Outflow of law I know and name: to law, the fount
Fresh from God’s footstool, friends, follow while I remount.
“A mother bears a child: perfection is complete
So far in such a birth. Enabled to repeat
The miracle of life, — herself was born so just
A type of womankind, that God sees fit to trust 340
Her with the holy task of giving life in turn.
Crowned by this crowning pride, — how say you, should she spurn
Regality — discrowned, unchilded, by her choice
Of barrenness exchanged for fruit which made rejoice
Creation, though life’s self were lost in giving birth
To life more fresh and fit to glorify God’s earth?
How say you, should the hand God trusted with life’s torch
Kindled to light the world — aware of sparks that scorch,
Let fall the same? Forsooth, her flesh a fire-flake stings:
The mother drops the child! Among what monstrous things 350
Shall she be classed? Because of motherhood, each male
Yields to his partner place, sinks proudly in the scale:
His strength owned weakness, wit — folly, and courage — fear.
Beside the female proved male’s mistress — only here.
The fox-dam, hunger-pined, will slay the felon sire
Who dares assault her whelp: the beaver, stretched on fire,
Will die without a groan: no, pang avails to wrest
Her young from where they hide — her sanctuary breast.
What’s here then? Answer me, thou dead one, as, I trow,
Standing at God’s own bar, he bids thee answer now! 360
Thrice crowned wast thou — each crown of pride, a child — thy charge!
Where are they? Lost? Enough: no need that thou enlarge
On how or why the loss: life left to utter ‘lost’
Condemns itself beyond appeal. The soldier’s post
Guards from the foe’s attack the camp he sentinels:
That he no traitor proved, this and this only tells —
Over the corpse of him trod foe to foe’s success.
Yet — one by one thy crowns torn from thee — thou no less
To scare the world, shame God, — livedst! I hold He saw
The unexampled sin, ordained the novel law, 370
Whereof first instrument was first intelligence
Found loyal here. I hold that, failing human sense,
The very earth had oped, sky fallen, to efface
Humanity’s new wrong, motherhood’s first disgrace.
Earth oped not, neither fell the sky, for prompt was found
A man and man enough, head-sober and heart-sound,
Ready to hear God’s voice, resolute to obey.
Ivàn Ivànovitch, I hold, has done, this day,
No otherwise than did, in ages long ago,
Moses when he made known the purport of that flow 380
Of fire athwart the law’s twain-tables! I proclaim
Ivàn Ivànovitch God’s servant!”
At which name
Uprose that creepy whisper from out the crowd, is wont
To swell and surge and sink when fellow-men confront
A punishment that falls on fellow flesh and blood,
Appallingly beheld — shudderingly understood,
No less, to be the right, the just, the merciful.
“God’s servant!” hissed the crowd.
When that Amen grew dull
And died away and left acquittal plain adjudged,
“Amen!” last sighed the lord. “There’s none shall say I grudged 390
Escape from punishment in such a novel case.
Deferring to old age and holy life, — be grace
Granted! say I. No less, scruples might shake a sense
Firmer than I boast mine. Law’s law, and evidence
Of breach therein lies plain, — blood-red-bright, — all may see!
Yet all absolve the deed: absolved the deed must be!
“And next — as mercy rules the hour — methinks ‘t were well
You signify forthwith its sentence, and dispel
The doubts and fears, I judge, which busy now the head
Law puts a halter round — a halo — you, instead! 400
Ivàn Ivànovitch — what think you he expects
Will follow from his feat? Go, tell him — law protects
Murder, for once: no need he longer keep behind
The Sacred Pictures — where skulks Innocence enshrined,
Or I missay! Go, some! You others, haste and hide
The dismal object there: get done, whate’er betide!”
So, while the youngers raised the corpse, the elders trooped
Silently to the house: where halting, someone stooped,
Listened beside the door; all there was silent too.
Then they held counsel; then pushed door and, passing through, 410
Stood in the murderer’s presence.
Ivàn Ivànovitch
Knelt, building on the floor that Kremlin rare and rich
He deftly cut and carved on lazy winter nights.
Some five young faces watched, breathlessly, as, to rights,
Piece upoa piece, he reared the fabric nigh complete.
Stèscha, Ivàn’s old mother, sat spinning by the heat
Of the oven where his wife Kàtia stood baking bread.
Ivàn’s self, as he turned his honey-coloured head,
Was just in act to drop, ‘twixt fir-cones, — each a dome, —
The scooped-out yellow gourd presumably the home 420
Of Kolokol the Big: the bell, therein to hitch,
— An acorn-cup — was ready: Ivàn Ivànovitch
Turned with it in his mouth.
They told him he was free
As air to walk abroad. “How otherwise?” asked he.
Tray
Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst
Of soul, ye bards!
Quoth Bard the first:
“Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don
His helm and eke his habergeon . . .”
Sir Olaf and his bard — — !
“That sin-scathed brow” (quoth Bard the second)
“That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned
My hero to some steep, beneath
Which precipice smiled tempting death . . .”
You too without your host have reckoned!
“A beggar-child” (let’s hear this third!)
“Sat on a quay’s edge: like a bird
Sang to herself at careless play,
And fell into the stream. ‘Dismay!
Help, you the standers-by!’ None stirred.
“Bystanders reason, think of wives
And children ere they risk their lives.
Over the balustrade has bounced
A mere instinctive dog, and pounced
Plumb on the prize. ‘How well he dives!
“ ‘Up he comes with the child, see, tight
In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite
A depth of ten feet — twelve, I bet!
Good dog! What, off again? There’s yet
Another child to save? All right!
“ ‘How strange we saw no other fall!
It’s instinct in the animal.
Good dog! But he’s a long while under:
If he got drowned I should not wonder —
Strong current, that against the wall!
“ ‘Here he comes, holds in mouth this time
— What may the thing be? Well, that’s prime!
Now, did you ever? Reason reigns
In man alone, since all Tray’s pains
Have fished — the child’s doll from the slime!’
“And so, amid the laughter gay,
Trotted my hero off, — old Tray, —
Till somebody, prerogatived
With reason, reasoned: ‘Why he dived,
His brain would show us, I should say.
“ ‘John, go and catch — or, if needs be,
Purchase — that animal for me!
By vivisection, at expense
Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence,
How brain secretes dog’s soul, we’ll see!’ “
Ned Bratts
‘T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer’s Day:
A broiling blasting June, — was never its like, men say.
Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that;
Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat.
Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer
While the parsons prayed for rain. ‘T was horrible, yes — but queer:
Queer — for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a hand
To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand
That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways,
And the world’s old self about to end in a merry blaze. 10
Midsummer’s Day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair,
With Bedford Town’s tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.
But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide,
High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side.
There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small,
And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all,
Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why?
Because their lungs breathed flame — the regular crowd forbye —
From gentry pouring in — quite a nosegay, to be sure!
How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endure 20
Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend?
Meanwhile no bad resource was — watching begin and end
Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes’ space,
And betting which knave would ‘scape, which hang, from his sort of face.
So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done
(I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sun
As this and t’ other lout, struck dumb at the sudden show
Of red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered “Boh!”
When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not — because Jack Nokes
Had stolen the horse — be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes, 30
And louts must make allowance — let’s say, for some blue fly
Which punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry —
Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and done
Was the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun,
As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayer
In a cow-house and laid by the heels, — have at ‘em, devil may care! —
And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek,
And five a slit of the nose — just leaving enough to tweak.
Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire,
While noon smote fierce the roof’s red tiles to heart’s desire, 40
The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh,
One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its mesh
Entoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte
— Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate —
Cried “Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air?
Jurymen, — Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!”
— Things at this pitch, I say, — what hubbub without the doors?
What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?
Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast!
Thumps, kicks, — no manner of use! — spite of them rolls at last 50
Into the midst a ball which, bursting, brings to view
Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too:
Both in a muck-sweat, both . . . were never such eyes uplift
At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils — snouts that sniffed
Sulphur, such mouths a-gape ready to swallow flame!
Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same,
Mixed with a certain . . . eh? how shall I dare style — mirth
The desperate grin of the guess that, could they break from earth,
Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotence
Below the saved, the saved!
”Confound you! (no offence!) 60
Out of our way, — push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!”
Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and “Hey, my Lords,” roars he,
“A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land,
Constables, javelineers, — all met, if I understand,
To decide so knotty a point as whether ‘t was Jack or Joan
Robbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King’s Arms with a stone,
Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch . . .
Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church!
What a pother — do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip,
More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip, — 70
When, in our Public, plain stand we — that’s we stand here,
I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer,
— Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade!
Wife of my bosom — that’s the word now! What a trade
We drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his life
So little as wag a tongue against us, — did they, wife?
Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are
— Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged — search near and far!
Eh, Tab? The pedlar, now — o’er his noggin — who warned a mate
To cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weight 80
Was the least to dread, — aha, how we two laughed a-good
As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood
With billet poised and raised, — you, ready with the rope, —
Ah, but that’s past, that’s sin repented of, we hope!
Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we!
The lily-livered knaves knew too (I’ve baulked a d — — — )
Our keeping the ‘Pied Bull’ was just a mere pretence:
Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence!
There’s not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year,
No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer, 90
Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse
To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od’s curse!
When Gipsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due,
— Eh, Tab? the Squire’s strong-box we helped the rascal to —
I think he pulled a face, next Sessions’ swinging-time!
He danced the jig that needs no floor, — and, here’s the prime,
‘T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!
“Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays,
Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head
— Not to say, boots and shoes, when . . . Zounds, I nearly said — 100
Lord, to unlearn one’s language! How shall we labour, wife?
Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life!
See, sirs, here’s life, salvation! Here’s — hold but out my breath —
When did I speak so long without once swearing? ‘Sdeath,
No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yet
All yesterday I had to keep my whistle wet
Songs, ballads and the like: here’s no such strawy blaze,
But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare!
Tab, help and tell! I’m hoarse. A mug! or — no, a prayer! 110
Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail
— He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I’ll be bail!
“I’ve got my second wind. In trundles she — that’s Tab.
‘Why, Gammer, what’s come now, that — bobbing like a crab
On Yule-tide bowl — your head’s a-work and both your eyes
Break loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise!
Say — Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-cap
Stuffed in his mouth: to choke’s a natural mishap!’
‘Gaffer, be — blessed,’ cries she, ‘and Bagman Dick as well!
I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell: 120
We live in fire: live coals don’t feel! — once quenched, they learn —
Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!’
“ ‘If you don’t speak straight out,’ says I — belike I swore —
‘A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more,
Teach you to talk, my maid!’ She ups with such a face,
Heart sunk inside me. ‘Well, pad on, my prate-apace!’
“ ‘I’ve been about those laces we need for . . . never mind!
If henceforth they tie hands, ‘t is mine they’ll have to bind.
You know who makes them best — the Tinker in our cage,
Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no age 130
To try another trade, — yet, so he scorned to take
Money he did not earn, he taught himself the make
Of laces, tagged and tough — Dick Bagman found them so!
Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must know
His girl, — the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares, —
She takes it in her head to come no more — such airs
These hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace, —
“I’ll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!”
So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then,
Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den — 140
Patmore — they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catch
My heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch —
Both arms a-kimbo, in bounce with a good round oath
Ready for rapping out:, no “Lawks” nor “By my troth!”
“ ‘There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels
When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels!
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 202