What wonder that the lady-rose I woo
And palisade about from every wind,
Holds herself handsomely? The wilding, now,
Ruffled outside at pleasure of the blast,
That still lifts up with something of a smile
Its poor attempt at bloom” . . .
“A blameless life,
Where wrong might revel with impunity —
Remember that!”
“The falcon on his fist —
Reclaimed and trained and belled and beautified
Till she believes herself the Simorgh’s match —
She only deigns destroy the antelope,
Stoops at no carrion-crow: thou marvellest?”
“So be it, then! He wakes no love in thee
For any one of divers attributes
Commonly deemed loveworthy. All the same,
I would he were not wasting, slow but sure,
With that internal ulcer” . . .
“Say’st thou so?
How should I guess? Alack, poor soul! But stay —
Sure in the reach of art some remedy
Must lie to hand: or if it lurk, — that leech
Of fame in Tebriz, why not seek his aid?
Couldst not thou, Dervish, counsel in the case?”
“My counsel might be — what imports a pang
The more or less, which puts an end to one
Odious in spite of every attribute
Commonly deemed loveworthy?”
“Attributes?
Faugh! — nay, Ferishtah, — ’t is an ulcer, think!
Attributes, quotha? Here’s poor flesh and blood,
Like thine and mine and every man’s, a prey
To hell-fire! Hast thou lost thy wits for once?”
“Friend, here they are to find and profit by!
Put pain from out the world, what room were left
For thanks to God, for love to Man? Why thanks, —
Except for some escape, whate’er the style,
From pain that might be, name it as thou mayst?
Why love, — when all thy kind, save me, suppose,
Thy father, and thy son, and . . . well, thy dog,
To eke the decent number out — we few
Who happen — like a handful of chance stars
From the unnumbered host — to shine o’erhead
And lend thee light, — our twinkle all thy store, —
We only take thy love! Mankind, forsooth?
Who sympathizes with their general joy
Foolish as undeserved? But pain — see God’s
Wisdom at work! — man’s heart is made to judge
Pain deserved nowhere by the common flesh
Our birthright, — bad and good deserve alike
No pain, to human apprehension! Lust,
Greed, cruelty, injustice, crave (we hold)
Due punishment from somebody, no doubt:
But ulcer in the midriff! that brings flesh
Triumphant from the bar whereto arraigned
Soul quakes with reason. In the eye of God
Pain may have purpose and be justified:
Man’s sense avails to only see, in pain,
A hateful chance no man but would avert
Or, failing, needs must pity. Thanks to God
And love to man, — from man take these away,
And what is man worth? Therefore, Mihrab Shah,
Tax me my bread and salt twice over, claim
Laila my daughter for thy sport, — go on!
Slay my son’s self, maintain thy poetry
Beats mine, — thou meritest a dozen deaths!
But — ulcer in the stomach, — ah, poor soul,
Try a fig-plaster: may it ease thy pangs!”
So, the head aches and the limbs are faint!
Flesh is a burthen — even to you!
Can I force a smile with a fancy quaint?
Why are my ailments none or few?
In the soul of me sits sluggishness:
Body so strong and will so weak!
The slave stands fit for the labour — yes,
But the master’s mandate is still to seek.
You, now — what if the outside clay
Helped, not hindered the inside flame?
My dim to-morrow — your plain to-day,
Yours the achievement, mine the aim?
So were it rightly, so shall it be!
Only, while earth we pace together
For the purpose apportioned you and me,
Closer we tread for a common tether.
You shall sigh “Wait for his sluggish soul!
Shame he should lag, not lamed as I!”
May not I smile “Ungained her goal:
Body may reach her — by-and-by?”
A CAMEL-DRIVER.
“ How of his fate, the Pilgrims’ soldier-guide
Condemned” (Ferishtah questioned), “for he slew
The merchant whom he convoyed with his bales
— A special treachery?”
“Sir, the proofs were plain:
Justice was satisfied: between two boards
The rogue was sawn asunder, rightly served.”
“With all wise men’s approval — mine at least.”
“Himself, indeed, confessed as much. ‘I die
Justly’ (groaned he) ‘through over-greediness
Which tempted me to rob: but grieve the most
That he who quickened sin at slumber, — ay,
Prompted and pestered me till thought grew deed, —
The same is fled to Syria and is safe,
Laughing at me thus left to pay for both.
My comfort is that God reserves for him
Hell’s hottest’ . . .”
“Idle words.”
“Enlighten me!
Wherefore so idle? Punishment by man
Has thy assent, — the word is on thy lips.
By parity of reason, punishment
By God should likelier win thy thanks and praise.”
“Man acts as man must: God, as God beseems.
A camel-driver, when his beast will bite,
Thumps her athwart the muzzle: why?”
“How else
Instruct the creature — mouths should munch, not bite?”
“True, he is man, knows but man’s trick to teach.
Suppose some plain word, told her first of all,
Had hindered any biting?”
“Find him such,
And fit the beast with understanding first!
No understanding animals like Rakhsh
Nowadays, Master! Till they breed on earth,
For teaching — blows must serve.”
“Who deals the blow —
What if by some rare method, — magic, say, —
He saw into the biter’s very soul,
And knew the fault was so repented of
It could not happen twice?”
“That’s something: still,
I hear, methinks, the driver say ‘No less
Take thy fault’s due! Those long-necked sisters, see,
Lean all a-stretch to know if biting meets
Punishment or enjoys impunity.
For their sakes — thwack!’“
“The journey home at end,
The solitary beast safe-stabled now,
In comes the driver to avenge a wrong
Suffered from six months since, — apparently
With patience, nay, approval: when the jaws
Met i’ the small of the arm, ‘Ha, Ladykin,
Still at thy frolics, girl of gold?’ laughed he:
‘Eat flesh? Rye-grass content thee rather with,
Whereof accept a bundle!’ Now, — what change!
Laughter by no means! Now ‘t is ‘Fiend, thy frisk
Was fit to find thee provender, didst judge?
Behold this red-hot twy-prong, thus I stick
To his
s i’ the soft of thee!’“
“Behold? behold
A crazy noddle, rather! Sure the brute
Might wellnigh have plain speech coaxed out of tongue,
And grow as voluble as Rakhsh himself
At such mad outrage. ‘Could I take thy mind,
Guess thy desire? If biting was offence
Wherefore the rye-grass bundle, why each day’s
Patting and petting, but to intimate
My playsomeness had pleased thee? Thou endowed
With reason, truly!’“
“Reason aims to raise
Some makeshift scaffold-vantage midway, whence
Man dares, for life’s brief moment, peer below:
But ape omniscience? Nay! The ladder lent
To climb by, step and step, until we reach
The little foothold-rise allowed mankind
To mount on and thence guess the sun’s survey —
Shall this avail to show us world-wide truth
Stretched for the sun’s descrying? Reason bids
‘Teach, Man, thy beast his duty first of all
Or last of all, with blows if blows must be, —
How else accomplish teaching?’ Reason adds
‘Before man’s First, and after man’s poor Last,
God operated and will operate.’
— Process of which man merely knows this much, —
That nowise it resembles man’s at all,
Teaching or punishing.”
“It follows, then,
That any malefactor I would smite
With God’s allowance, God himself will spare
Presumably. No scapegrace? Then, rejoice
Thou snatch-grace safe in Syria!”
“Friend, such view
Is but man’s wonderful and wide mistake.
Man lumps his kind i’ the mass: God singles thence
Unit by unit. Thou and God exist —
So think! — for certain: think the mass — mankind —
Disparts, disperses, leaves thyself alone!
Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee, —
Thee and no other, — stand or fall by them!
That is the part for thee: regard all else
For what it may be — Time’s illusion. This
Be sure of — ignorance that sins, is safe.
No punishment like knowledge! Instance, now!
My father’s choicest treasure was a book
Wherein he, day by day and year by year,
Recorded gains of wisdom for my sake
When I should grow to manhood. While a child,
Coming upon the casket where it lay
Unguarded, — what did I but toss the thing
Into a fire to make more flame therewith,
Meaning no harm? So acts man three-years old!
I grieve now at my loss by witlessness,
But guilt was none to punish. Man mature —
Each word of his I lightly held, each look
I turned from — wish that wished in vain — nay, will
That willed and yet went all to waste — ’t is these
Rankle like fire. Forgiveness? rather grant
Forgetfulness! The past is past and lost.
However near I stand in his regard,
So much the nearer had I stood by steps
Offered the feet which rashly spurned their help.
That I call Hell; why further punishment?”
When I vexed you and you chid me,
And I owned my fault and turned
My cheek the way you bid me,
And confessed the blow well earned, —
My comfort all the while was
— Fault was faulty — near, not quite!
Do you wonder why the smile was?
O’erpunished wrong grew right.
But faults you ne’er suspected,
Nay, praised, no faults at all, —
Those would you had detected —
Crushed eggs whence snakes could crawl!
TWO CAMELS.
Quoth one: “Sir, solve a scruple! No true sage
I hear of, but instructs his scholar thus:
‘Wouldst thou be wise? Then mortify thyself!
Baulk of its craving every bestial sense!
Say “If I relish melons — so do swine!
Horse, ass and mule consume their provender
Nor leave a pea-pod: fasting feeds the soul.”‘
Thus they admonish: while thyself, I note,
Eatest thy ration with an appetite,
Nor fallest foul of whoso licks his lips
And sighs — ’Well-saffroned was that barley soup!’
Can wisdom co-exist with — gorge-and-swill,
I say not, — simply sensual preference
For this or that fantastic meat and drink?
Moreover, wind blows sharper than its wont
This morning, and thou hast already donned
Thy sheepskin over-garment: sure the sage
Is busied with conceits that soar above
A petty change of season and its chance
Of causing ordinary flesh to sneeze?
I always thought, Sir” . .
“Son,” Ferishtah said,
“Truth ought to seem as never thought before.
How if I give it birth in parable?
A neighbour owns two camels, beasts of price
And promise, destined each to go, next week,
Swiftly and surely with his merchandise
From Nishapur to Sebzevar, no truce
To tramp, but travel, spite of sands and drouth,
In days so many, lest they miss the Fair.
Each falls to meditation o’er his crib
Piled high with provender before the start.
Quoth this: ‘My soul is set on winning praise
From goodman lord and master, — hump to hoof,
I dedicate me to his service. How?
Grass, purslane, lupines and I know not what,
Crammed in my manger? Ha, I see — I see!
No, master, spare thy money! I shall trudge
The distance and yet cost thee not a doit
Beyond my supper on this mouldy bran.’
‘Be magnified, O master, for the meal
So opportunely liberal!’ quoth that.
‘What use of strength in me but to surmount
Sands and simooms, and bend beneath thy bales
No knee until I reach the glad bazaar?
Thus I do justice to thy fare: no sprig
Of toothsome chervil must I leave unchewed!
Too bitterly should I reproach myself
Did I sink down in sight of Sebzevar,
Remembering how the merest mouthful more
Had heartened me to manage yet a mile!’
And so it proved: the too-abstemious brute
Midway broke down, his pack rejoiced the thieves,
His carcass fed the vultures: not so he
The wisely thankful, who, good market-drudge,
Let down his lading in the market-place,
No damage to a single pack. Which beast,
Think ye, had praise and patting and a brand
Of good-and-faithful-servant fixed on flank?
So, with thy squeamish scruple. What imports
Fasting or feasting? Do thy day’s work, dare
Refuse no help thereto, since help refused
Is hindrance sought and found. Win but the race —
Who shall object ‘He tossed three wine cups off,
And, just at starting, Lilith kissed his lips’?
“More soberly, — consider this, my Son
Put case I never have myself enjoyed,
Known by experience what enjoyment means,
How shall I — share enjoyment? — no, indeed! —
Supply it to my fellows, — ignorant,
As so I should be of the thing they crave,
; How it affects them, works for good or ill.
Style my enjoyment self-indulgence — sin —
Why should I labour to infect my kind
With sin’s occasion, bid them too enjoy,
Who else might neither catch nor give again
Joy’s plague, but live in righteous misery?
Just as I cannot, till myself convinced,
Impart conviction, so, to deal forth joy
Adroitly, needs must I know joy myself.
Renounce joy for my fellows’ sake? That’s joy
Beyond joy; but renounced for mine, not theirs?
Why, the physician called to help the sick,
Cries ‘Let me, first of all, discard my health!’
No, Son: the richness hearted in such joy
Is in the knowing what are gifts we give,
Not in a vain endeavour not to know
Therefore, desire joy and thank God for it!
The Adversary said, — a Jew reports, —
In Persian phrase, ‘Does Job fear God for nought?’
Job’s creatureship is not abjured, thou fool!
He nowise isolates himself and plays
The independent equal, owns no more
Than himself gave himself, so why thank God?
A proper speech were this
‘Equals we are, Job, labour for thyself,
Nor bid me help thee: bear, as best flesh may,
Pains I inflict not nor avail to cure:
Beg of me nothing thou thyself mayst win
By work, or waive with magnanimity,
Since we are peers acknowledged, — scarcely peers,
Had I implanted any want of thine
Only my power could meet and gratify.’
No: rather hear, at man’s indifference —
‘Wherefore did I contrive for thee that ear
Hungry for music, and direct thine eye
To where I hold a seven-stringed instrument,
Unless I meant thee to beseech me play?’“
Once I saw a chemist take a pinch of powder
— Simple dust it seemed — and half-unstop a phial.
— Outdropped harmless dew. “Mixed nothings make” — quoth he —
“Something!” So they did: a thunderclap, but louder —
Lightning-flash, but fiercer — put spectators’ nerves to trial:
Sure enough, we learned what was, imagined what might be.
Had I no experience how a lip’s mere tremble,
Look’s half hesitation, cheek’s just change of colour,
These effect a heartquake, — how should I conceive
What a heaven there may be? Let it but resemble
Earth myself have known! No bliss that’s finer, fuller,
Only — bliss that lasts, they say, and fain would I believe.
CHERRIES.
“ What , I disturb thee at thy morning-meal:
Cherries so ripe already? Eat apace!
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 215