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Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

Page 222

by Robert Browning


  The otherwise all-unapproachable

  Allowed impingement? Does the sphere pretend

  To span the cube’s breadth, cover end to end

  The plane with its embrace? No, surely! Still,

  Contact is contact, sphere’s touch no whit less

  Than cube’s superimposure. Such success

  Befell Smart only out of throngs between

  Milton and Keats that donned the singing-dress —

  Smart, solely of such songmen, pierced the screen

  ‘Twixt thing and word, lit language straight from soul, —

  Left no fine film-flake on the naked coal

  Live from the censer — shapely or uncouth,

  Fire-suffused through and through, one blaze of truth

  Undeadened by a lie, — (you have my mind) —

  For, think! this blaze outleapt with black behind

  And blank before, when Hayley and the rest . . .

  But let the dead successors worst and best

  Bury their dead: with life be my concern —

  Yours with the fire-flame: what I fain would learn

  Is just — (suppose me haply ignorant

  Down to the common knowledge, doctors vaunt)

  Just this — why only once the fire-flame was:

  No matter if the marvel came to pass

  The way folk judged — if power too long suppressed

  Broke loose and maddened, as the vulgar guessed,

  Or simply brain-disorder (doctors said)

  A turmoil of the particles disturbed

  Brain’s workaday performance in your head,

  Spurred spirit to wild action health had curbed:

  And so verse issued in a cataract

  Whence prose, before and after, unperturbed

  Was wont to wend its way. Concede the fact

  That here a poet was who always could —

  Never before did — never after would —

  Achieve the feat: how were such fact explained?

  VII.

  Was it that when, by rarest chance, there fell

  Disguise from Nature, so that Truth remained

  Naked, and whoso saw for once could tell

  Us others of her majesty and might

  In large, her lovelinesses infinite

  In little, — straight you used the power wherewith

  Sense, penetrating as through rind to pith

  Each object, thoroughly revealed might view

  And comprehend the old things thus made new,

  So that while eye saw, soul to tongue could trust

  Thing which struck word out, and once more adjust

  Real vision to right language, till heaven’s vault

  Pompous with sunset, storm-stirred sea’s assault

  On the swilled rock-ridge, earth’s embosomed brood

  Of tree and flower and weed, with all the life

  That flies or swims or crawls, in peace or strife,

  Above, below, — each had its note and name

  For Man to know by, — Man who, now — the same

  As erst in Eden, needs that all he sees

  Be named him ere he note by what degrees

  Of strength and beauty to its end Design

  Ever thus operates — (your thought and mine,

  No matter for the many dissident) —

  So did you sing your Song, so truth found vent

  In words for once with you?

  VIII.

  Then — back was furled

  The robe thus thrown aside, and straight the world

  Darkened into the old oft-catalogued

  Repository of things that sky, wave, land,

  Or show or hide, clear late, accretion-clogged

  Now, just as long ago, by tellings and

  Re-tellings to satiety, which strike

  Muffled upon the ear’s drum. Very like

  None was so startled as yourself when friends

  Came, hailed your fast-returning wits: “Health mends

  Importantly, for — to be plain with you —

  This scribble on the wall was done — in lieu

  Of pen and paper — with — ha, ha! — your key

  Denting it on the wainscot! Do you see

  How wise our caution was? Thus much we stopped

  Of babble that had else grown print: and lopped

  From your trim bay-tree this unsightly bough —

  Smart’s who translated Horace! Write us now” . . .

  Why, what Smart did write — never afterward

  One line to show that he, who paced the sward,

  Had reached the zenith from his madhouse cell.

  IX.

  Was it because you judged (I know full well

  You never had the fancy) — judged — as some —

  That who makes poetry must reproduce

  Thus ever and thus only, as they come,

  Each strength, each beauty, everywhere diffuse

  Throughout creation, so that eye and ear,

  Seeing and hearing, straight shall recognize,

  At touch of just a trait, the strength appear, —

  Suggested by a line’s lapse see arise

  All evident the beauty, — fresh surprise

  Startling at fresh achievement? “So, indeed,

  Wallows the whale’s bulk in the waste of brine,

  Nor otherwise its feather-tufts make fine

  Wild Virgin’s Bower when stars faint off to seed!”

  (My prose — your poetry I dare not give,

  Purpling too much my mere grey argument.)

  — Was it because you judged — when fugitive

  Was glory found, and wholly gone and spent

  Such power of startling up deaf ear, blind eye,

  At truth’s appearance, — that you humbly bent

  The head and, bidding vivid work good-bye,

  Doffed lyric dress and trod the world once more

  A drab-clothed decent proseman as before?

  Strengths, beauties, by one word’s flash thus laid bare

  — That was effectual service: made aware

  Of strengths and beauties, Man but hears the text,

  Awaits your teaching. Nature? What comes next?

  Why all the strength and beauty? — to be shown

  Thus in one word’s flash, thenceforth let alone

  By Man who needs must deal with aught that’s known

  Never so lately and so little? Friend,

  First give us knowledge, then appoint its use!

  Strength, beauty are the means: ignore their end?

  As well you stopped at proving how profuse

  Stones, sticks, nay stubble lie to left and right

  Ready to help the builder, — careless quite

  If he should take, or leave the same to strew

  Earth idly, — as by word’s flash bring in view

  Strength, beauty, then bid who beholds the same

  Go on beholding. Why gains unemployed?

  Nature was made to be by Man enjoyed

  First; followed duly by enjoyment’s fruit,

  Instruction — haply leaving joy behind:

  And you, the instructor, would you slack pursuit

  Of the main prize, as poet help mankind

  Just to enjoy, there leave them? Play the fool,

  Abjuring a superior privilege?

  Please simply when your function is to rule-

  By thought incite to deed? From edge to edge

  Of earth’s round, strength and beauty everywhere

  Pullulate — and must you particularize

  All, each and every apparition? Spare

  Yourself and us the trouble! Ears and eyes

  Want so much strength and beauty, and no less

  Nor more, to learn life’s lesson by. Oh, yes —

  The other method’s favoured in our day!

  The end ere the beginning: as you may,

  Master the heavens before you study earth,
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  Make you familiar with the meteor’s birth

  Ere you descend to scrutinize the rose!

  I say, o’erstep no least one of the rows

  That lead man from the bottom where he plants

  Foot first of all, to life’s last ladder-top:

  Arrived there, vain enough will seem the vaunts

  Of those who say — ”We scale the skies, then drop

  To earth — to find, how all things there are loth

  To answer heavenly law: we understand

  The meteor’s course, and lo, the rose’s growth —

  How other than should be by law’s command!”

  Would not you tell such — ”Friends, beware lest fume

  Offuscate sense: learn earth first ere presume

  To teach heaven legislation. Law must be

  Active in earth or nowhere: earth you see, —

  Or there or not at all, Will, Power and Love

  Admit discovery, — as below, above

  Seek next law’s confirmation! But reverse

  The order, where’s the wonder things grow worse

  Than, by the law your fancy formulates,

  They should be? Cease from anger at the fates

  Which thwart themselves so madly. Live and learn,

  Not first learn and then live, is our concern.

  WITH GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON.

  I.

  Ah , George Bubb Dodington Lord Melcombe, — no,

  Yours was the wrong way! — always understand,

  Supposing that permissibly you planned

  How statesmanship — your trade — in outward show

  Might figure as inspired by simple zeal

  For serving country, king, and commonweal,

  (Though service tire to death the body, tease

  The soul from out an o’ertasked patriot-drudge)

  And yet should prove zeal’s outward show agrees

  In all respects — right reason being judge —

  With inward care that, while the statesman spends

  Body and soul thus freely for the sake

  Of public good, his private welfare take

  No harm by such devotedness. Intends

  Scripture aught else — let captious folk inquire —

  Which teaches “Labourers deserve their hire,

  And who neglects his household bears the bell

  Away of sinning from an infidel”?

  Wiselier would fools that carp bestow a thought

  How birds build nests; at outside, roughly wrought,

  Twig knots with twig, loam plasters up each chink,

  Leaving the inmate rudely lodged — you think?

  Peep but inside! That specious rude-and-rough

  Covers a domicile where downy fluff

  Embeds the ease-deserving architect,

  Who toiled and moiled not merely to effect

  ‘T wixt sprig and spray a stop-gap in the teeth

  Of wind and weather, guard what swung beneath

  From upset only, but contrived himself

  A snug interior, warm and soft and sleek.

  Of what material? Oh, for that, you seek

  How nature prompts each volatile! Thus — pelf

  Smoothens the human mudlark’s lodging, power

  Demands some hardier wrappage to embrace

  Robuster heart-beats: rock, not tree nor tower,

  Contents the building eagle: rook shoves close

  To brother rook on branch, while crow morose

  Apart keeps balance perched on topmost bough.

  No sort of bird but suits his taste somehow

  Nay, Darwin tells of such as love the bower —

  His bower-birds opportunely yield us yet

  The lacking instance when at loss to get

  A feathered parallel to what we find

  The secret motor of some mighty mind

  That worked such wonders — all for vanity!

  Worked them to haply figure in the eye

  Of intimates as first of — doers’ kind?

  Actors’, that work in earnest sportively,

  Paid by a sourish smile. How says the Sage?

  Birds born to strut prepare a platform-stage

  With sparkling stones and speckled shells, all sorts

  Of slimy rubbish, odds and ends and orts,

  Whereon to pose and posture and engage

  The priceless female simper.

  II.

  I have gone

  Thus into detail, George Bubb Dodington,

  Lest, when I take you presently to task

  For the wrong way of working, you should ask

  “What fool conjectures that profession means

  Performance? that who goes behind the scenes

  Finds, — acting over, — still the soot-stuff screens

  Othello’s visage, still the self-same cloak’s

  Bugle-bright-blackness half reveals half chokes

  Hamlet’s emotion, as ten minutes since?”

  No, each resumes his garb, stands — Moor or prince-

  Decently draped: just so with statesmanship

  All outside show, in short, is sham — why wince?

  Concede me — while our parley lasts! You trip

  Afterwards — lay but this to heart! (there lurks

  Somewhere in all of us a lump which irks

  Somewhat the sprightliest-scheming brain that’s bent

  On brave adventure, would but heart consent!)

  — Here trip you, that — your aim allowed as right —

  Your means thereto were wrong. Come, we, this night,

  Profess one purpose, hold one principle,

  Are at odds only as to — not the will

  But way of winning solace for ourselves

  — No matter if the ore for which zeal delves

  Be gold or coprolite, while zeal’s pretence

  Is — we do good to men at — whose expense

  But ours? who tire the body, tease the soul,

  Simply that, running, we may reach fame’s goal

  And wreathe at last our brows with bay — the State’s

  Disinterested slaves, nay — please the Fates —

  Saviours and nothing less: such lot has been!

  Statesmanship triumphs pedestalled, serene, —

  O happy consummation! — brought about

  By managing with skill the rabble-rout

  For which we labour (never mind the name —

  People or populace, for praise or blame)

  Making them understand — their heaven, their hell,

  Their every hope and fear is ours as well.

  Man’s cause — what other can we have at heart?

  Whence follows that the necessary part

  High o’er Man’s head we play, — and freelier breathe

  Just that the multitude which gasps beneath

  May reach the level where unstifled stand

  Ourselves at vantage to put forth a hand,

  Assist the prostrate public. ‘T is by right

  Merely of such pretence, we reach the height

  Where storms abound, to brave — nay, court their stress,

  Though all too well aware — of pomp the less,

  Of peace the more! But who are we, to spurn

  For peace’ sake, duty’s pointing? Up, then — earn

  Albeit no prize we may but martyrdom!

  Now, such fit height to launch salvation from,

  How get and gain? Since help must needs be craved

  By would-be saviours of the else-unsaved,

  How coax them to co-operate, lend a lift,

  Kneel down and let us mount?

  III.

  You say “Make shift

  By sham — the harsh word: preach and teach, persuade

  Somehow the Public — not despising aid

  Of salutary artifice — we seek

  Solely their good: our strength would raise the weak,

  Our cultiva
ted knowledge supplement

  Their rudeness, rawness: why to us were lent

  Ability except to come in use?

  Who loves his kind must by all means induce

  That kind to let his love play freely, press

  In Man’s behalf to full performance!”

  IV.

  Yes —

  Yes, George, we know! — whereat they hear, believe,

  And bend the knee, and on the neck receive

  Who fawned and cringed to purpose? Not so, George!

  Try simple falsehood on shrewd folk who forge

  Lies of superior fashion day by day

  And hour by hour? With craftsmen versed as they

  What chance of competition when the tools

  Only a novice wields? Are knaves such fools?

  Disinterested patriots, spare your tongue

  The tones thrice-silvery, cheek save smiles it flung

  Pearl-like profuse to swine — a herd, whereof

  No unit needs be taught, his neighbour’s trough

  Scarce holds for who but grunts and whines the husks

  Due to a wrinkled snout that shows sharp tusks.

  No animal — much less our lordly Man —

  Obeys its like: with strength all rule began,

  The stoutest awes the pasture. Soon succeeds

  Discrimination, — nicer power Man needs

  To rule him than is bred of bone and thew:

  Intelligence must move strength’s self. This too

  Lasts but its time: the multitude at length

  Looks inside for intelligence and strength

  And finds them here and there to pick and choose:

  “All at your service, mine, see!” Ay, but who’s

  My George, at this late day, to make his boast

  “In strength, intelligence, I rule the roast,

  Beat, all and some, the ungraced who crowd your ranks?”

  “Oh, but I love, would lead you, gain your thanks

  By unexampled yearning for Man’s sake —

  Passion that solely waits your help to take

  Effect in action!” George, which one of us

  But holds with his own heart communion thus:

  “I am, if not of men the first and best,

  Still — to receive enjoyment — properest:

  Which since by force I cannot, nor by wit

  Most likely — craft must serve in place of it.

  Flatter, cajole! If so I bring within

  My net the gains which wit and force should win,

  What hinders?” ‘T is a trick we know of old:

  Try, George, some other of tricks manifold!

  The multitude means mass and mixture — right

  Are mixtures simple, pray, or composite?

  Dive into Man, your medley: see the waste!

  Sloth-stifled genius, energy disgraced

  By ignorance, high aims with sorry skill,

 

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