Of lustihood: ‘tis just thou make amends,
“Return that loan with usury: so, here
Come I, of thy Disciples delegate,
Claiming our lesson from thee. Make appear
“Thy profit from experience! Plainly state
How men should Love!” Thus he: and to him thus
The Rabbi: “Love, ye call it? — rather, Hate!
“What wouldst thou? Is it needful I discuss 280
Wherefore new sweet wine, poured in bottles caked
With old strong wine’s deposit, otters us
“Spoilt liquor we recoil from, thirst-unslaked?
Like earth-smoke from a crevice, out there wound
Languors and yearnings: not a sense but ached
“Weighed on by fancied form and feature, sound
Of silver word and sight of sunny smile:
No beckoning of a flower-branch, no profound
‘ — Purple of noon-oppression, no light wile
O’ the West wind, but transformed itself till — brief — 290
Before me stood the phantasy ye style
“Youth’s love, the joy that shall not come to grief,
Born to endure, eternal, unimpaired
By custom the accloyer, time the thief.
“Had Age’s hard cold knowledge only spared
That ignorance of Youth! But now the dream,
Fresh as from Paradise, alighting fared
“As fares the pigeon, finding what may seem
Her nest’s safe hollow holds a snake inside
Coiled to enclasp her. See, Eve stands supreme 300
“In youth and beauty! Take her for thy bride!
What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew
Morn set a-sparkle, but which noon has dried
“While Youth hent gazing at its red and blue
Supposed perennial, — never dreamed the sun
Which kindled the display would quench it too.
“Graces of shape and colour — everyone
With its appointed period of decay
When ripe to purpose! ‘Still, these dead and done,
“ ‘Survives the woman-nature — the soft sway 310
Of undefinable omnipotence
O’er our strong male-stuff, we of Adam’s clay.’
“Ay, if my physics taught not why and whence
The attraction! Am I like the simple steer
Who, from his pasture lured inside the fence,
“Where yoke and goad await him, holds that mere
Kindliness prompts extension of the hand
Hollowed for barley, which drew near and near
“His nose — in proof that, of the horned band,
The farmer best affected him? Beside, 320
Steer, long since calfhood, got to understand
“Farmers a many in the world so wide
Were ready with a handful just as choice
Or choicer — maize and cummin, treats untried.
“Shall I wed wife, and all my days rejoice
I gained the peacock? ‘Las me, round I look,
And lo — ’With me thou would’st have blamed no voice
“ ‘Like hers that daily deafens like a rook:
I am the phoenix!’ — ’I, the lark, the dove,
— The owl,’ for aught knows he who blindly took 330
“Peacock for partner, while the vale, the grove,
The plain held bird-mates in abundance. There!
Youth, try fresh capture! Age has found out Love
“Long ago. War seems better worth man’s care.
But leave me! Disappointment finds a balm
Haply in slumber.” “This first step o’ the stair
“To knowledge fails me, but the victor’s palm
Lies on the next to tempt him overleap
A stumbling-block. Experienced, gather calm,
“Thou excellence of Judah, cured by sleep 340
Which ushers in the Warrior, to replace
The Lover! At due season I shall reap
“Fruit of my planting!” So, with lengthened face,
Departed Tsaddik: and three moons more waxed
And waned, and not until the Summer-space
Waned likewise, any second visit taxed
The Rabbi’s patience. But at three months’ end,
Behold, supine beneath a rock, relaxed
The sage lay musing till the noon should spend
Its ardour. Up comes Tsaddik, who but he, 350
With “Master, may I warn thee, nor offend,
“That time comes round again? We look to see
Sprout from the old branch — not the youngling twig —
But fruit of sycamine: deliver me,
“To share among my fellows, some plump fig,
Juicy as seedy! That same man of war,
Who, with a scantling of his store, made big
“Thy starveling nature, caused thee, safe from scar,
To share his gains by long acquaintanceship
With bump and bruise and all the knocks that are 360
“Of battle dowry, — he bids loose thy lip,
Explain the good of battle! Since thou know’st,
Let us know likewise! Fast the moments slip,
“More need that we improve them!” — ”Ay, we boast,
We warriors in our youth, that with the sword
Man goes the swiftliest to the uttermost —
“Takes the straight way thro’ lands yet unexplored
To absolute Right and Good, — may so obtain
God’s glory and man’s weal too long ignored,
“Too late attained by preachments all in vain — 370
The passive process. Knots get tangled worse
By toying with: does cut cord close again?
“Moreover there is blessing in the curse
Peace-praisers call war. What so sure evolves
All the capacities of soul, proves nurse
“Of that self-sacrifice in men which solves
The riddle — Wherein differs Man from beast?
Foxes boast cleverness and courage wolves:
“Nowhere but in mankind is found the least
Touch of an impulse ‘To our fellows — good 380
I’ the highest! — not diminished but increased
“ ‘By the condition plainly understood
— Such good shall be attained at price of hurt
I’ the highest to ourselves!’ Fine sparks, that brood
“Confusedly in Man, ‘tis war bids spurt
Forth into flame: as fares the meteor-mass,
Whereof no particle but holds inert
“Some seed of light and heat, however crass
The enclosure, yet avails not to discharge
Its radiant birth before there come to pass 390
“Some push external, — strong to set at large
Those dormant fire-seeds, whirl them in a trice
Through heaven, and light up earth from marge to marge:
“Since force by motion makes — what erst was ice —
Crash into fervency and so expire,
Because some Djinn has hit on a device
“For proving the full prettiness of fire!
Ay, thus we prattle — young: but old — why, first,
Where’s that same Right and Good — (the wise inquire) —
“So absolute, it warrants the outburst 400
Of blood, tears, all war’s woeful consequence,
That comes of the fine flaring? Which plague cursed
“The more your benefited Man — offence,
Or what suppressed the offender? Say it did —
Show us the evil cured by violence,
“Submission cures not also! Lift the lid
From the maturing crucible, we find
Its slow sure coaxing-out of virtue, hid
“In that same meteor-mass, hath uncombined
Those part
icles and, yielding for result 410
Gold, not mere flame, by so much leaves behind
“The heroic product. E’en the simple cult
Of Edom’s children wisely bids them turn
Cheek to the smiter with ‘Sic Jesus vult.’
“Say there’s a tyrant by whose death we earn
Freedom, and justify a war to wage:
Good! — were we only able to discern
“Exactly how to reach and catch and cage
Him only and no innocent beside!
Whereas the folk whereon war wreaks its rage 420
“ — How shared they his ill-doing? Far and wide
The victims of our warfare strew the plain,
Ten thousand dead, thereof not one but died
“In faith that vassals owed their suzerain
Life: therefore each paid tribute, — honest soul, —
To that same Right and Good ourselves are fain
“To claim exclusively our end. From bole
(Since ye accept in me a sycamine)
Pluck, eat, digest a fable — yea, the sole
“Fig I afford you! ‘Dost thou dwarf my vine?’ 430
(So did a certain husbandman address
The tree which faced his field.) ‘Receive condign
“ ‘Punishment, prompt removal by the stress
Of axe I forthwith lay unto thy root!’
Long did he hack and hew, the root no less
“As long defied him, for its tough strings shoot
As deep down as the boughs above aspire:
All that he did was — shake to the tree’s foot
“Leafage and fruitage, things we most require
For shadow and refreshment: which good deed 440
Thoroughly done, behold the axe-haft tires
“His hand, and he desisting leaves unfreed
The vine he hacked and hewed for. Comes a frost,
One natural night’s work, and there’s little need
“Of hacking, hewing: lo, the tree’s a ghost!
Perished it starves, black death from topmost bough
To farthest-reaching fibre! Shall I boast
“My rough work, — warfare, — helped more? Loving, now —
That, by comparison, seems wiser, since
The loving fool was able to avow 450
“He could effect his purpose, just evince
Love’s willingness, — once ‘ware of what she lacked,
His loved one, — to go work for that, nor wince
“At self-expenditure: he neither hacked
Nor hewed, but when the lady of his field
Required defence because the sun attacked,
“He, failing to obtain a fitter shield,
Would interpose his body, and so blaze,
Blest in the burning. Ah, were mine to wield
“The intellectual weapon — poet-lays, — 460
How preferably had I sung one song
Which . . . but my sadness sinks me: go your ways!
“I sleep out disappointment.” “Come along,
Never lose heart! There’s still as much again
Of our bestowment left to right the wrong
“Done by its earlier moiety — explain
Wherefore, who may! The Poet’s mood comes next.
Was he not wishful the poetic vein
“Should pulse within him? Jochanan, thou reck’st
Little of what a generous flood shall soon 470
Float thy clogged spirit free and unperplexed
“Above dry dubitation! Song’s the boon
Shall make amends for my untoward mistake
That Joshua-like thou could’st bid sun and moon —
“Fighter and Lover, — which for most men make
All they descry in heaven, — stand both stock-still
And lend assistance. Poet shalt thou wake!”
Autumn brings Tsaddik. “Ay, there speeds the rill
Loaded with leaves: a scowling sky, beside:
The wind makes olive-trees up yonder hill 480
“Whiten and shudder — symptoms far and wide
Of gleaning-time’s approach; and glean good store
May I presume to trust we shall, thou tried
“And ripe experimenter! Three months more
Have ministered to growth of Song: that graft
Into thy sterile stock has found at core
“Moisture, I warrant, hitherto unquaffed
By boughs, however florid, wanting sap
Of prose-experience which provides the draught
“Mere song-sprouts, wanting, wither: vain we tap 490
A youngling stem all green and immature;
Experience must secrete the stuff, our hap
“Will be to quench Man’s thirst with, glad and sure
That fancy wells up through corrective fact:
Missing which test of truth, though flowers allure
“The goodman’s eye with promise, soon the pact
Is broken, and ‘tis flowers, — mere words, — he finds
When things, — that’s fruit, — he looked for. Well, once cracked
“The nut, how glad my tooth the kernel grinds!
Song may henceforth boast substance! Therefore, hail 500
Proser and poet, perfect in both kinds!
“Thou from whose eye hath dropped the envious scale
Which hides the truth of things and substitutes
Deceptive show, unaided optics fail
“To transpierce, — hast entrusted to the lute’s
Soft but sure guardianship some unrevealed
Secret shall lift mankind above the brutes
“As only knowledge can?” “A fount unsealed”
(Sighed Jochanan) “should seek the heaven in leaps
To die in dew-gems — not find death, congealed 510
“By contact with the cavern’s nether deeps,
Earth’s secretest foundation where, enswathed
In dark and fear, primaeval mystery sleeps —
“Petrific fount wherein my fancies bathed
And straight turned ice. My dreams of good and fair
In soaring upwards had dissolved, unscathed
“By any influence of the kindly air,
Singing, as each took flight, The Future — that’s
Our destination, mists turn rainbows there,
“Which sink to fog, confounded in the flats 520
O’ the Present! Day’s the song-time for the lark,
Night for her music boasts but owls and bats.
“And what’s the Past but night — the deep and dark
Ice-spring I speak of, corpse-thicked with its drowned
Dead fancies which no sooner touched the mark
“They aimed at — fact — than all at once they found
Their film-wings freeze, henceforth unfit to reach
And roll in aether, revel — robed and crowned
“As truths, confirmed by falsehood all and each —
Sovereign and absolute and ultimate! 530
Up with them, skyward, Youth, ere Age impeach
“Thy least of promises to re-instate
Adam in Eden! Sing on, ever sing,
Chirp till thou burst! — the fool cicada’s fate,
“Who holds that after Summer next comes Spring,
Than Summer’s self sun-warmed, spice-scented more.
Fighting was better! There, no fancy-fling
“Pitches you past the point was reached of yore
By Sampsons, Abners, Joabs, Judases,
The mighty men of valour who, before 540
“Our little day, did wonders none profess
To doubt were fable and not fact, so trust
By fancy-flights to emulate much less.
“Were I a Statesman, now! Why, that were just
To pinnacle my soul, mankind above,
A-top the universe: no vulgar lust
“To gratif
y — fame, greed, at this remove
Looked down upon so far — or overlooked
So largely, rather — that mine eye should rove
“World-wide and rummage earth, the many-nooked, 550
Yet find no unit of the human flock
Caught straying but straight comes back hooked and crooked
“By the strong shepherd who, from out his stock
Of aids proceeds to treat each ailing fleece,
Here stimulate to growth, curtail and dock
“There, baldness or excrescence, — that, with grease,
This, with up-grubbing of the bristly patch
Born of the tick-bite. How supreme a peace
“Steals o’er the Statist, — while, in wit, a match
For shrewd Ahithophel, in wisdom . . . well, 560
His name escapes me — somebody, at watch
“And ward, the fellow of Ahithophel
In guidance of the Chosen!” — at which word
Eyes closed and fast asleep the Rabbi fell.
“Cold weather!” shivered Tsaddik. “Yet the hoard
Of the sagacious ant shows garnered grain,
Ever abundant most when fields afford
“Least pasture, and alike disgrace the plain
Tall tree and lowly shrub. ‘Tis so with us
Mortals: our age stores wealth ye seek in vain 570
“While busy youth culls just what we discuss
At leisure in the last days: and the last
Truly are these for Jochanan, whom thus
“I make one more appeal to! Thine amassed
Experience, now or never, let escape
Some portion of! For I perceive aghast
“The end approaches, while they jeer and jape,
These sons of Shimei: ‘Justify your boast!
What have ye gained from Death by twelve months’ rape?’
“Statesman, what cure hast thou for — least and most — 580
Popular grievances? What nostrum, say,
Will make the Rich and Poor, expertly dosed,
“Forget disparity, bid each go gay,
That, with his bauble, — with his burden, this?
Propose an alkahest shall melt away
“Men’s lacquer, show by prompt analysis
Which is the metal, which the make-believe,
So that no longer brass shall find, gold miss
“Coinage and currency? Make haste, retrieve
The precious moments, Master!” Whereunto 590
There snarls an “Ever laughing in thy sleeve,
“Pert Tsaddik? Youth indeed sees plain a clue
To guide man where life’s wood is intricate:
How shall he fail to thrid its thickets through
“When every oak-trunk takes the eye? Elate
He goes from bole to brushwood, plunging finds —
Smothered in briars — that the small’s the great!
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 211