Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  When He let blue heaven be shrouded o’er by vapours of the vault,

  Gay earth drop her garlands shrivelled at the first infecting breath

  Of the serpent pains which herald, swarming in, the dragon death?

  What, no way but this that man may learn and lay to heart how rife

  Life were with delights would only death allow their taste to life?

  Must the rose sigh “Pluck — I perish!” must the eve weep “Gaze — I fade!”

  — Every sweet warn “‘Ware my bitter!” every shine bid “Wait my shade”? 310

  Can we love but on condition, that the thing we love must die?

  Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy —

  Multitudinously wretched that we, wretched too, may guess

  What a preferable state were universal happiness?

  Hardly do I so conceive the outcome of that power which went

  To the making of the worm there in yon clod its tenement,

  Any more than I distinguish aught of that which, wise and good,

  Framed the leaf, its plain of pasture, dropped the dew, its fineless food.

  Nay, were fancy fact, were earth and all it holds illusion mere,

  Only a machine for teaching love and hate and hope and fear 320

  To myself, the sole existence, single truth mid falsehood, — well!

  If the harsh throes of the prelude die not off into the swell

  Of that perfect piece they sting me to become a-strain for, — if

  Roughness of the long rock-clamber lead not to the last of cliff,

  First of level country where is sward my pilgrim-foot can prize, —

  Plainlier! if this life’s conception new life fail to realize, —

  Though earth burst and proved a bubble glassing hues of hell, one huge

  Reflex of the devil’s doings — God’s work by no subterfuge —

  (So death’s kindly touch informed me as it broke the glamour, gave

  Soul and body both release from life’s long nightmare in the grave) 330

  Still, — with no more Nature, no more Man as riddle to be read,

  Only my own joys and sorrows now to reckon real instead, —

  I must say — or choke in silence — ”Howsoever came my fate,

  Sorrow did and joy did nowise, — life well weighed, — preponderate.”

  By necessity ordained thus? I shall bear as best I can;

  By a cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent? No, as I am man!

  Such were God: and was it goodness that the good within my range

  Or had evil in admixture or grew evil’s self by change?

  Wisdom — that becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance

  From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance? 340

  Power? ‘tis just the main assumption reason most revolts at! power

  Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour,

  Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reaching aim,

  So much passion, — no defect there, no excess, but still the same, —

  As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright as brief

  For yon worm, man’s fellow-creature, on yon happier world — its leaf!

  No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute:

  Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human attribute!

  But, O world outspread beneath me! only for myself I speak,

  Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers strong and weak, 350

  Full and empty, wise and foolish, good and bad, in every age,

  Every clime, I turn my eyes from, as in one or other stage

  Of a torture writhe they, Job-like couched on dung and crazed with blains

  — Wherefore? whereto? ask the whirlwind what the dread voice thence explains!

  I shall “vindicate no way of God’s to man,” nor stand apart,

  “Laugh, be candid,” while I watch it traversing the human heart!

  Traversed heart must tell its story uncominented on: no less

  Mine results in, “Only grant a second life, I acquiesce

  In this present life as failure, count misfortune’s worst assaults

  Triumph, not defeat, assured that loss so much the more exalts 360

  Gain about to be. For at what moment did I so advance

  Near to knowledge as when frustrate of escape from ignorance?

  Did not beauty prove most precious when its opposite obtained

  Rule, and truth seem more than ever potent because falsehood reigned?

  While for love — Oh how but, losing love, does whoso loves succeed

  By the death-pang to the birth-throe — learning what is love indeed?

  Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled,

  Brimming though it be with knowledge, life’s loss drop by drop distilled,

  I shall boast it mine — the balsam, bless each kindly wrench that wrung

  From life’s tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root whence pleasure sprung, 370

  Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the berry, left all grace

  Ashes in death’s stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place!”

  Witness, Dear and True, how little I was ‘ware of — not your worth,

  — That I knew, my heart assures me — but of what a shade on earth

  Would the passage from my presence of the tall white figure throw

  O’er the ways we walked together! Somewhat narrow, somewhat slow,

  Used to seem the ways, the walking; narrow ways are well to tread

  When there’s moss beneath the footstep, honeysuckle overhead:

  Walking slow to beating bosom surest solace soonest gives,

  Liberates the brain o’erloaded — best of all restoratives. 380

  Nay, do I forget the open vast where soon or late converged

  Ways though winding? — world-wide heaven-high sea where music slept or surged

  As the angel had ascendant, and Beethoven’s Titan mace

  Smote the immense to storm Mozart would by a finger’s lifting chase?

  Yes, I knew — but not with knowledge such as thrills me while I view

  Yonder precinct which henceforward holds and hides the Dear and True.

  Grant me (once again) assurance we shall each meet each some day,

  Walk — but with how bold a footstep! on a way — but what a way!

  — Worst were best, defeat were triumph, utter loss were utmost gain.

  Can it be, and must, and will it?

  Silence! Out of fact’s domain, 390

  Just surmise prepared to mutter hope, and also fear — dispute

  Fact’s inexorable ruling, “Outside fact, surmise be mute!”

  Well!

  Ay, well and best, if fact’s self I may force the answer from!

  ‘T is surmise I stop the mouth of. Not above in yonder dome

  All a rapture with its rose-glow, — not around, where pile and peak

  Strainingly await the sun’s fall, — not beneath, where crickets creak,

  Birds assemble for their bed-time, soft the tree-top swell subsides, —

  No, nor yet within my deepest sentient self the knowledge hides.

  Aspiration, reminiscence, plausibilities of trust

  — Now the ready “Man were wronged else,” now the rash “and God unjust” — 400

  None of these I need. Take thou, my soul, thy solitary stand,

  Umpire to the champions Fancy, Reason, as on either hand

  Amicable war they wage and play the foe in thy behoof!

  Fancy thrust and Reason parry! Thine the prize who stand aloof.

  Fancy.

  I concede the thing refused: henceforth no certainty more plain

  Than this mere surmise that after body dies soul lives again.

  Two, the only facts acknowledged late, are now increased to three —

  God is, and th
e soul is, and, as certain, after death shall be.

  Put this third to use in life, the time for using fact!

  Reason.

  I do:

  Find it promises advantage, coupled with the other two. 410

  Life to come will be improvement on the life that’s now; destroy

  Body’s thwartings, there’s no longer screen betwixt soul and soul’s joy.

  Why should we expect new hindrance, novel tether? In this first

  Life, I see the good of evil, why our world began at worst:

  Since time means amelioration, tardily enough displayed,

  Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retrograde.

  We know more though we know little, we grow stronger though still weak,

  Partly see though all too purblind, stammer though we cannot speak.

  There is no such grudge in God as scared the ancient Greek, no fresh

  Substitute of trap for dragnet, once a breakage in the mesh. 420

  Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will be: ne’er emerged

  Any new-created Python for man’s plague since earth was purged.

  Failing proof, then, of invented trouble to replace the old,

  O’er this life the next presents advantage much and manifold:

  Which advantage — in the absence of a fourth and farther fact

  Now conceivably surmised, of harm to follow from the act —

  I pronounce for man’s obtaining at this moment. Why delay?

  Is he happy? happiness will change: anticipate the day!

  Is he sad? there’s ready refuge: of all sadness death’s prompt cure!

  Is he both, in mingled measure? cease a burden to endure! 430

  Pains with sorry compensations, pleasures stinted in the dole,

  Power that sinks and pettiness that soars, all halved and nothing whole,

  Idle hopes that lure man onward, forced back by as idle fears —

  What a load he stumbles under through his glad sad seventy years,

  When a touch sets right the turmoil, lifts his spirit where, flesh-freed,

  Knowledge shall be rightly named so, all that seems be truth indeed!

  Grant his forces no accession, nay, no faculty’s increase,

  Only let what now exists continue, let him prove in peace

  Power whereof the interrupted unperfected play enticed

  Man through darkness, which to lighten any spark of hope sufficed, — 440

  What shall then deter his dying out of darkness into light?

  Death itself perchance, brief pain that’s pang, condensed and infinite?

  But at worst, he needs must brave it one day, while, at best, he laughs —

  Drops a drop within his chalice, sleep not death his science quaffs!

  Any moment claims more courage when, by crossing cold and gloom,

  Manfully man quits discomfort, makes for the provided room

  Where the old friends want their fellow, where the new acquaintance wait,

  Probably for talk assembled, possibly to sup in state!

  I affirm and reaffirm it therefore: only make as plain

  As that man now lives, that after dying man will live again, — 450

  Make as plain the absence, also, of a law to contravene

  Voluntary passage from this life to that by change of scene, —

  And I bid him — at suspicion of first cloud athwart his sky,

  Flower’s departure, frost’s arrival — never hesitate, but die!

  Fancy.

  Then I double my concession: grant, along with new life sure,

  This same law found lacking now: ordain that, whether rich or poor

  Present life is judged in aught man counts advantage — be it hope,

  Be it fear that brightens, blackens most or least his horoscope, —

  He, by absolute compulsion such as made him live at all,

  Go on living to the fated end of life whate’er befall. 460

  What though, as on earth he darkling grovels, man descry the sphere,

  Next life’s — call it, heaven of freedom, close above and crystal-clear?

  He shall find — say, hell to punish who in aught curtails the term,

  Fain would act the butterfly before he has played out the worm.

  God, soul, earth, heaven, hell, — five facts now: what is to desiderate?

  Reason.

  Nothing! Henceforth man’s existence bows to the monition “Wait!

  Take the joys and bear the sorrows — neither with extreme concern!

  Living here means nescience simply: ‘tis next life that helps to learn.

  Shut those eyes, next life will open, — stop those ears, next life will teach

  Hearing’s office, — close those lips, next life will give the power of speech! 470

  Or, if action more amuse thee than the passive attitude,

  Bravely bustle through thy being, busy thee for ill or good,

  Reap this life’s success or failure! Soon shall things be unperplexed

  And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravelled in the next.”

  Fancy.

  Not so fast! Still more concession! not alone do I declare

  Life must needs be borne, — I also will that man become aware

  Life has worth incalculable, every moment that he spends

  So much gain or loss for that next life which on this life depends.

  Good, done here, be there rewarded, — evil, worked here, there amerced!

  Six facts now, and all established, plain to man the last as first. 480

  Reason.

  There was good and evil, then, defined to man by this decree?

  Was — for at its promulgation both alike have ceased to be.

  Prior to this last announcement, “Certainly as God exists,

  As He made man’s soul, as soul is quenchless by the deathly mists,

  Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature escape from time

  To eternity’s provided purer air and brighter clime, —

  Just so certainly depends it on the use to which man turns

  Earth, the good or evil done there, whether after death he earns

  Life eternal, — heaven, the phrase be, or eternal death, — say, hell.

  As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill or doing well!” 490

  — Prior to this last announcement, earth was man’s probation-place:

  Liberty of doing evil gave his doing good a grace;

  Once lay down the law, with Nature’s simple “Such effects succeed

  Causes such, and heaven or hell depends upon man’s earthly deed

  Just as surely as depends the straight or else the crooked line

  On his making point meet point or with or else without incline,” —

  Thenceforth neither good nor evil does man, doing what he must.

  Lay but down that law as stringent “Wouldst thou live again, be just! “

  As this other “Wouldst thou live now, regularly draw thy breath!

  For, suspend the operation, straight law’s breach results in death — ” 500

  And (provided always, man, addressed this mode, be sound and sane)

  Prompt and absolute obedience, never doubt, will law obtain!

  Tell not me “Look round us! nothing each side but acknowledged law,

  Now styled God’s — now, Nature’s edict!” Where’s obedience without flaw

  Paid to either? What’s the adage rife in man’s mouth? Why, “The best

  I both see and praise, the worst I follow” — which, despite professed

  Seeing, praising, all the same he follows, since he disbelieves

  In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head receives.

  There’s evading and persuading and much making law amends

  Somehow, there’s the nice distinction ‘twixt fast foes and faulty friends, 510

  — Any consequence except inevitable death when “Die,


  Whoso breaks our law!” they publish, God and Nature equally.

  Law that’s kept or broken — subject to man’s will and pleasure! Whence?

  How comes law to bear eluding? Not because of impotence:

  Certain laws exist already which to hear means to obey;

  Therefore not without a purpose these man must, while those man may

  Keep and, for the keeping, haply gain approval and reward.

  Break through this last superstructure, all is empty air — no sward

  Firm like my first fact to stand on, “ God there is, and soul there is,”

  And soul’s earthly life-allotment: wherein, by hypothesis, 520

  Soul is bound to pass probation, prove its powers, and exercise

  Sense and thought on fact, and then, from fact educing fit surmise,

  Ask itself, and of itself have solely answer, “Does the scope

  Earth affords of fact to judge by warrant future fear or hope?”

  Thus have we come back full circle: fancy’s footsteps one by one

  Go their round conducting reason to the point where they begun,

  Left where we were left so lately, Dear and True! When, half a week

  Since, we walked and talked and thus I told you, how suffused a cheek

  You had turned me had I sudden brought the blush into the smile

  By some word like “Idly argued! you know better all the while!” 530

  Now, from me — Oh not a blush, but, how much more, a joyous glow,

  Laugh triumphant, would it strike did your “Yes, better I do know”

  Break, my warrant for assurance! which assurance may not be

  If, supplanting hope, assurance needs must change this life to me.

  So, I hope — no more than hope, but hope — no less than hope, because

  I can fathom, by no plumb-line sunk in life’s apparent laws,

  How I may in any instance fix where change should meetly fall

  Nor involve, by one revisal, abrogation of them all:

  — Which again involves as utter change in life thus law-released,

  Whence the good of goodness vanished when the ill of evil ceased. 540

  Whereas, life and laws apparent reinstated, — all we know,

  All we know not, — o’er our heaven again cloud closes, until, lo —

  Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom, compelled

  By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else beheld,

  I behold in life, so — hope!

  Sad summing-up of all to say!

  Athanasius contra mundum, why should he hope more than they?