Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  As when a queen, long dead, was young.

  Mine, every word! And on such pile shall die

  My lovely fancies, with fair perished things,

  Themselves fair and forgotten; yes, forgotten,

  Or why abjure them? So, I made this rhyme

  That fitting dignity might be preserved;

  No little proud was I; though the list of drugs

  Smacks of my old vocation, and the verse

  Halts like the best of Luther’s psalms.

  Festus.

  But, Aureole,

  Talk not thus wildly and madly. I am here —

  Did you know all! I have travelled far, indeed,

  To learn your wishes. Be yourself again!

  For in this mood I recognize you less

  Than in the horrible despondency

  I witnessed last. You may account this, joy;

  But rather let me gaze on that despair

  Than hear these incoherent words and see

  This flushed cheek and intensely-sparkling eye.

  Paracelsus.

  Why, man, I was light-hearted in my prime

  I am light-hearted now; what would you have?

  Aprile was a poet, I make songs —

  ‘T is the very augury of success I want!

  Why should I not be joyous now as then?

  Festus.

  Joyous! and how? and what remains for joy?

  You have declared the ends (which I am sick

  Of naming) are impracticable.

  Paracelsus.

  Ay,

  Pursued as I pursued them — the arch-fool!

  Listen: my plan will please you not, ‘t is like,

  But you are little versed in the world’s ways.

  This is my plan — (first drinking its good luck) —

  I will accept all helps; all I despised

  So rashly at the outset, equally

  With early impulses, late years have quenched:

  I have tried each way singly: now for both!

  All helps! no one sort shall exclude the rest.

  I seek to know and to enjoy at once,

  Not one without the other as before.

  Suppose my labour should seem God’s own cause

  Once more, as first I dreamed, — it shall not baulk me

  Of the meanest earthliest sensualest delight

  That may be snatched; for every joy is gain,

  And gain is gain, however small. My soul

  Can die then, nor be taunted — ”what was gained?”

  Nor, on the other hand, should pleasure follow

  As though I had not spurned her hitherto,

  Shall she o’ercloud my spirit’s rapt communion

  With the tumultuous past, the teeming future,

  Glorious with visions of a full success.

  Festus.

  Success!

  Paracelsus.

  And wherefore not? Why not prefer

  Results obtained in my best state of being,

  To those derived alone from seasons dark

  As the thoughts they bred? When I was best, my youth

  Unwasted, seemed success not surest too?

  It is the nature of darkness to obscure.

  I am a wanderer: I remember well

  One journey, how I feared the track was missed,

  So long the city I desired to reach

  Lay hid; when suddenly its spires afar

  Flashed through the circling clouds; you may conceive

  My transport. Soon the vapours closed again,

  But I had seen the city, and one such glance

  No darkness could obscure: nor shall the present —

  A few dull hours, a passing shame or two,

  Destroy the vivid memories of the past.

  I will fight the battle out; a little spent

  Perhaps, but still an able combatant.

  You look at my grey hair and furrowed brow?

  But I can turn even weakness to account:

  Of many tricks I know, ‘t is not the least

  To push the ruins of my frame, whereon

  The fire of vigour trembles scarce alive,

  Into a heap, and send the flame aloft.

  What should I do with age? So, sickness lends

  An aid; it being, I fear, the source of all

  We boast of: mind is nothing but disease,

  And natural health is ignorance.

  Festus.

  I see

  But one good symptom in this notable scheme.

  I feared your sudden journey had in view

  To wreak immediate vengeance on your foes

  ‘T is not so: I am glad.

  Paracelsus.

  And if I please

  To spit on them, to trample them, what then?

  ‘T is sorry warfare truly, but the fools

  Provoke it. I would spare their self-conceit

  But if they must provoke me, cannot suffer

  Forbearance on my part, if I may keep

  No quality in the shade, must needs put forth

  Power to match power, my strength against their strength,

  And teach them their own game with their own arms —

  Why, be it so and let them take their chance!

  I am above them like a god, there’s no

  Hiding the fact: what idle scruples, then,

  Were those that ever bade me soften it,

  Communicate it gently to the world,

  Instead of proving my supremacy,

  Taking my natural station o’er their head,

  Then owning all the glory was a man’s!

  — And in my elevation man’s would be.

  But live and learn, though life’s short, learning, hard!

  And therefore, though the wreck of my past self,

  I fear, dear Pütter, that your lecture-room

  Must wait awhile for its best ornament,

  The penitent empiric, who set up

  For somebody, but soon was taught his place;

  Now, but too happy to be let confess

  His error, snuff the candles, and illustrate

  (Fiat experientia corpore vili)

  Your medicine’s soundness in his person. Wait,

  Good Pütter!

  Festus.

  He who sneers thus, is a god!

  Paracelsus.

  Ay, ay, laugh at me! I am very glad

  You are not gulled by all this swaggering; you

  Can see the root of the matter! — how I strive

  To put a good face on the overthrow

  I have experienced, and to bury and hide

  My degradation in its length and breadth;

  How the mean motives I would make you think

  Just mingle as is due with nobler aims,

  The appetites I modestly allow

  May influence me as being mortal still —

  Do goad me, drive me on, and fast supplant

  My youth’s desires. You are no stupid dupe:

  You find me out! Yes, I had sent for you

  To palm these childish lies upon you, Festus!

  Laugh — you shall laugh at me!

  Festus.

  The past, then, Aureole,

  Proves nothing? Is our interchange of love

  Yet to begin? Have I to swear I mean

  No flattery in this speech or that? For you,

  Whate’er you say, there is no degradation;

  These low thoughts are no inmates of your mind,

  Or wherefore this disorder? You are vexed

  As much by the intrusion of base views,

  Familiar to your adversaries, as they

  Were troubled should your qualities alight

  Amid their murky souls; not otherwise,

  A stray wolf which the winter forces down

  From our bleak hills, suffices to affright

  A village in the vales — while foresters

  Sleep calm, though all night long the famished troo
p

  Snuff round and scratch against their crazy huts.

  These evil thoughts are monsters, and will flee.

  Paracelsus.

  May you be happy, Festus, my own friend!

  Festus.

  Nay, further; the delights you fain would think

  The superseders of your nobler aims,

  Though ordinary and harmless stimulants,

  Will ne’er content you. . . .

  Paracelsus.

  Hush! I once despised them,

  But that soon passes. We are high at first

  In our demand, nor will abate a jot

  Of toil’s strict value; but time passes o’er,

  And humbler spirits accept what we refuse:

  In short, when some such comfort is doled out

  As these delights, we cannot long retain

  Bitter contempt which urges us at first

  To hurl it back, but hug it to our breast

  And thankfully retire. This life of mine

  Must be lived out and a grave thoroughly earned:

  I am just fit for that and nought beside.

  I told you once, I cannot now enjoy,

  Unless I deem my knowledge gains through joy;

  Nor can I know, but straight warm tears reveal

  My need of linking also joy to knowledge:

  So, on I drive, enjoying all I can,

  And knowing all I can. I speak, of course,

  Confusedly; this will better explain — feel here!

  Quick beating, is it not? — a fire of the heart

  To work off some way, this as well as any.

  So, Festus sees me fairly launched; his calm

  Compassionate look might have disturbed me once,

  But now, far from rejecting, I invite

  What bids me press the closer, lay myself

  Open before him, and be soothed with pity;

  I hope, if he command hope, and believe

  As he directs me — satiating myself

  With his enduring love. And Festus quits me

  To give place to some credulous disciple

  Who holds that God is wise, but Paracelsus

  Has his peculiar merits: I suck in

  That homage, chuckle o’er that admiration,

  And then dismiss the fool; for night is come.

  And I betake myself to study again,

  Till patient searchings after hidden lore

  Half wring some bright truth from its prison; my frame

  Trembles, my forehead’s veins swell out, my hair

  Tingles for triumph. Slow and sure the morn

  Shall break on my pent room and dwindling lamp

  And furnace dead, and scattered earths and ores;

  When, with a failing heart and throbbing brow,

  I must review my captured truth, sum up

  Its value, trace what ends to what begins,

  Its present power with its eventual bearings,

  Latent affinities, the views it opens,

  And its full length in perfecting my scheme.

  I view it sternly circumscribed, cast down

  From the high place my fond hopes yielded it,

  Proved worthless — which, in getting, yet had cost

  Another wrench to this fast-falling frame.

  Then, quick, the cup to quaff, that chases sorrow!

  I lapse back into youth, and take again

  My fluttering pulse for evidence that God

  Means good to me, will make my cause his own.

  See! I have cast off this remorseless care

  Which clogged a spirit born to soar so free,

  And my dim chamber has become a tent,

  Festus is sitting by me, and his Michal . . .

  Why do you start? I say, she listening here,

  (For yonder — Würzburg through the orchard-bough!)

  Motions as though such ardent words should find

  No echo in a maiden’s quiet soul,

  But her pure bosom heaves, her eyes fill fast

  With tears, her sweet lips tremble all the while!

  Ha, ha!

  Festus.

  It seems, then, you expect to reap

  No unreal joy from this your present course,

  But rather . . .

  Paracelsus.

  Death! To die! I owe that much

  To what, at least, I was. I should be sad

  To live contented after such a fall,

  To thrive and fatten after such reverse!

  The whole plan is a makeshift, but will last

  My time.

  Festus.

  And you have never mused and said,

  “I had a noble purpose, and the strength

  “To compass it; but I have stopped half-way,

  “And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil

  “To objects little worthy of the gift.

  “Why linger round them still? why clench my fault?

  “Why seek for consolation in defeat,

  “In vain endeavours to derive a beauty

  “From ugliness? why seek to make the most

  “Of what no power can change, nor strive instead

  “With mighty effort to redeem the past

  “And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down,

  “To hold a steadfast course till I arrive

  “At their fit destination and my own?”

  You have never pondered thus?

  Paracelsus.

  Have I, you ask?

  Often at midnight, when most fancies come,

  Would some such airy project visit me:

  But ever at the end . . . or will you hear

  The same thing in a tale, a parable?

  You and I, wandering over the world wide,

  Chance to set foot upon a desert coast.

  Just as we cry, “No human voice before

  “Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks!”

  — Their querulous echo startles us; we turn:

  What ravaged structure still looks o’er the sea?

  Some characters remain, too! While we read,

  The sharp salt wind, impatient for the last

  Of even this record, wistfully comes and goes,

  Or sings what we recover, mocking it.

  This is the record; and my voice, the wind’s.

  [He sings.]

  Over the sea our galleys went,

  With cleaving prows in order brave

  To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,

  A gallant armament:

  Each bark built out of a forest-tree

  Left leafy and rough as first it grew,

  And nailed all over the gaping sides,

  Within and without, with black bull-hides,

  Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,

  To bear the playful billows’ game:

  So, each good ship was rude to see,

  Rude and bare to the outward view,

  But each upbore a stately tent

  Where cedar pales in scented row

  Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,

  And an awning drooped the mast below,

  In fold on fold of the purple fine,

  That neither noontide nor starshine

  Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,

  Might pierce the regal tenement.

  When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad

  We set the sail and plied the oar;

  But when the night-wind blew like breath,

  For joy of one day’s voyage more,

  We sang together on the wide sea,

  Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;

  Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,

  Each helm made sure by the twilight star,

  And in a sleep as calm as death,

  We, the voyagers from afar,

  Lay stretched along, each weary crew

  In a circle round its wondrous tent

  Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent,
<
br />   And with light and perfume, music too:

  So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past,

  And at morn we started beside the mast,

  And still each ship was sailing fast.

  Now, one morn, land appeared — a speck

  Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky:

  “Avoid it,” cried our pilot, “check

  ”The shout, restrain the eager eye!”

  But the heaving sea was black behind

  For many a night and many a day,

  And land, though but a rock, drew nigh;

  So, we broke the cedar pales away,

  Let the purple awning flap in the wind,

  And a statute bright was on every deck!

  We shouted, every man of us,

  And steered right into the harbour thus,

  With pomp and pæan glorious.

  A hundred shapes of lucid stone!

  All day we built its shrine for each,

  A shrine of rock for every one,

  Nor paused till in the westering sun

  We sat together on the beach

  To sing because our task was done.

  When lo! what shouts and merry songs!

  What laughter all the distance stirs!

  A loaded raft with happy throngs

  Of gentle islanders!

  “Our isles are just at hand,” they cried,

  ”Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping

  “Our temple-gates are opened wide,

  ”Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping

  “For these majestic forms” — they cried.

  Oh, then we awoke with sudden start

  From our deep dream, and knew, too late,

  How bare the rock, how desolate,

  Which had received our precious freight:

  Yet we called out — ”Depart!

  “Our gifts, once given, must here abide.

  ”Our work is done; we have no heart

  “To mar our work,” — we cried.

  Festus.

  In truth?

  Paracelsus.

  Nay, wait: all this in tracings faint

  On rugged stones strewn here and there, but piled

  In order once: then follows — mark what follows!

  “The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung

  “To their first fault, and withered in their pride.”

  Festus.

  Come back then, Aureole; as you fear God, come!

  This is foul sin; come back! Renounce the past,

  Forswear the future; look for joy no more,

  But wait death’s summons amid holy sights,

  And trust me for the event — peace, if not joy.

  Return with me to Einsiedeln, dear Aureole!

  Paracelsus.

  No way, no way! it would not turn to good.

  A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss —

  ‘T is well for him; but when a sinful man,

  Envying such slumber, may desire to put

  His guilt away, shall he return at once