Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Not that he needs retain his aspect grave;

  That answers not my purpose; for ‘t is like,

  Some sunny morning — Basil being drained

  Of its wise population, every corner

  Of the amphitheatre crammed with learned clerks,

  Here Œcolampadius, looking worlds of wit,

  Here Castellanus, as profound as he,

  Munsterus here, Frobenius there, all squeezed

  And staring, — that the zany of the show,

  Even Paracelsus, shall put off before them

  His trappings with a grace but seldom judged

  Expedient in such cases: — the grim smile

  That will go round! Is it not therefore best

  To venture a rehearsal like the present

  In a small way? Where are the signs I seek,

  The first-fruits and fair sample of the scorn

  Due to all quacks? Why, this will never do!

  Festus.

  These are foul vapours, Aureole; nought beside!

  The effect of watching, study, weariness.

  Were there a spark of truth in the confusion

  Of these wild words, you would not outrage thus

  Your youth’s companion. I shall ne’er regard

  These wanderings, bred of faintness and much study.

  ‘T is not thus you would trust a trouble to me,

  To Michal’s friend.

  Paracelsus.

  I have said it, dearest Festus!

  For the manner, ‘t is ungracious probably;

  You may have it told in broken sobs, one day,

  And scalding tears, ere long: but I thought best

  To keep that off as long as possible.

  Do you wonder still?

  Festus.

  No; it must oft fall out

  That one whose labour perfects any work,

  Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he

  Of all men least can measure the extent

  Of what he has accomplished. He alone

  Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too,

  May clearly scan the little he effects:

  But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil,

  Estimate each aright.

  Paracelsus.

  This worthy Festus

  Is one of them, at last! ‘T is so with all!

  First, they set down all progress as a dream;

  And next, when he whose quick discomfiture

  Was counted on, accomplishes some few

  And doubtful steps in his career, — behold,

  They look for every inch of ground to vanish

  Beneath his tread, so sure they spy success!

  Festus.

  Few doubtful steps? when death retires before

  Your presence — when the noblest of mankind,

  Broken in body or subdued in soul,

  May through your skill renew their vigour, raise

  The shattered frame to pristine stateliness?

  When men in racking pain may purchase dreams

  Of what delights them most, swooning at once

  Into a sea of bliss or rapt along

  As in a flying sphere of turbulent light?

  When we may look to you as one ordained

  To free the flesh from fell disease, as frees

  Our Luther’s burning tongue the fettered soul?

  When . . .

  Paracelsus.

  When and where, the devil, did you get

  This notable news?

  Festus.

  Even from the common voice;

  From those whose envy, daring not dispute

  The wonders it decries, attributes them

  To magic and such folly.

  Paracelsus.

  Folly? Why not

  To magic, pray? You find a comfort doubtless

  In holding, God ne’er troubles him about

  Us or our doings: once we were judged worth

  The devil’s tempting . . . I offend: forgive me,

  And rest content. Your prophecy on the whole

  Was fair enough as prophesyings go;

  At fault a little in detail, but quite

  Precise enough in the main; and hereupon

  I pay due homage: you guessed long ago

  (The prophet!) I should fail — and I have failed.

  Festus.

  You mean to tell me, then, the hopes which fed

  Your youth have not been realized as yet?

  Some obstacle has barred them hitherto?

  Or that their innate . . .

  Paracelsus.

  As I said but now,

  You have a very decent prophet’s fame,

  So you but shun details here. Little matter

  Whether those hopes were mad, — the aims they sought,

  Safe and secure from all ambitious fools;

  Or whether my weak wits are overcome

  By what a better spirit would scorn: I fail.

  And now methinks ‘t were best to change a theme

  I am a sad fool to have stumbled on.

  I say confusedly what comes uppermost;

  But there are times when patience proves at fault,

  As now: this morning’s strange encounter — you

  Beside me once again! you, whom I guessed

  Alive, since hitherto (with Luther’s leave)

  No friend have I among the saints at peace,

  To judge by any good their prayers effect.

  I knew you would have helped me — why not he,

  My strange competitor in enterprise,

  Bound for the same end by another path,

  Arrived, or ill or well, before the time,

  At our disastrous journey’s doubtful close?

  How goes it with Aprile? Ah, they miss

  Your lone sad sunny idleness of heaven,

  Our martyrs for the world’s sake; heaven shuts fast:

  The poor mad poet is howling by this time!

  Since you are my sole friend then, here or there,

  I could not quite repress the varied feelings

  This meeting wakens; they have had their vent,

  And now forget them. Do the rear-mice still

  Hang like a fretwork on the gate (or what

  In my time was a gate) fronting the road

  From Einsiedeln to Lachen?

  Festus.

  Trifle not:

  Answer me, for my sake alone! You smiled

  Just now, when I supposed some deed, unworthy

  Yourself, might blot the else so bright result;

  Yet if your motives have continued pure,

  Your will unfaltering, and in spite of this,

  You have experienced a defeat, why then

  I say not you would cheerfully withdraw

  From contest — mortal hearts are not so fashioned —

  But surely you would ne’ertheless withdraw.

  You sought not fame nor gain nor even love,

  No end distinct from knowledge, — I repeat

  Your very words: once satisfied that knowledge

  Is a mere dream, you would announce as much,

  Yourself the first. But how is the event?

  You are defeated — and I find you here!

  Paracelsus.

  As though “here” did not signify defeat!

  I spoke not of my little labours here,

  But of the break-down of my general aims:

  For you, aware of their extent and scope,

  To look on these sage lecturings, approved

  By beardless boys, and bearded dotards worse,

  As a fit consummation of such aims,

  Is worthy notice. A professorship

  At Basil! Since you see so much in it,

  And think my life was reasonably drained

  Of life’s delights to render me a match

  For duties arduous as such post demands, —

  Be it far from me to deny my power

  To fill
the petty circle lotted out

  Of infinite space, or justify the host

  Of honours thence accruing. So, take notice,

  This jewel dangling from my neck preserves

  The features of a prince, my skill restored

  To plague his people some few years to come:

  And all through a pure whim. He had eased the earth

  For me, but that the droll despair which seized

  The vermin of his household, tickled me.

  I came to see. Here, drivelled the physician,

  Whose most infallible nostrum was at fault;

  There quaked the astrologer, whose horoscope

  Had promised him interminable years;

  Here a monk fumbled at the sick man’s mouth

  With some undoubted relic — a sudary

  Of the Virgin; while another piebald knave

  Of the same brotherhood (he loved them ever)

  Was actively preparing ‘neath his nose

  Such a suffumigation as, once fired,

  Had stunk the patient dead ere he could groan.

  I cursed the doctor and upset the brother,

  Brushed past the conjurer, vowed that the first gust

  Of stench from the ingredients just alight

  Would raise a cross-grained devil in my sword,

  Not easily laid: and ere an hour the prince

  Slept as he never slept since prince he was.

  A day — and I was posting for my life,

  Placarded through the town as one whose spite

  Had near availed to stop the blessed effects

  Of the doctor’s nostrum which, well seconded

  By the sudary, and most by the costly smoke —

  Not leaving out the strenuous prayers sent up

  Hard by in the abbey — raised the prince to life:

  To the great reputation of the seer

  Who, confident, expected all along

  The glad event — the doctor’s recompense —

  Much largess from his highness to the monks —

  And the vast solace of his loving people,

  Whose general satisfaction to increase,

  The prince was pleased no longer to defer

  The burning of some dozen heretics

  Remanded till God’s mercy should be shown

  Touching his sickness: last of all were joined

  Ample directions to all loyal folk

  To swell the complement by seizing me

  Who — doubtless some rank sorcerer — endeavoured

  To thwart these pious offices, obstruct

  The prince’s cure, and frustrate heaven by help

  Of certain devils dwelling in his sword.

  By luck, the prince in his first fit of thanks

  Had forced this bauble on me as an earnest

  Of further favours. This one case may serve

  To give sufficient taste of many such,

  So, let them pass. Those shelves support a pile

  Of patents, licences, diplomas, titles

  From Germany, France, Spain, and Italy;

  They authorize some honour; ne’ertheless,

  I set more store by this Erasmus sent;

  He trusts me; our Frobenius is his friend,

  And him “I raised” (nay, read it) “from the dead.”

  I weary you, I see. I merely sought

  To show, there ‘s no great wonder after all

  That, while I fill the class-room and attract

  A crowd to Basil, I get leave to stay,

  And therefore need not scruple to accept

  The utmost they can offer, if I please:

  For ‘t is but right the world should be prepared

  To treat with favour e’en fantastic wants

  Of one like me, used up in serving her.

  Just as the mortal, whom the gods in part

  Devoured, received in place of his lost limb

  Some virtue or other — cured disease, I think;

  You mind the fables we have read together.

  Festus.

  You do not think I comprehend a word.

  The time was, Aureole, you were apt enough

  To clothe the airiest thoughts in specious breath;

  But surely you must feel how vague and strange

  These speeches sound.

  Paracelsus.

  Well, then: you know my hopes;

  I am assured, at length, those hopes were vain;

  That truth is just as far from me as ever;

  That I have thrown my life away; that sorrow

  On that account is idle, and further effort

  To mend and patch what ‘s marred beyond repairing,

  As useless: and all this was taught your friend

  By the convincing good old-fashioned method

  Of force — by sheer compulsion. Is that plain?

  Festus.

  Dear Aureole, can it be my fears were just?

  God wills not . . .

  Paracelsus.

  Now, ‘t is this I most admire —

  The constant talk men of your stamp keep up

  Of God’s will, as they style it; one would swear

  Man had but merely to uplift his eye,

  And see the will in question charactered

  On the heaven’s vault. ‘T is hardly wise to moot

  Such topics: doubts are many and faith is weak.

  I know as much of any will of God

  As knows some dumb and tortured brute what Man,

  His stern lord, wills from the perplexing blows

  That plague him every way; but there, of course,

  Where least he suffers, longest he remains —

  My case; and for such reasons I plod on,

  Subdued but not convinced. I know as little

  Why I deserve to fail, as why I hoped

  Better things in my youth. I simply know

  I am no master here, but trained and beaten

  Into the path I tread; and here I stay,

  Until some further intimation reach me,

  Like an obedient drudge. Though I prefer

  To view the whole thing as a task imposed

  Which, whether dull or pleasant, must be done —

  Yet, I deny not, there is made provision

  Of joys which tastes less jaded might affect;

  Nay, some which please me too, for all my pride —

  Pleasures that once were pains: the iron ring

  Festering about a slave’s neck grows at length

  Into the flesh it eats. I hate no longer

  A host of petty vile delights, undreamed of

  Or spurned before; such now supply the place

  Of my dead aims: as in the autumn woods

  Where tall trees used to flourish, from their roots

  Springs up a fungous brood sickly and pale,

  Chill mushrooms coloured like a corpse’s cheek.

  Festus.

  If I interpret well your words, I own

  It troubles me but little that your aims,

  Vast in their dawning and most likely grown

  Extravagantly since, have baffled you.

  Perchance I am glad; you merit greater praise;

  Because they are too glorious to be gained,

  You do not blindly cling to them and die;

  You fell, but have not sullenly refused

  To rise, because an angel worsted you

  In wrestling, though the world holds not your peer;

  And though too harsh and sudden is the change

  To yield content as yet, still you pursue

  The ungracious path as though ‘t were rosv-strewn.

  ‘T is well: and your reward, or soon or late,

  Will come from him whom no man serves in vain.

  Paracelsus.

  Ah, very fine! For my part, I conceive

  The very pausing from all further toil,

  Which you find heinous, would become a seal

  To the
sincerity of all my deeds.

  To be consistent I should die at once;

  I calculated on no after-life;

  Yet (how crept in, how fostered, I know not)

  Here am I with as passionate regret

  For youth and health and love so vainly lavished,

  As if their preservation had been first

  And foremost in my thoughts; and this strange fact

  Humbled me wondrously, and had due force

  In rendering me the less averse to follow

  A certain counsel, a mysterious warning —

  You will not understand — but ‘t was a man

  With aims not mine and yet pursued like mine,

  With the same fervour and no more success,

  Perishing in my sight; who summoned me

  As I would shun the ghastly fate I saw,

  To serve my race at once; to wait no longer

  That God should interfere in my behalf,

  But to distrust myself, put pride away,

  And give my gains, imperfect as they were,

  To men. I have not leisure to explain

  How, since, a singular series of events

  Has raised me to the station you behold,

  Wherein I seem to turn to most account

  The mere wreck of the past, — perhaps receive

  Some feeble glimmering token that God views

  And may approve my penance: therefore here

  You find me, doing most good or least harm.

  And if folks wonder much and profit little

  ‘T is not my fault; only, I shall rejoice

  When my part in the farce is shuffled through,

  And the curtain falls: I must hold out till then.

  Festus.

  Till when, dear Aureole?

  Paracelsus.

  Till I ‘m fairly thrust

  From my proud eminence. Fortune is fickle

  And even professors fall: should that arrive,

  I see no sin in ceding to my bent.

  You little fancy what rude shocks apprise us

  We sin; God’s intimations rather fail

  In clearness than in energy: ‘t were well

  Did they but indicate the course to take

  Like that to be forsaken. I would fain

  Be spared a further sample. Here I stand,

  And here I stay, be sure, till forced to flit.

  Festus.

  Be you but firm on that head! long ere then

  All I expect will come to pass, I trust:

  The cloud that wraps you will have disappeared.

  Meantime, I see small chance of such event:

  They praise you here as one whose lore, already

  Divulged, eclipses all the past can show,

  But whose achievements, marvellous as they be,

  Are faint anticipations of a glory

  About to be revealed. When Basil’s crowds

  Dismiss their teacher, I shall be content

  That he depart.

  Paracelsus.