Sells out, buys in, keeps doubling, tripling cash,
While I do nothing but receive and spend.
But you, spontaneous generator, hatch
A wind-egg; cluck, and forth struts Capital
As Interest to me from egg of gold.
I am grown curious: pay me by all means!
How will you make the money?”
”Mind your own —
Not my affair. Enough: or money, or
Money’s worth, as the case may be, expect
Ere month’s end, — keep but patient for a month!
Who’s for a stroll to station? Ten’s the time;
Your man, with my things, follow in the trap;
At stoppage of the down-train, play the arrived
On platform, and you’ll show the due fatigue
Of the night-journey, — not much sleep, — perhaps,
Your thoughts were on before you — yes, indeed.
You join them, being happily awake
With thought’s sole object as she smiling sits
At breakfast-table. I shall dodge meantime
In and out station-precinct, wile away
The hour till up my engine pants and smokes.
No doubt, she goes to fetch you. Never fear!
She gets no glance at me, who shame such saints!”
II
So, they ring bell, give orders, pay, depart
Amid profuse acknowledgment from host
Who well knows what may bring the younger back.
They light cigar, descend in twenty steps
The ‘calm acclivity,’ inhale — beyond
Tobacco’s balm — the better smoke of turf
And wood fire, — cottages at cookery
I’ the morning, — reach the main road straitening on
‘Twixt wood and wood, two black walls full of night
Slow to disperse, though mists thin fast before
The advancing foot, and leave the flint-dust fine
Each speck with its fire-sparkle. Presently
The road’s end with the sky’s beginning mix
In one magnificence of glare, due East,
So high the sun rides, — May’s the merry month.
They slacken pace: the younger stops abrupt.
Discards cigar, looks his friend full in face.
“All right; the station comes in view at end;
Five minutes from the beech-clump, there you are!
I say: let’s halt, let’s borrow yonder gate
Of its two magpies, sit and have a talk!
Do let a fellow speak a moment! More
I think about and less I like the thing —
No, you must let me! Now, be good for once!
Ten thousand pounds be done for, dead and damned!
We played for love, not hate: yes, hate! I hate
Thinking you beg or borrow or reduce
To strychnine some poor devil of a lord
Licked at Unlimited Loo. I had the cash
To lose — you knew that! — lose and none the less
Whistle to-morrow: it’s not every chap
Affords to take his punishment so well!
Now, don’t be angry with a friend whose fault
Is that he thinks — upon my soul, I do —
Your head the best head going. Oh, one sees
Names in the newspaper — great this, great that,
Gladstone, Carlyle, the Laureate: — much I care!
Others have their opinion, I keep mine:
Which means — by right you ought to have the things
I want a head for. Here’s a pretty place,
My cousin’s place, and presently my place.
Not yours! I’ll tell you how it strikes a man.
My cousin’s fond of music and of course
Plays the piano (it won’t be for long!)
A brand-new bore she calls a ‘semi-grand,’
Rosewood and pearl, that blocks the drawing-room.
And cost no end of money. Twice a week
Down comes Herr Somebody and seats himself.
Sets to work teaching — with his teeth on edge —
I’ve watched the rascal. ‘Does he play first-rate?’
I ask: ‘I rather think so,’ answers she —
‘He’s What’s-his-Name!’ — ’Why give you lessons then?’ —
‘I pay three guineas and the train beside.’ —
‘This instrument, has he one such at home?’ —
‘He? Has to practise on a table-top,
When he can’t hire the proper thing.’ — ’I see!
You’ve the piano, he the skill, and God
The distribution of such gifts.’ So here:
After your teaching, I shall sit and strum
Polkas on this piano of a Place
You’d make resound with Rule Britannia!”
“Thanks!
I don’t say but this pretty cousin’s place,
Appendaged with your million, tempts my hand
As key-board I might touch with some effect.”
“Then, why not have obtained the like? House, land,
Money, are things obtainable, you see.
By clever head-work: ask my father else!
You, who teach me, why not have learned, yourself?
Played like Herr Somebody with power to thump
And flourish and the rest, not bend demure
Pointing out blunders — ’ Sharp, not natural!
Permit me — on the black key use the thumb!’
There’s some fatality, I’m sure! You say
‘Marry the cousin, that’s your proper move!’
And I do use the thumb and hit the sharp:
You should have listened to your own head’s hint.
As I to you! The puzzle’s past my power.
How you have managed — with such stuff, such means —
Not to be rich nor great nor happy man:
Of which three good things where’s a sign at all?
Just look at Dizzy! Come, — what tripped your heels?
Instruct a goose that boasts wings and can’t fly!
I wager I have guessed it! — never found
The old solution of the riddle fail!
‘Who was the Woman?’ I don’t ask, but — ’ Where
I’ the path of life stood she who tripped you?’ “
”Goose
You truly are! I own to fifty years.
Why don’t I interpose and cut out — you?
Compete with five-and-twenty? Age, my boy!”
“Old man, no nonsense! — even to a boy
That’s ripe at least for rationality
Rapped into him, as may be mine was, once!
I’ve had my small adventure lesson me
Over the knuckles! — likely, I forget
The sort of figure youth cuts now and then,
Competing with old shoulders but young head
Despite the fifty grizzling years!”
“Aha?
Then that means — just the bullet in the blade
Which brought Dalmatia on the brain, — that, too.
Came of a fatal creature? Can’t pretend 100
Now for the first time to surmise as much!
Make a clean breast! Recount! a secret’s safe
‘Twixt you, me and the gate-post!”
” — Can’t pretend,
Neither, to never have surmised your wish!
It’s no use, — case of unextracted ball —
Winces at finger-touching. Let things be!”
“Ah, if you love your love still! I hate mine.”
“I can’t hate.”
”I won’t teach you; and won’t tell
You, therefore, what you please to ask of me:
As if I, also, may not have my ache!”
“My sort of ache? No, no! and yet — perhaps!
All comes of thinking you superior still.
B
ut live and learn! I say! Time ‘s up! Good jump!
You old, indeed! I fancy there’s a cut
Across the wood, a grass path: shall we try?
It’s venturesome, however!”
”Stop, my boy!
Don’t think I’m stingy of experience! Life
— It’s like this wood we leave. Should you and I
Go wandering about there, though the gaps
We went in and came out by were opposed
As the two poles, still, somehow, all the same,
By nightfall we should probably have chanced
On much the same main points of interest —
Both of us measured girth of mossy trunk,
Stript ivy from its strangled prey, clapped hands
At squirrel, sent a fir-cone after crow,
And so forth, — never mind what time betwixt.
So in our lives; allow I entered mine
Another way than you: ‘t is possible
I ended just by knocking head against
That plaguy low-hung branch yourself began
By getting bump from; as at last you too
May stumble o’er that stump which first of all
Bade me walk circumspectly. Head and feet
Are vulnerable both, and I, foot-sure,
Forgot that ducking down saves brow from bruise.
I, early old, played young man four years since
And failed confoundedly: so, hate alike
Failure and who caused failure, — curse her cant!”
“Oh, I see! You, though somewhat past the prime,
Were taken with a rosebud beauty! Ah —
But how should chits distinguish? She admired
Your marvel of a mind, I’ll undertake!
But as to body ... nay, I mean ... that is,
When years have told on face and figure....”
”Thanks,
Mister Sufficiently-Instructed! Such
No doubt was bound to be the consequence
To suit your self-complacency: she liked
My head enough, but loved some heart beneath
Some head with plenty of brown hair a-top
After my young friend’s fashion! What becomes
Of that fine speech you made a minute since
About the man of middle age you found
A formidable peer at twenty-one?
So much for your mock-modesty! and yet
I back your first against this second sprout
Of observation, insight, what you please.
My middle age, Sir, had too much success!
It’s odd: my case occurred four years ago —
I finished just while you commenced that turn
I’ the wood of life that takes us to the wealth
Of honeysuckle, heaped for who can reach.
Now, I don’t boast: it’s bad style, and beside,
The feat proves easier than it looks: I plucked
Full many a flower unnamed in that bouquet
(Mostly of peonies and poppies, though!)
Good nature sticks into my button-hole.
Therefore it was with nose in want of snuff
Rather than Ess or Psidium, that I chanced
On what — so far from ‘rosebud beauty’ .... Well —
She’s dead: at least you never heard her name;
She was no courtly creature, had nor birth
Nor breeding — mere fine-lady-breeding; but
Oh, such a wonder of a woman! Grand
As a Greek statue! Stick fine clothes on that,
Style that a Duchess or a Queen, — you know,
Artists would make an outcry: all the more,
That she had just a statue’s sleepy grace
Which broods o’er its own beauty. Nay, her fault
(Don’t laugh!) was just perfection: for suppose
Only the little flaw, and I had peeped
Inside it, learned what soul inside was like.
At Rome some tourist raised the grit beneath
A Venus’ forehead with his whittling-knife —
I wish, — now, — I had played that brute, brought blood
To surface from the depths I fancied chalk!
As it was, her mere face surprised so much
That I stopped short there, struck on heap, as stares
The cockney stranger at a certain bust
With drooped eyes, — she’s the thing I have in mind, —
Down at my Brother’s. All sufficient prize —
Such outside! Now, — confound me for a prig! —
Who cares? I’ll make a clean breast once for all!
Beside, you’ve heard the gossip. My life long
I’ve been a woman-liker, — liking means
Loving and so on. There’s a lengthy list
By this time I shall have to answer for —
So say the good folk: and they don’t guess half —
For the worst is, let once collecting-itch
Possess you, and, with perspicacity, 200
Keeps growing such a greediness that theft
Follows at no long distance, — there’s the fact!
I knew that on my Leporello-list
Might figure this, that, and the other name
Of feminine desirability,
But if I happened to desire inscribe,
Along with these, the only Beautiful —
Here was the unique specimen to snatch
Or now or never. ‘Beautiful’ I said —
‘Beautiful’ say in cold blood, — boiling then
To tune of ‘Haste, secure whate’er the cost
This rarity, die in the act, be damned,
So you complete collection, crown your list!’
It seemed as though the whole world, once aroused
By the first notice of such wonder’s birth,
Would break bounds to contest my prize with me
The first discoverer, should she but emerge
From that safe den of darkness where she dozed
Till I stole in, that country-parsonage
Where, country-parson’s daughter, motherless,
Brotherless, sisterless, for eighteen years
She had been vegetating lily-like.
Her father was my brother’s tutor, got
The living that way: him I chanced to see —
Her I saw — her the world would grow one eye
To see, I felt no sort of doubt at all!
‘Secure her!’ cried the devil: ‘afterward
Arrange for the disposal of the prize!’
The devil’s doing! yet I seem to think —
Now, when all’s done, — think with ‘a head reposed’
In French phrase — hope I think I meant to do
All requisite for such a rarity
When I should be at leisure, have due time
To learn requirement. But in evil day —
Bless me, at week’s end, long as any year,
The father must begin ‘Young Somebody,
Much recommended — for I break a rule —
Comes here to read, next Long Vacation.’ ‘Young!’
That did it. Had the epithet been ‘rich,’
‘ Noble,’ ‘ a genius,’ even ‘ handsome,’ — but
— ’Young! ‘ “
”I say — just a word! I want to know —
You are not married?”
”I?”
”Nor ever were?”
“Never! Why?”
”Oh, then — never mind! Go on!
I had a reason for the question.”
”Come, —
You could not be the young man?”
”No, indeed!
Certainly — if you never married her!”
“That I did not: and there’s the curse, you’ll see!
Nay, all of it’s one curse, my life’s mistake
Which, nourished with manure that’s warranted
To make
the plant bear wisdom, blew out full
In folly beyond field-flower-foolishness!
The lies I used to tell my womankind,
Knowing they disbelieved me all the time
Though they required my lies, their decent due,
This woman — not so much believed, I’ll say,
As just anticipated from my mouth:
Since being true, devoted, constant — she
Found constancy, devotion, truth, the plain
And easy commonplace of character.
No mock-heroics but seemed natural
To her who underneath the face, I knew
Was fairness’ self, possessed a heart, I judged
Must correspond in folly just as far
Beyond the common, — and a mind to match, —
Not made to puzzle conjurers like me
Who, therein, proved the fool who fronts you, Sir,
And begs leave to cut short the ugly rest!
‘Trust me!’ I said: she trusted. ‘Marry me!’
Or rather, ‘We are married: when, the rite?’
That brought on the collector’s next-day qualm
At counting acquisition’s cost. There lay
My marvel, there my purse more light by much
Because of its late lie-expenditure:
Ill-judged such moment to make fresh demand —
To cage as well as catch my rarity!
So, I began explaining. At first word
Outbroke the horror. ‘Then, my truths were lies!’
I tell you, such an outbreak, such new strange
All-unsuspected revelation — soul
As supernaturally grand as face
Was fair beyond example — that at once
Either I lost — or, if it please you, found
My senses, — stammered somehow — ‘Jest! and now,
Earnest! Forget all else but — heart has loved,
Does love, shall love you ever! take the hand!’
Not she! no marriage for superb disdain,
Contempt incarnate!”
”Yes, it’s different, —
It’s only like in being four years since.
I see now!”
”Well, what did disdain do next,
Think you?”
”That’s past me: did not marry you! —
That’s the main thing I care for, I suppose.
Turned nun, or what?”
”Why, married in a month
Some parson, some smug crop-haired smooth-chinned sort
Of curate-creature, I suspect, — dived down,
Down, deeper still, and came up somewhere else —
I don’t know where — I’ve not tried much to know, —
In short, she’s happy: what the clodpoles call
‘Countrified’ with a vengeance! leads the life
Respectable and all that drives you mad:
Still — where, I don’t know, and that’s best for both.” 300
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 187