Permissibly masks pleasure — you abstain
From outstretch of the finger-tip that saves
A drowning fly. Who proffers help of hand
To weak Andromeda exposed on strand
At mercy of the monster? Were all true,
Help were not wanting: ‘But ‘t is false,’ cry you,
‘Mere fancy-work of paint and brush!’ No less,
Were mine the skill, the magic, to impress
Beholders with a confidence they saw
Life, — veritable flesh and blood in awe
Of just as true a sea-beast, — would they stare
Simply as now, or cry out, curse and swear,
Or call the gods to help, or catch up stick
And stone, according as their hearts were quick
Or sluggish? Well, some old artificer
Could do as much, — at least, so books aver, —
Able to make-believe, while I, poor wight,
Make-fancy, nothing more. Though wrong were right,
Could we but know — still wrong must needs seem wrong
To do right’s service, prove men weak or strong,
Choosers of evil or of good. ‘No such
Illusion possible!’ Ah, friends, you touch
Just here my solid standing-place amid
The wash and welter, whence all doubts are bid
Back to the ledge they break against in foam,
Futility: my soul, and my soul’s home
This body, — how each operates on each,
And how things outside, fact or feigning, teach
What good is and what evil, — just the same,
Be feigning or be fact the teacher, — blame
Diffidence nowise if, from this I judge
My point of vantage, not an inch I budge.
All — for myself — seems ordered wise and well
Inside it, — what reigns outside, who can tell?
Contrariwise, who needs be told ‘The space
Which yields thee knowledge, — do its bounds embrace
Well-willing and wise-working, each at height?
Enough: beyond thee lies the infinite —
Back to thy circumscription!’
“Back indeed!
Ending where I began — thus: retrocede,
Who will, — what comes first, take first, I advise!
Acquaint you with the body ere your eyes
Look upward: this Andromeda of mine —
Gaze on the beauty, Art hangs out for sign
There’s finer entertainment underneath.
Learn how they ministrate to life and death —
Those incommensurably marvellous
Contrivances which furnish forth the house
Where soul has sway! Though Master keep aloof,
Signs of His presence multiply from roof
To basement of the building. Look around,
Learn thoroughly, — no fear that you confound
Master with messuage! He’s away, no doubt,
But what if, all at once, you come upon
A startling proof — not that the Master gone
Was present lately — but that something — whence
Light comes — has pushed Him into residence?
Was such the symbol’s meaning, — old, uncouth —
That circle of the serpent, tail in mouth?
Only by looking low, ere looking high,
Comes penetration of the mystery.”
XI.
Thanks! After sermonizing, psalmody!
Now praise with pencil, Painter! Fools attaint
Your fame, forsooth, because its power inclines
To livelier colours, more attractive lines
Than suit some orthodox sad sickly saint
— Grey male emaciation, haply streaked
Carmine by scourgings — or they want, far worse —
Some self-scathed woman, framed to bless not curse
Nature that loved the form whereon hate wreaked
The wrongs you see. No, rather paint some full
Benignancy, the first and foremost boon
Of youth, health, strength, — show beauty’s May, ere June
Undo the bud’s blush, leave a rose to cull
— No poppy, neither! yet less perfect-pure,
Divinely-precious with life’s dew besprent.
Show saintliness that’s simply innocent
Of guessing sinnership exists to cure
All in good time! In time let age advance
And teach that knowledge helps — not ignorance —
The healing of the nations. Let my spark
Quicken your tinder! Burn with — Joan of Arc!
Not at the end, nor midway when there grew
The brave delusions, when rare fancies flew
Before the eyes, and in the ears of her
Strange voices woke imperiously astir:
No, — paint the peasant girl all peasant-like,
Spirit and flesh — the hour about to strike
When this should be transfigured, that inflamed,
By heart’s admonishing “Thy country shamed,
Thy king shut out of all his realm except
One sorry corner!” and to life forth leapt
The indubitable lightning “Can there be
Country and king’s salvation — all through me?”
Memorize that burst’s moment, Francis! Tush —
None of the nonsense-writing! Fitlier brush
Shall clear off fancy’s film-work and let show
Not what the foolish feign but the wise know —
Ask Sainte-Beuve else! — or better, Quicherat,
The downright-digger into truth that’s — Bah,
Bettered by fiction? Well, of fact thus much
Concerns you, that “of prudishness no touch
From first to last defaced the maid; anon,
Camp-use compelling” — what says D’Alençon
Her fast friend? — ”though I saw while she undressed
How fair she was — especially her breast —
Never had I a wild thought!” — as indeed
I nowise doubt. Much less would she take heed —
When eve came, and the lake, the hills around
Were all one solitude and silence, — found
Barriered impenetrably safe about, —
Take heed of interloping eyes shut out,
But quietly permit the air imbibe
Her naked beauty till . . . but hear the scribe!
Now as she fain would bathe, one even-tide,
God’s maid, this Joan, from the pool’s edge she spied
The fair blue bird clowns call the Fisher-king:
And “ ‘Las,” sighed she, “my Liege is such a thing
As thou, lord but of one poor lonely place
Out of his whole wide France: were mine the grace
To set my Dauphin free as thou, blue bird!”
Properly Martin-fisher — that’s the word,
Not yours nor mine: folk said the rustic oath
In common use with her was — ”By my troth”?
No, — ”By my Martin”! Paint this! Only, turn
Her face away — that face about to burn
Into an angel’s when the time is ripe!
That task’s beyond you. Finished, Francis? Wipe
Pencil, scrape palette, and retire content!
“ Omnia non omnibus “ — no harm is meant!
WITH GERARD DE LAIRESSE.
I.
Ah , but — because you were struck blind, could bless
Your sense no longer with the actual view
Of man and woman, those fair forms you drew
In happier days so duteously and true, —
Must I account my Gerard de Lairesse
All sorrow-smitten? He was hindered too
— Was this no hardship? — from producing, plain
To us who still hav
e eyes, the pageantry
Which passed and passed before his busy brain
And, captured on his canvas, showed our sky
Traversed by flying shapes, earth stocked with brood
Of monsters, — centaurs bestial, satyrs lewd, —
Not without much Olympian glory, shapes
Of god and goddess in their gay escapes
From the severe serene: or haply paced
The antique ways, god-counselled, nymph-embraced,
Some early human kingly personage.
Such wonders of the teeming poet’s-age
Were still to be: nay, these indeed began —
Are not the pictures extant? — till the ban
Of blindness struck both palette from his thumb
And pencil from his finger.
II.
Blind — not dumb,
Else, Gerard, were my inmost bowels stirred
With pity beyond pity: no, the word
Was left upon your unmolested lips:
Your mouth unsealed, despite of eyes’ eclipse,
Talked all brain’s yearning into birth. I lack
Somehow the heart to wish your practice back
Which boasted hand’s achievement in a score
Of veritable pictures, less or more,
Still to be seen: myself have seen them, — moved
To pay due homage to the man I loved
Because of that prodigious book he wrote
On Artistry’s Ideal, by taking note,
Making acquaintance with his artist-work.
So my youth’s piety obtained success
Of all-too dubious sort: for, though it irk
To tell the issue, few or none would guess
From extant lines and colours, De Lairesse,
Your faculty, although each deftly-grouped
And aptly-ordered figure-piece was judged
Worthy a prince’s purchase in its day.
Bearded experience bears not to be duped
Like boyish fancy: ‘t was a boy that budged
No foot’s breadth from your visioned steps away
The while that memorable “Walk” he trudged
In your companionship, — the Book must say
Where, when and whither, — ”Walk,” come what come may,
No measurer of steps on this our globe
Shall ever match for marvels. Faustus’ robe,
And Fortunatus’ cap were gifts of price:
But — oh, your piece of sober sound advice
That artists should descry abundant worth
In trivial commonplace, nor groan at dearth
If fortune bade the painter’s craft be plied
In vulgar town and country! Why despond
Because hemmed round by Dutch canals? Beyond
The ugly actual, lo, on every side
Imagination’s limitless domain
Displayed a wealth of wondrous sounds and sights
Ripe to be realized by poet’s brain
Acting on painter’s brush! “Ye doubt? Poor wights,
What if I set example, go before,
While you come after, and we both explore
Holland turned Dreamland, taking care to note
Objects whereto my pupils may devote
Attention with advantage?”
III.
So commenced
That “Walk” amid true wonders — none to you,
But huge to us ignobly common-sensed,
Purblind, while plain could proper optics view
In that old sepulchre by lightning split,
Whereof the lid bore carven, — any dolt
Imagines why, — Jove’s very thunderbolt:
You who could straight perceive, by glance at it,
This tomb must needs be Phaeton’s! In a trice,
Confirming that conjecture, close on hand,
Behold, half out, half in the ploughed-up sand,
A chariot-wheel explained its bolt-device:
What other than the Chariot of the Sun
Ever let drop the like? Consult the tome —
I bid inglorious tarriers-at-home —
For greater still surprise the while that “Walk”
Went on and on, to end as it begun,
Choke-full of chances, changes, every one
No whit less wondrous. What was there to baulk
Us, who had eyes, from seeing? You with none
Missed not a marvel: wherefore? Let us talk.
IV.
Say am I right? Your sealed sense moved your mind,
Free from obstruction, to compassionate
Art’s power left powerless, and supply the blind
With fancies worth all facts denied by fate.
Mind could invent things, and to — take away,
At pleasure, leave out trifles mean and base
Which vex the sight that cannot say them nay
But, where mind plays the master, have no place.
And bent on banishing was mind, be sure,
All except beauty from its mustered tribe
Of objects apparitional which lure
Painter to show and poet to describe —
That imagery of the antique song
Truer than truth’s self. Fancy’s rainbow-birth
Conceived mid clouds in Greece, could glance along
Your passage o’er Dutch veritable earth,
As with ourselves, who see, familiar throng
About our pacings men and women worth
Nowise a glance — so poets apprehend —
Since nought avails portraying them in verse:
While painters turn upon the heel, intend
To spare their work the critic’s ready curse
Due to the daily and undignified.
V.
I who myself contentedly abide
Awake, nor want the wings of dream, — who tramp
Earth’s common surface, rough, smooth, dry or damp,
— I understand alternatives, no less
— Conceive your soul’s leap, Gerard de Lairesse!
How were it could I mingle false with true,
Boast, with the sights I see, your vision too?
Advantage would it prove or detriment
If I saw double? Could I gaze intent
On Dryope plucking the blossoms red,
As you, whereat her lote-tree writhed and bled,
Yet lose no gain, no hard fast wide-awake
Having and holding nature for the sake
Of nature only — nymph and lote-tree thus
Gained by the loss of fruit not fabulous,
Apple of English homesteads, where I see
Nor seek more than crisp buds a struggling bee
Uncrumples, caught by sweet he clambers through?
Truly, a moot point: make it plain to me,
Who, bee-like, sate sense with the simply true,
Nor seek to heighten that sufficiency
By help of feignings proper to the page —
Earth’s surface-blank whereon the elder age
Put colour, poetizing — poured rich life
On what were else a dead ground — nothingness —
Until the solitary world grew rife
With Joves and Junos, nymphs and satyrs. Yes,
The reason was, fancy composed the strife
‘Twixt sense and soul: for sense, my De Lairesse,
Cannot content itself with outward things,
Mere beauty: soul must needs know whence there springs —
How, when and why — what sense but loves, nor lists
To know at all.
VI.
Not one of man’s acquists
Ought he resignedly to lose, methinks:
So, point me out which was it of the links
Snapt first, from out the chain which used to bind
Our earth to heaven, and yet for you, since blind,
Subsisted still efficient and
intact?
Oh, we can fancy too! but somehow fact
Has got to — say, not so much push aside
Fancy, as to declare its place supplied
By fact unseen but no less fact the same,
Which mind bids sense accept. Is mind to blame,
Or sense, — does that usurp, this abdicate?
First of all, as you “walked” — were it too late
For us to walk, if so we willed? Confess
We have the sober feet still, De Lairesse!
Why not the freakish brain too, that must needs
Supplement nature — not see flowers and weeds
Simply as such, but link with each and all
The ultimate perfection — what we call
Rightly enough the human shape divine?
The rose? No rose unless it disentwine
From Venus’ wreath the while she bends to kiss
Her deathly love?
VII.
Plain retrogression, this!
No, no: we poets go not back at all:
What you did we could do — from great to small
Sinking assuredly: if this world last
One moment longer when Man finds its Past
Exceed its Present — blame the Protoplast!
If we no longer see as you of old,
‘T is we see deeper. Progress for the bold!
You saw the body, ‘t is the soul we see.
Try now! Bear witness while you walk with me,
I see as you: if we loose arms, stop pace,
‘T is that you stand still, I conclude the race
Without your company. Come, walk once more
The “Walk”: if I to-day as you of yore
See just like you the blind — then sight shall cry
— The whole long day quite gone through — victory!
VIII.
Thunders on thunders, doubling and redoubling
Doom o’er the mountain, while a sharp white fire
Now shone, now sheared its rusty herbage, troubling
Hardly the fir-boles, now discharged its ire
Full where some pine-tree’s solitary spire
Crashed down, defiant to the last: till — lo,
The motive of the malice! — all a-glow,
Circled with flame there yawned a sudden rift
I’ the rock-face, and I saw a form erect
Front and defy the outrage, while — as checked,
Chidden, beside him dauntless in the drift —
Cowered a heaped creature, wing and wing outspread
In deprecation o’er the crouching head
Still hungry for the feast foregone awhile.
O thou, of scorn’s unconquerable smile,
Was it when this — Jove’s feathered fury — slipped
Gore-glutted from the heart’s core whence he ripped —
This eagle-hound — neither reproach nor prayer —
Baffled, in one more fierce attempt to tear
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 225