“All men are men: I would all minds were minds!
Whereas ‘tis just the many’s mindless mass
That most needs helping: labourers and hinds 600
“We legislate for — not the cultured class
Which law-makes for itself nor needs the whip
And bridle, — proper help for mule and ass,
“Did the brutes know! In vain our statesmanship
Strives at contenting the rough multitude:
Still the ox cries ‘ ‘Tis me thou shouldst equip
“ ‘With equine trappings!’ or, in humbler mood,
‘Cribful of corn for me! and, as for work —
Adequate rumination o’er my food!’
“Better remain a Poet! Needs it irk 610
Such an one if light, kindled in his sphere,
Fail to transfuse the Mizraim cold and murk
“Round about Goshen? Though light disappear,
Shut inside, — temporary ignorance
Got outside of, lo, light emerging clear
“Shows each astonished starer the expanse
Of heaven made bright with knowledge! That’s the way,
The only way — I see it at a glance —
“To legislate for earth! As poet . . . Stay!
What is . . . I would that . . . were it . . . I had been . . . 620
O sudden change, as if my arid clay
“Burst into bloom! . . .” “A change indeed, I ween,
And change the last!” sighed Tsaddik as he kissed
The closing eyelids. “Just as those serene
“Princes of Night apprised me! Our acquist
Of life is spent, since corners only four
Hath Aisch, and each in turn was made desist
“In passage round the Pole (O Mishna’s lore —
Little it profits here!) by strenuous tug
Of friends who eked out thus to full fourscore 630
“The Rabbi’s years. I see each shoulder shrug!
What have we gained? Away the Bier may roll!
To-morrow, when the Master’s grave is dug,
“In with his body I may pitch the scroll
I hoped to glorify with, text and gloss,
My Science of Man’s Life: one blank’s the whole!
“Love, war, song, statesmanship — no gain, all loss,
The stars’ bestowment! We on our return
To-morrow merely find — not gold but dross,
“The body not the soul. Come, friends, we learn 640
At least thus much by our experiment —
That — that . . . well, find what, whom it may concern!”
But next day through the city rumours went
Of a new persecution; so, they fled
All Israel, each man, — this time, — from his tent,
Tsaddik among the foremost. When, the dread
Subsiding, Israel ventured back again
Some three months after, to the cave they sped
Where lay the Sage, — a reverential train!
Tsaddik first enters. “What is this I view? 650
The Rabbi still alive? No stars remain
“Of Aisch to stop within their courses. True,
I mind me, certain gamesome boys must urge
Their offerings on me: can it be — one threw
“Life at him and it stuck? There needs the scourge
To teach that urchin manners! Prithee, grant
Forgiveness if we pretermit thy dirge
“Just to explain no friend was ministrant,
This time, of life to thee! Some jackanapes,
I gather, has presumed to foist his scant 660
“Scurvy unripe existence — wilding grapes
Grass-green and sorrel-sour — on that grand wine,
Mighty as mellow, which, so fancy shapes
“May fitly image forth this life of thine
Fed on the last low fattening lees — condensed
Elixir, no milk-mildness of the vine!
“Rightly with Tsaddik wert thou now incensed
Had he been witting of the mischief wrought
When, for elixir, verjuice he dispensed!”
And slowly woke, — like Shushan’s flower besought 670
By over-curious handling to unloose
The curtained secrecy wherein she thought
Her captive bee, mid store of sweets to choose,
Would loll in gold, pavilioned lie unteased,
Sucking on, sated never, — whose, O whose
Might seem that countenance, uplift, all eased
Of old distraction and bewilderment,
Absurdly happy? “How ye have appeased
“The strife within me, bred this whole content,
This utter acquiescence in my past 680
Present and future life, — by whom was lent
“The power to work this miracle at last, —
Exceeds my guess. Though — ignorance confirmed
By knowledge sounds like paradox, I cast
“Vainly about to tell you — fitlier termed —
Of calm struck by encountering opposites,
Each nullifying either! Henceforth wormed
“From out my heart is every snake that bites
The dove that else would brood there: doubt, which kills
With hiss of ‘What if sorrows end delights?’ 690
“Fear which stings ease with ‘Work the Master wills!’
Experience which coils round and strangles quick
Each hope with ‘Ask the Past if hoping skills
“ ‘To work accomplishment, or proves a trick
Wiling thee to endeavour! Strive, fool, stop
Nowise, so live, so die — that’s law! why kick
“ ‘Against the pricks?’ All out-wormed! Slumber, drop
Thy films once more and veil the bliss within!
Experience strangle hope? Hope waves a-top
“Her wings triumphant! Come what will, I win, 700
Whoever loses! Every dream’s assured
Of soberest fulfilment. Where’s a sin
“Except in doubting that the light, which lured
The unwary into darkness, meant no wrong
Had I but marched on bold, nor paused immured
“By mists I should have pressed thro’, passed along
My way henceforth rejoicing? Not the boy’s
Passionate impulse he conceits so strong,
“Which, at first touch, truth, bubble-like, destroys, —
Not the man’s slow conviction ‘Vanity 710
Of vanities — alike my griefs and joys!’
“Ice! — thawed (look up) each bird, each insect by —
(Look round) by all the plants that break in bloom,
(Look down) by every dead friend’s memory
“That smiles ‘Am I the dust within my tomb?’
Not either, but both these — amalgam rare —
Mix in a product, not from Nature’s womb,
“But stuff which He the Operant — who shall dare
Describe His operation? — strikes alive
And thaumaturgic. I nor know nor care 720
“How from this tohu-bohu — hopes which dive,
And fears which soar — faith, ruined through and through
By doubt, and doubt, faith treads to dust — revive
“In some surprising sort, — as see, they do! —
Not merely foes no longer but fast friends.
What does it mean unless — O strange and new
“Discovery! — this life proves a wine-press — blends
Evil and good, both fruits of Paradise,
Into a novel drink which — who intends
“To quaff, must bear a brain for ecstasies 730
Attempered, not this all-inadequate
Organ which, quivering within me, dies
“ — Nay, lives! — what, how, — too soon, or else too late —
I
was — I am . . .” (“He babbleth!” Tsaddik mused)
“O Thou Almighty who canst reinstate
Truths in their primal clarity, confused
By man’s perception, which is man’s and made
To suit his service, — how, once disabused
“Of reason which sees light half shine half shade,
Because of flesh, the medium that adjusts 740
Purity to his visuals, both an aid
“And hindrance, — how to eyes earth’s air encrusts,
When purged and perfect to receive truth’s beam
Pouring itself on the new sense it trusts
“With all its plenitude of power, — how seem
The intricacies now, of shade and shine,
Oppugnant natures — Right and Wrong, we deem
“Irreconcilable? O eyes of mine,
Freed now of imperfection, ye avail
To see the whole sight, nor may uncombine 750
“Henceforth what, erst divided, caused you quail —
So huge the chasm between the false and true,
The dream and the reality! All hail,
“Day of my soul’s deliverance — day the new,
The never-ending! What though every shape
Whereon I wreaked my yearning to pursue
“Even to success each semblance of escape
From my own bounded self to some all-fair
All-wise external fancy, proved a rape
“Like that old giant’s, feigned of fools — on air, 760
Not solid flesh? How otherwise? To love —
That lesson was to learn not here — but there —
“On earth, not here! ‘Tis there we learn, — there prove
Our parts upon the stuff we needs must spoil,
Striving at mastery, there bend above
“The spoiled clay potsherds, many a year of toil
Attests the potter tried his hand upon,
Till sudden he arose, wiped free from soil
“His hand, cried ‘So much for attempt — anon
Performance! Taught to mould the living vase, 770
What matter the cracked pitchers dead and gone?’
“Could I impart and could thy mind embrace
The secret, Tsaddik!” “Secret none to me!”
Quoth Tsaddik, as the glory on the face
Of Jochanan was quenched. “The truth I see
Of what that excellence of Judah wrote,
Doughty Halaphta. This a case must be
“Wherein, though the last breath have passed the throat,
So that ‘The man is dead’ we may pronounce,
Yet is the Ruach — (thus do we denote 780
“The imparted Spirit) — in no haste to bounce
From its entrusted Body, — some three days
Lingers ere it relinquish to the pounce
“Of hawk-clawed Death his victim. Further says
Halaphta, ‘Instances have been, and yet
Again may be, when saints, whose earthly ways
“ ‘Tend to perfection, very nearly get
To heaven while still on earth: and, as a fine
Interval shows where waters pure have met
“ ‘Waves brackish, in a mixture, sweet with brine, 790
That’s neither sea nor river but a taste
Of both — so meet the earthly and divine
“ ‘And each is either.’ Thus I hold him graced —
Dying on earth, half inside and half out,
Wholly in heaven, who knows? My mind embraced
“Thy secret, Jochanan, how dare I doubt?
Follow thy Ruach, let earth, all it can,
Keep of the leavings!” Thus was brought about
The sepulture of Rabbi Jochanan:
Thou hast him, — sinner-saint, live-dead, boy-man, — 800
Schiphaz, on Bendimir, in Farzistan!
Note
This story can have no better authority than that of the treatise, existing dispersedly in fragments of Rabbinical writing, ברים משך של רבים, from which I might have helped myself more liberally. Thus, instead of the simple reference to “Moses’ stick”, — but what if I make amends by attempting three illustrations, when some thirty might be composed on the same subject, equally justifying that pithy proverb קם כמשה ממשה עד משה לא.
I
Moses the Meek was thirty cubits high,
The staff he strode with — thirty cubits long;
And when he leapt, so muscular and strong
Was Moses that his leaping neared the sky
By thirty cubits more: we learn thereby
He reached full ninety cubits — am I wrong? —
When, in a fight slurred o’er by sacred song,
With staff outstretched he took a leap to try
The just dimensions of the giant Og.
And yet he barely touched — this marvel lacked
Posterity to crown earth’s catalogue
Of marvels — barely touched — to be exact —
The giant’s ankle-bone, remained a frog
That fain would match an ox in stature: fact!
II
And this same fact has met with unbelief!
How saith a certain traveller? “Young, I chanced
To come upon an object — if thou canst,
Guess me its name and nature! ‘Twas, in brief,
White, hard, round, hollow, of such length, in chief,
— And this is what especially enhanced
My wonder — that it seemed, as i advanced,
Never to end. Bind up within thy sheaf
Of marvels, this — Posterity! I walked
From end to end, — four hours walked I, who go
A goodly pace, — and found — I have not baulked
Thine expectation, Stranger? Ay or No?
‘Twas but Og’s thigh-bone, all the while. I stalked
Alongside of: respect to Moses, though!
III
Og’s thigh-bone — if ye deem its measure strange,
Myself can witness to much length of shank
Even in birds. Upon a water’s bank
Once halting, I was minded to exchange
Noon heat for cool. Quoth I, “On many a grange
I have seen storks perch — legs both long and lank:
Yon stork’s must touch the bottom of this tank,
Since on its top doth wet no plume derange
Of the smooth breast. I’ll bathe there!” “Do not so!”
Warned me a voice from heaven. “A man let drop
His axe into that shallow rivulet —
As thou accountest — seventy years ago:
It fell and fell and still without a stop
Keeps falling, nor has reached the bottom yet.”
Never the Time and the Place
Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path — how soft to pace!
This May — what magic weather!
Where is the loved one’s face?
In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Thro’ the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we —
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
— I and she!
Pambo
Suppose that we part (work done, come
s play)
With a grave tale told in crambo
— As our hearty sires were wont to say —
Whereof the hero is Pambo?
Do you happen to know who Pambo was?
Nor I — but this much have heard of him:
He entered one day a college-class,
And asked — was it so absurd of him? —
“May Pambo learn wisdom ere practise it?
In wisdom I fain would ground me:
Since wisdom is centred in Holy Writ,
Some psalm to the purpose expound me!”
“That psalm,” the Professor smiled, “shall be
Untroubled by doubt which dirtieth
Pellucid streams when an ass like thee
Would drink there — the Nine-and-thirtieth.
“Verse First: I said I will look to my ways
That I with my tongue offend not.
How now? Why stare? Art struck in amaze?
Stop, stay! The smooth line hath an end knot!
“He’s gone! — disgusted my text should prove
Too easy to need explaining?
Had he waited, the blockhead might find I move
To matter that pays remaining!”
Long years went by, when — “Ha, who’s this?
Do I come on the restive scholar
I had driven to Wisdom’s goal, I wis,
But that he slipped the collar?
“What? Arms crossed, brow bent, thought-immersed?
A student indeed! Why scruple
To own that the lesson proposed him first
Scarce suited so apt a pupil?
“Come back! From the beggarly elements
To a more recondite issue
We pass till we reach, at all events,
Some point that may puzzle . . . Why ‘pish’ you?”
From the ground looked piteous up the head;
”Daily and nightly, Master,
Your pupil plods thro’ that text you read,
Yet gets on never the faster.
“At the self-same stand, — now old, then young!
I will look to my ways — were doing
As easy as saying! — that I with my tongue
Offend not — and ‘scape pooh-poohing
“From sage and simple, doctor and dunce?
Ah, nowise! Still doubts so muddy
The stream I would drink at once, — but once!
That — thus I resume my study!”
Brother, brother, I share the blame,
Arcades sumus ambo!
Darkling, I keep my sunrise-aim,
Lack not the critic’s flambeau,
And look to my ways, yet, much the same,
Offend with my tongue — like Pambo!
FERISHTAH’S FANCIES
First appearing in 1884, Ferishtah’s Fancies is a long poem divided into twelve parts, though the parts are diverse in subject and often treated as separate poems. The poem is narrated by the Persian soothsayer Ferishtah, who tells several parables (fancies) to students that illustrate his opinions on a number of religious and moral subjects.
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 212