Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Drifts by me; I am young, old, happy, sad,

  Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest,

  And all at once: that is, those past conditions

  Float back at once on me. If I select

  Some special epoch from the crowd, ‘t is but

  To will, and straight the rest dissolve away,

  And only that particular state is present

  With all its long-forgotten circumstance

  Distinct and vivid as at first — myself

  A careless looker-on and nothing more,

  Indifferent and amused, but nothing more.

  And this is death: I understand it all.

  New being waits me; new perceptions must

  Be born in me before I plunge therein;

  Which last is Death’s affair; and while I speak,

  Minute by minute he is filling me

  With power; and while my foot is on the threshold

  Of boundless life — the doors unopened yet,

  All preparations not complete within —

  I turn new knowledge upon old events,

  And the effect is . . . but I must not tell;

  It is not lawful. Your own turn will come

  One day. Wait, Festus! You will die like me.

  Festus.

  ‘T is of that past life that I burn to hear.

  Paracelsus.

  You wonder it engages me just now?

  In truth, I wonder too. What ‘s life to me?

  Where’er I look is fire, where’er I listen

  Music, and where I tend bliss evermore.

  Yet how can I refrain? ‘T is a refined

  Delight to view those chances, — one last view.

  I am so near the perils I escape,

  That I must play with them and turn them over,

  To feel how fully they are past and gone.

  Still, it is like, some further cause exists

  For this peculiar mood — some hidden purpose;

  Did I not tell you something of it, Festus?

  I had it fast, but it has somehow slipt

  Away from me; it will return anon.

  Festus.

  (Indeed his cheek seems young again, his voice

  Complete with its old tones: that little laugh

  Concluding every phrase, with upturned eye,

  As though one stooped above his head to whom

  He looked for confirmation and approval,

  Where was it gone so long, so well preserved?

  Then, the fore-finger pointing as he speaks,

  Like one who traces in an open book

  The matter he declares; ‘t is many a year

  Since I remarked it last: and this in him,

  But now a ghastly wreck!)

  And can it be,

  Dear Aureole, you have then found out at last

  That worldly things are utter vanity?

  That man is made for weakness, and should wait

  In patient ignorance, till God appoint . . .

  Paracelsus.

  Ha, the purpose: the true purpose: that is it!

  How could I fail to apprehend! You here,

  I thus! But no more trifling: I see all,

  I know all: my last mission shall be done

  If strength suffice. No trifling! Stay; this posture

  Hardly befits one thus about to speak:

  I will arise.

  Festus.

  Nay, Aureole, are you wild?

  You cannot leave your couch.

  Paracelsus.

  No help; no help;

  Not even your hand. So! there, I stand once more!

  Speak from a couch? I never lectured thus.

  My gown — the scarlet lined with fur; now put

  The chain about my neck; my signet-ring

  Is still upon my hand, I think — even so;

  Last, my good sword; ah, trusty Azoth, leapest

  Beneath thy master’s grasp for the last time?

  This couch shall be my throne: I bid these walls

  Be consecrate, this wretched cell become

  A shrine, for here God speaks to men through me.

  Now, Festus, I am ready to begin.

  Festus.

  I am dumb with wonder.

  Paracelsus.

  Listen, therefore, Festus!

  There will be time enough, but none to spare.

  I must content myself with telling only

  The most important points. You doubtless feel

  That I am happy, Festus; very happy.

  Festus.

  ‘T is no delusion which uplifts him thus!

  Then you are pardoned, Aureole, all your sin?

  Paracelsus.

  Ay, pardoned: yet why pardoned?

  Festus.

  ’T is God’s praise

  That man is bound to seek, and you . . .

  Paracelsus.

  Have lived!

  We have to live alone to set forth well

  God’s praise. ‘T is true, I sinned much, as I thought,

  And in effect need mercy, for I strove

  To do that very thing; but, do your best

  Or worst, praise rises, and will rise for ever

  Pardon from him, because of praise denied —

  Who calls me to himself to exalt himself?

  He might laugh as I laugh!

  Festus.

  But all comes

  To the same thing. ‘T is fruitless for mankind

  To fret themselves with what concerns them not;

  They are no use that way: they should lie down

  Content as God has made them, nor go mad

  In thriveless cares to better what is ill.

  Paracelsus.

  No, no; mistake me not; let me not work

  More harm than I have worked! This is my case:

  If I go joyous back to God, yet bring

  No offering, if I render up my soul

  Without the fruits it was ordained to bear,

  If I appear the better to love God

  For sin, as one who has no claim on him,-

  Be not deceived! It may be surely thus

  With me, while higher prizes still await

  The mortal persevering to the end.

  Beside I am not all so valueless:

  I have been something, though too soon I left

  Following the instincts of that happy time.

  Festus.

  What happy time? For God’s sake, for man’s sake,

  What time was happy? All I hope to know

  That answer will decide. What happy time?

  Paracelsus.

  When but the time I vowed myself to man?

  Festus.

  Great God, thy judgments are inscrutable!

  Paracelsus.

  Yes, it was in me; I was born for it —

  I, Paracelsus: it was mine by right.

  Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul

  Might learn from its own motions that some task

  Like this awaited it about the world;

  Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours

  For fit delights to stay its longings vast;

  And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her

  To fill the creature full she dared thus frame

  Hungry for joy; and, bravely tyrannous,

  Grow in demand, still craving more and more,

  And make each joy conceded prove a pledge

  Of other joy to follow — bating nought

  Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence

  To turn the knowledge and the rapture wrung

  As an extreme, last boon, from destiny,

  Into occasion for new coyetings,

  New strifes, new triumphs: — doubtless a strong soul,

  Alone, unaided might attain to this,

  So glorious is our nature, so august

  Man’s inborn uninstructed impulses,

  His naked spirit so majestical!

  But
this was born in me; I was made so;

  Thus much time saved: the feverish appeties,

  The tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed

  Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind,

  Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears

  Were saved me; thus I entered on my course.

  You may be sure I was not all exempt

  From human trouble; just so much of doubt

  As bade me plant a surer foot upon

  The sun-road, kept my eye unruined ‘mid

  The fierce and flashing splendour, set my heart

  Trembling so much as warned me I stood there

  On sufferance — not to idly gaze, but cast

  Light on a darkling race; save for that doubt,

  I stood at first where all aspire at last

  To stand: the secret of the world was mine.

  I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed,

  Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,

  But somehow felt and known in every shift

  And change in the spirit, — nay, in every pore

  Of the body, even,) — what God is, what we are,

  What life is — how God tastes an infinite joy

  In infinite ways — one everlasting bliss,

  From whom all being emanates, all power

  Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore,

  Yet whom existence in its lowest form

  Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is he;

  With still a flying point of bliss remote,

  A happiness in store afar, a sphere

  Of distant glory in full view; thus climbs

  Pleasure its heights for ever and for ever.

  The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,

  And the earth changes like a human face;

  The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,

  Winds into the stone’s heart, outbranches bright

  In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,

  Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask —

  God joys therein. The wroth sea’s waves are edged

  With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,

  When, in the solitary waste, strange groups

  Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like,

  Staring together with their eyes on flame —

  God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride.

  Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod:

  But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes

  Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure

  Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between

  The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,

  Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;

  The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms

  Like chrysalids impatient for the air,

  The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run

  Along the furrows, ants make their ado;

  Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark

  Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;

  Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls

  Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe

  Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek

  Their loves in wood and plain — and God renews

  His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all,

  From life’s minute beginnings, up at last

  To man — the consummation of this scheme

  Of being, the completion of this sphere

  Of life: whose attributes had here and there

  Been scattered o’er the visible world before,

  Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant

  To be united in some wondrous whole,

  Imperfect qualities throughout creation,

  Suggesting some one creature yet to make,

  Some point where all those scattered rays should meet

  Convergent in the faculties of man.

  Power — neither put forth blindly, nor controlled

  Calmly by perfect knowledge; to be used

  At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear:

  Knowledge — not intuition, but the slow

  Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil,

  Strengthened by love: love — not serenely pure,

  But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown plant

  Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds

  And softer stains, unknown in happier climes;

  Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed

  And cherished, suffering much and much sustained,

  And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love,

  A half-enlightened, often-chequered trust: —

  Hints and previsions of which faculties,

  Are strewn confusedly everywhere about

  The inferior natures, and all lead up higher,

  All shape out dimly the superior race,

  The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,

  And man appears at last. So far the seal

  Is put on life; one stage of being complete,

  One scheme wound up: and from the grand result

  A supplementary reflux of light,

  Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains

  Each back step in the circle. Not alone

  For their possessor dawn those qualities,

  But the new glory mixes with the heaven

  And earth; man, once descried, imprints for ever

  His presence on all lifeless things: the winds

  Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,

  A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh,

  Never a senseless gust now man is born.

  The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts

  A secret they assemble to discuss

  When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare

  Like grates of hell: the peerless cup afloat

  Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph

  Swims bearing high above her head: no bird

  Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above

  That let light in upon the gloomy woods,

  A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,

  Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye.

  The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops

  With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour,

  Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn

  Beneath a warm moon like a happy face:

  — And this to fill us with regard for man.

  With apprehension of his passing worth,

  Desire to work his proper nature out,

  And ascertain his rank and final place,

  For these things tend still upward, progress is

  The law of life, man is not Man as yet.

  Nor shall I deem his object served, his end

  Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,

  While only here and there a star dispels

  The darkness, here and there a towering mind

  O’erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the host

  Is out at once to the despair of night,

  When all mankind alike is perfected,

  Equal in full-blown powers — then, not till then,

  I say, begins man’s general infancy.

  For wherefore make account of feverish starts

  Of restless members of a dormant whole,

  Impatient nerves which quiver while the body

  Slumbers as in a grave? Oh long ago

  The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir,

  The peaceful mouth disturbed; half-uttered speech

  Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set,

  The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched stronger,

  As it would pluck a lion by the jaw;

  The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep!

  But when full roused, each giant-limb awake,

  Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast,

  He shall st
art up and stand on his own earth,

  Then shall his long triumphant march begin,

  Thence shall his being date, — thus wholly roused,

  What he achieves shall be set down to him.

  When all the race is perfected alike

  As man, that is; all tended to mankind,

  And, man produced, all has its end thus far:

  But in completed man begins anew

  A tendency to God. Prognostics told

  Man’s near approach; so in man’s self arise

  August anticipations, symbols, types

  Of a dim splendour ever on before

  In that eternal circle life pursues.

  For men begin to pass their nature’s bound,

  And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant

  Their proper joys and griefs; they grow too great

  For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade

  Before the unmeasured thirst for good: while peace

  Rises within them ever more and more.

  Such men are even now upon the earth,

  Serene amid the half-formed creatures round

  Who should be saved by them and joined with them.

  Such was my task, and I was born to it —

  Free, as I said but now, from much that chains

  Spirits, high-dowered but limited and vexed

  By a divided and delusive aim,

  A shadow mocking a reality

  Whose truth avails not wholly to disperse

  The flitting mimic called up by itself,

  And so remains perplexed and nigh put out

  By its fantastic fellow’s wavering gleam.

  I, from the first, was never cheated thus;

  I never fashioned out a fancied good

  Distinct from man’s; a service to be done,

  A glory to be ministered unto

  With powers put forth at man’s expense, withdrawn

  From labouring in his behalf; a strength

  Denied that might avail him. I cared not

  Lest his success ran counter to success

  Elsewhere: for God is glorified in man,

  And to man’s glory vowed I soul and limb.

  Yet, constituted thus, and thus endowed,

  I failed: I gazed on power till I grew blind.

  Power; I could not take my eyes from that:

  That only, I thought, should be preserved, increased

  At any risk, displayed, struck out at once-

  The sign and note and character of man.

  I saw no use in the past: only a scene

  Of degradation, ugliness and tears,

  The record of disgraces best forgotten,

  A sullen page in human chronicles

  Fit to erase. I saw no cause why man

  Should not stand all-sufficient even now,

  Or why his annals should be forced to tell

  That once the tide of light, about to break

  Upon the world, was sealed within its spring: