Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

Pheidippides

  Χαίρετε, νικῶμεν.

  First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock!

  Gods of my birthplace, dæmons and heroes, honour to all!

  Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise

  — Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the ægis and spear!

  Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your peer,

  Now, henceforth and forever, — O latest to whom I upraise

  Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock!

  Present to help, potent to save, Pan — patron I call!

  Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return!

  See, ‘t is myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks!

  Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you,

  “Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid!

  Persia has come, we are here, where is She?” Your command I obeyed,

  Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through,

  Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn

  Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

  Into their midst I broke: breath served but for “Persia has come!

  Persia bids Athens proffer slaves’-tribute, water and earth;

  Razed to the ground is Eretria — but Athens, shall Athens sink,

  Drop into dust and die — the flower of Hellas utterly die,

  Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by?

  Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o’er destruction’s brink?

  How, — when? No care for my limbs! — there’s lightning in all and some —

  Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!”

  O my Athens — Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond?

  Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust,

  Malice, — each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate!

  Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood

  Quivering, — the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood:

  “Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate?

  Thunder, thou Zeus! Athené, are Spartans a quarry beyond

  Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them ‘Ye must’!”

  No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last!

  “Has Persia come, — does Athens ask aid, — may Sparta befriend?

  Nowise precipitate judgment — too weighty the issue at stake!

  Count we no time lost time which lags through respect to the Gods!

  Ponder that precept of old, ‘No warfare, whatever the odds

  In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take

  Full-circle her state in the sky!’ Already she rounds to it fast:

  Athens must wait, patient as we — who judgment suspend.”

  Athens, — except for that sparkle, — thy name, I had mouldered to ash!

  That sent a blaze through my hlood; off, off and away was I back,

  — Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile!

  Yet “O Gods of my land!” I cried, as each hillock and plain,

  Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again,

  “Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours we paid you erewhile?

  Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash

  Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

  “Oak and olive and bay, — I bid you cease to enwreathe

  Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian’s foot,

  You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave!

  Rather I hail thee, Parnes, — trust to thy wild waste tract!

  Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked

  My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave

  No deity deigns to drape with verdure? — at least I can breathe,

  Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!”

  Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes’ ridge;

  Gully and gap, I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar

  Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way.

  Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across:

  “Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse?

  Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, thus I obey —

  Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge

  Better!” — when — ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

  There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he — majostical Pan!

  Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof:

  All the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly — the curl

  Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal’s awe,

  As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw.

  “Halt, Pheidippides!” — halt I did, my brain of a whirl:

  “Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?” he gracious began:

  “How is it, — Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

  “Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!

  Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?

  Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me!

  Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith

  In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, ‘The Goat-God saith:

  When Persia — so much as strews not the soil — is cast in the sea,

  Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,

  Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!’

  “Say Pan saith: ‘Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!’ “

  (Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear

  — Fennel — I grasped it a-tremble with dew — whatever it bode)

  “While, as for thee...” But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto —

  Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew.

  Parnes to Athens — earth no more, the air was my road:

  Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor’s edge!

  Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

  — — —

  Then spoke Miltiades. “And thee, best runner of Greece,

  Whose limbs did duty indeed, — what gift is promised thyself?

  Tell it us straightway, — Athens the mother demands of her son!”

  Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length

  His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength

  Into the utterance — ”Pan spoke thus: ‘For what thou hast done

  Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release

  From the racer’s toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!’

  “I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind!

  Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow, —

  Pound — Pan helping us — Persia to dust, and, under the deep,

  Whelm her away forever; and then, — no Athens to save, —

  Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave, —

  Hie to my bouse and home: and, when my children shall creep

  Close to my knees, — recount how the God was awful yet kind,

  Promised their sire reward to the full — rewarding him — so!”

  — — —

  Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:

  So, when Persia was dust, all cried “To Akropolis!

  Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!

  ‘Athens is saved, tha
nk Pan,’ go shout!” He flung down his shield,

  Ran like fire once more: and the space ‘twixt the Fennel-field

  And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through,

  Till in he broke: “Rejoice, we conquer!” Like wine through clay,

  Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died — the bliss!

  So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute

  Is still “Rejoice!” — his word which brought rejoicing indeed.

  So is Pheidippides happy forever, — the noble strong man

  Who could race like a God, bear the face of a God, whom a God loved so well;

  He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell

  Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began,

  So to end gloriously — once to shout, thereafter be mute:

  “Athens is saved!” — Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.

  Halbert and Hob

  Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den,

  In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men

  Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut,

  Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these — but —

  Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degrees

  Softens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were these.

  Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob;

  But, give them a word, they returned a blow — old Halbert as young Hob:

  Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed,

  Hated or feared the more — who knows? — the genuine wild-beast breed. 10

  Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the country-side;

  But how fared each with other? E’en beasts couch, hide by hide,

  In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curled

  The closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the world.

  Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow,

  Came father and son to words — such words! more cruel because the blow

  To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse

  Competed with oath in wager, like pastime in hell, — nay, worse:

  For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last

  The son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast. 20

  “Out of this house you go!” — (there followed a hideous oath) —

  “This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both!

  If there’s snow outside, there’s coolness: out with you, bide a spell

  In the drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish shell!”

  Now, the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak

  Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy broke

  One whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-blade

  Of the mountainous man, whereon his child’s rash hand like a feather weighed.

  Nevertheless at once did the mammoth shut his eyes,

  Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened — arms and thighs 30

  All of a piece — struck mute, much as a sentry stands,

  Patient to take the enemy’s fire: his captain so commands.

  Whereat the son’s wrath flew to fury at such sheer scorn

  Of his puny strength by the giant eld thus acting the babe new-born:

  And “Neither will this turn serve!” yelled he. “Out with you! Trundle, log!

  If you cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-fours like a dog!”

  Still the old man stood mute. So, logwise, — down to floor

  Pulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door, —

  Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, until

  A certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the house-door-sill. 40

  Then the father opened eyes — each spark of their rage extinct, —

  Temples, late black, dead-blanched, — right-hand with left-hand linked, —

  He faced his son submissive; when slow the accents came,

  They were strangely mild though his son’s rash hand on his neck lay all the same.

  “Hob, on just such a night of a Christmas long ago,

  For such a cause, with such a gesture, did I drag — so —

  My father down thus far: but, softening here, I heard

  A voice in my heart, and stopped: you wait for an outer word.

  “For your own sake, not mine, soften you too! Untrod

  Leave this last step we reach, nor brave the finger of God! 50

  I dared not pass its lifting: I did well. I nor blame

  Nor praise you. I stopped here: and, Hob, do you the same!”

  Straightway the son relaxed his hold of the father’s throat.

  They mounted, side by side, to the room again: no note

  Took either of each, no sign made each to either: last

  As first, in absolute silence, their Christmas-night they passed.

  At dawn, the father sate on, dead, in the selfsame place,

  With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face;

  But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-yeaned.

  When he went to the burial, someone’s staff he borrowed — tottered and leaned. 60

  But his lips were loose, not locked, — kept muttering, mumbling. “There!

  At his cursing and swearing!” the youngsters cried: but the elders thought “In prayer.”

  A boy threw stones: he picked them up and stored them in his vest.

  So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he died, perhaps found rest.

  “Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?” O Lear,

  That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!

  Ivàn Ivànovitch

  “They tell me, your carpenters,” quoth I to my friend the Russ,

  “Make a simple hatchet serve as a tool-box serves with us.

  Arm but each man with his axe, ‘t is a hammer and saw and plane

  And chisel, and — what know I else? We should imitate in vain

  The mastery wherewithal, by a flourish of just the adze,

  He cleaves, clamps, dovetails in, — no need of our nails and brads, —

  The manageable pine: ‘t is said he could shave himself

  With the axe, — so all adroit, now a giant and now an elf,

  Does he work and play at once!”

  Quoth my friend the Russ to me,

  “Ay, that and more beside on occasion! It scarce may be 10

  You never heard tell a tale told children, time out of mind,

  By father and mother and nurse, for a moral that’s behind,

  Which children quickly seize. If the incident happened at all,

  We place it in Peter’s time when hearts were great not small,

  Germanized, Frenchified. I wager ‘t is old to you

  As the story of Adam and Eve, and possibly quite as true.”

  — — — — —

  In the deep of our land, ‘t is said, a village from out the woods

  Emerged on the great main-road ‘twixt two great solitudes.

  Through forestry right and left, black verst and verst of pine,

  From village to village runs the road’s long wide bare line. 20

  Clearance and clearance break the else-unconquered growth

  Of pine and all that breeds and broods there, leaving loth

  Man’s inch of masterdom, — spot of life, spirt of fire, —

  To star the dark and dread, lest right and rule expire

  Throughout the monstrous wild, a-hungered to resume

  Its ancient sway, suck back the world into its womb:

  Defrauded by man’s craft which clove from North to South

  This highway broad and strai
ght e’en from the Neva’s mouth

  To Moscow’s gates of gold. So, spot of life and spirt

  Of fire aforesaid, burn, each village death-begirt 30

  By wall and wall of pine — unprobed undreamed abyss.

  Early one winter morn, in such a village as this,

  Snow-whitened everywhere except the middle road

  Ice-roughed by track of sledge, there worked by his abode

  Ivàn Ivànovitch, the carpenter, employed

  On A huge shipmast trunk; his axe now trimmed and toyed

  With branch and twig, and now some chop athwart the bole

  Changed bole to billets, bared at once the sap and soul.

  About him, watched the work his neighbours sheepskin-clad;

  Each bearded mouth puffed steam, each grey eye twinkled glad 40

  To see the sturdy arm which, never stopping play.

  Proved strong man’s blood still boils, freeze winter as he may.

  Sudden, a burst of bells. Out of the road, on edge

  Of the hamlet — horse’s hoofs galloping. “How, a sledge?

  What’s here?” cried all as — in, up to the open space,

  Workyard and market-ground, folk’s common meeting-place, —

  Stumbled on, till he fell, in one last bound for life,

  A horse: and, at his heels, a sledge held — “Dmìtri’s wife!

  Back without Dmìtri too! and children — where are they?

  Only a frozen corpse!”

  They drew it forth: then — “Nay, 50

  Not dead, though like to die! Gone hence a month ago:

  Home again, this rough jaunt — alone through night and snow —

  What can the cause be? Hark — Droug, old horse, how he groans:

  His day’s done! Chafe away, keep chafing, for she moans:

  She’s coming to! Give here: see, motherkin, your friends!

  Cheer up, all safe at home! Warm inside makes amends

  For outside cold, — sup quick! Don’t look as we were bears!

  What is it startles you? What strange adventure stares

  Up at us in your face? You know friends — which is which?

  I’m Vàssili, he’s Sergeì, Ivàn Ivànovitch . . .” 60

  At the word, the woman’s eyes, slow-wandering till they neared

  The blue eyes o’er the bush of honey-coloured beard,

  Took in full light and sense and — torn to rags, some dream

  Which hid the naked truth — O loud and long the scream

  She gave, as if all power of voice within her throat

  Poured itself wild away to waste in one dread note!

  Then followed gasps and sobs, and then the steady flow