

  The lantern and the clapnet suit the hedge.

  Which must explain why, bent on Boulevard game,

  Monsieur Léonce Miranda decently

  Was prudent in his pleasure — passed himself

  Off on the fragile fair about his path

  As the gay devil rich in mere good looks,

  Youth, hope — what matter though the purse be void?

  “If I were only young Miranda, now,

  Instead of a poor clerkly drudge at desk

  All day, poor artist vainly bruising brush

  On palette, poor musician scraping gut

  With horsehair teased that no harmonics come!

  Then would I love with liberality,

  Then would I pay! — who now shall be repaid,

  Repaid alike for present pain and past,

  If Mademoiselle permit the contre-danse,

  Sing ‘Gay in garret youth at twenty lives,’

  And afterward accept a lemonade!”

  Such sweet facilities of intercourse

 

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