Selected Poems

Robert Browning

ABT VOGLER

    Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
    Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
    Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
    Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
    Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,
    Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--
    Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,
    And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!
   
    Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,
    This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!
    Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine,
    Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!
    And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,
    Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,
    Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,
    Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.
   
    And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was,
    Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest,
    Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,
    Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest:
    For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,
    When a great illumination surprises a festal night--
    Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)
    Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.
   
    In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,
    Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;
    And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth,
    As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:
    Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine,
    Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;
    Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,
    For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.
   
    Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,
    Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast,
    Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,
    Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last;
    Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone,
    But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:
    What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;
    And what is,--shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.
   
    All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
    All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,
    All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,
    Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:
    Had I written the same, made verse--still, effect proceeds from cause,
    Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;
    It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,
    Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:--
   
    But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
    Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!
    And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
    That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
    Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought;
    It is everywhere in the world--loud, soft, and all is said:
    Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:
    And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!
   
    Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;
    Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;
    For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,
    That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.
    Never to be again! But many more of the kind
    As good, nay, better, perchance: is this your comfort to me?
    To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind
    To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.
   
    Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name?
    Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands!
    What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same?
    Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands?
    There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
    The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
    What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
    On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
   
    All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
    Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
    Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
    When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
    The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
    The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
    Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
    Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.
   
    And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
    For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?
    Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?
    Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?
    Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,
    Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe:
    But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;
    The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.
   
    Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:
    I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.
    Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,
    Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor,--yes,
    And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,
    Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep;
    Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,
    The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.
   

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
    Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
        Miles and miles
    On the solitary pastures where our sheep
        Half-asleep
    Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
        As they crop--
    Was the site once of a city great and gay,
        (So they say)
    Of our country's very capital, its prince
      Ages since
  Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
      Peace or war.
 
 
  Now the country does not even boast a tree,
      As you see,
  To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
      From the hills
  Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
      Into one)
  Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
      Up like fires
  O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
      Bounding all
  Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest
      Twelve abreast.
 
 
  And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
      Never was!
  Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'er-spreads
      And embeds
  Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
      Stock or stone--
  Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
      Long ago;
  Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
      Struck them tame;
  And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
      Bought and sold.
 
 
  Now--the single little turret that remains
      On the plains,
  By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
      Overscored,
  While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
      Through the chinks--
  Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
      Sprang sublime,
  And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
      As they raced,
  And the monarch and his minions and his dames
      Viewed the games.
 
 
  And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
      Smiles to leave
  To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
      In such peace,
  And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
      Melt away--
  That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
      Waits me there
  In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
      For the goal,
  When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
        Till I come.
 
 
  But he looked upon the city, every side,
      Far and wide,
  All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
      Colonnades,
  All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then
      All the men!
  When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
      Either hand
  On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
      Of my face,
  Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
      Each on each.
 
 
  In one year they sent a million fighters forth
      South and North,
  And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
      As the sky
  Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--
      Gold, of course.
  O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
      Earth's returns
  For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
      Shut them in,
  With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
      Love is best.



MY LAST DUCHESS

FERRARA


    That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
    Looking as if she were alive. I call
    That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
    Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
    Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said
    "Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
    Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
    The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
    But to myself they turned (since none puts by
    The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
    And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
    How such a glance came there; so, not the first
    Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
    Her husband's presence only, called that spot
    Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
    Frà Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps
    Over my Lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
    Must never hope to reproduce the faint
    Half-flush that dies along her throat"; such stuff
    Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
    For calling up that spot of joy. She had
    A heart . . . how shall I say? . . . too soon made glad,
    Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
    She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
    Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
    The dropping of the daylight in the West,
    The bough of cherries some officious fool
    Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
    She rode with round the terrace--all and each
    Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
    Or blush, at least. She thanked men,--good; but thanked
    Somehow . . . I know not how . . . as if she ranked
    My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
    With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
    This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
    In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will
    Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
    Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
    Or there exceed the mark"--and if she let
    Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
    Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
    --E'en then would be some stooping; and I chuse
    Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
    Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
    Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
    Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
    As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We'll meet
    The company below, then. I repeat,
    The Count your Master's known munificence
    Is ample warrant that no just pretence
    Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
    Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
    At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
    Together down, Sir! Notice Neptune, though,
    Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
    Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.
   

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH ROME, 15--

   Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
    Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
    Nephews--sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well--
    She, men would have to be your mother once,
    Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
    What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
    Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
    And as she died so must we die ourselves,
    And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
    Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
    In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
    Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
    "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
    Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
    And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
    With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
    --Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
    Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
    He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
    Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
    One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
    And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
    And up into the aery dome where live
    The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
    And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
    And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
    With those nine columns round me, two and two,
    The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
    Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
    As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
    --Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
    Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
    Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
    Draw close: that conflagration of my church
    --What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
    My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
    The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
    Drop water gently till the surface sink,
    And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
    Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
    And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
    Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
    Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
    Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast ...
    Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
    That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
    So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
    Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
    Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
    For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
    Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
    Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
    Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black--
    'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
    Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
    The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
    Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
    Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
    The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
    Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
    Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
    And Moses with the tables . . . but I know
    Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
    Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
    To revel down my villas while I gasp
    Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
    Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
    Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!
    'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
    My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
    One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
    There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world--
    And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
    Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
    And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
    --That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
    Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
    No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line--
    Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
    And then how I shall lie through centuries,
    And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
    And see God made and eaten all day long,
    And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
    Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
    For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
    Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
    I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
    And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
    And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
    Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:
    And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
    Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
    About the life before I lived this life,
    And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
    Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
    Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
    And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
    And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
    --Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
    No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
    Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
    All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
    My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
    Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
    They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
    Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
    Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
    With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
    And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
    That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
    To comfort me on my entablature
    Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
    "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
    For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
    To death--ye wish it--God, ye wish it! Stone--
    Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
    As if the corpse they keep were oozing through--
    And no more lapis to delight the world!
    Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
    But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
    --Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
    And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
    That I may watch at leisure if he leers--
    Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
    As still he envied me, so fair she was!
   

ANDREA DEL SARTO (CALLED "THE FAULTLESS PAINTER")
    But do not let us quarrel any more,
    No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
    Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
    You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
    I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,
    Treat his own subject after his own way,
    Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
    And shut the money into this small hand
    When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
    Oh, I'll content him,--but to-morrow, Love!
    I often am much wearier than you think,
    This evening more than usual, and it seems
    As if--forgive now--should you let me sit
    Here by the window with your hand in mine
    And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
    Both of one mind, as married people use,
    Quietly, quietly the evening through,
    I might get up to-morrow to my work
    Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
    To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!
    Your soft hand is a woman of itself,
    And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.
    Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve
    For each of the five pictures we require:
    It saves a model. So! keep looking so--
    My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
    --How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
    Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet--
    My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,
    Which everybody looks on and calls his,
    And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
    While she looks--no one's: very dear, no less.
    You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,
    There's what we painters call our harmony!
    A common greyness silvers everything,--
    All in a twilight, you and I alike
    --You, at the point of your first pride in me
    (That's gone you know),--but I, at every point;
    My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
    To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.
    There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
    That length of convent-wall across the way
    Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;
    The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,
    And autumn grows, autumn in everything.
    Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape
    As if I saw alike my work and self
    And all that I was born to be and do,
    A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.
    How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;
    So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
    I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!
    This chamber for example--turn your head--
    All that's behind us! You don't understand
    Nor care to understand about my art,
    But you can hear at least when people speak:
    And that cartoon, the second from the door
    --It is the thing, Love! so such things should be--
    Behold Madonna!--I am bold to say.
    I can do with my pencil what I know,
    What I see, what at bottom of my heart
    I wish for, if I ever wish so deep--
    Do easily, too--when I say, perfectly,
    I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,
    Who listened to the Legate's talk last week,
    And just as much they used to say in France.
    At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!
    No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:
    I do what many dream of, all their lives,
    --Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
    And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
    On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
    Who strive--you don't know how the others strive
    To paint a little thing like that you smeared
    Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,--
    Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
    (I know his name, no matter)--so much less!
    Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
    There burns a truer light of God in them,
    In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
    Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
    This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
    Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
    Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,
    Enter and take their place there sure enough,
    Though they come back and cannot tell the world.
    My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.
    The sudden blood of these men! at a word--
    Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
    I, painting from myself and to myself,
    Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame
    Or their praise either. Somebody remarks
    Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,
    His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
    Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
    Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
    Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
    Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey,
    Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
    I know both what I want and what might gain,
    And yet how profitless to know, to sigh
    "Had I been two, another and myself,
    "Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.
    Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth
    The Urbinate who died five years ago.
    ('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)
    Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
    Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
    Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
    Above and through his art--for it gives way;
    That arm is wrongly put--and there again--
    A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,
    Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,
    He means right--that, a child may understand.
    Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:
    But all the play, the insight and the stretch--
    (Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?
    Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
    We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
    Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think--
    More than I merit, yes, by many times.
    But had you--oh, with the same perfect brow,
    And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
    And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
    The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare --
    Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!
    Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
    "God and the glory! never care for gain.
    "The present by the future, what is that?
    "Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!
    "Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!"
    I might have done it for you. So it seems:
    Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.
    Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;
    The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
    What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?
    In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
    And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
    Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power--
    And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,
    God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.
    'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,
    That I am something underrated here,
    Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.
    I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,
    For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.
    The best is when they pass and look aside;
    But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.
    Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,
    And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!
    I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,
    Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,
    In that humane great monarch's golden look,--
    One finger in his beard or twisted curl
    Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile,
    One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,
    The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,
    I painting proudly with his breath on me,
    All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
    Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls
    Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,--
    And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,
    This in the background, waiting on my work,
    To crown the issue with a last reward!
    A good time, was it not, my kingly days?
    And had you not grown restless... but I know--
    'Tis done and past: 'twas right, my instinct said:
    Too live the life grew, golden and not grey,
    And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
    Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.
    How could it end in any other way?
    You called me, and I came home to your heart.
    The triumph was--to reach and stay there; since
    I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?
    Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,
    You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
    "Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;
    "The Roman's is the better when you pray,
    "But still the other's Virgin was his wife--"
    Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
    Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
    My better fortune, I resolve to think.
    For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
    Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
    To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . .
    (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
    Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,
    Too lifted up in heart because of it)
    "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub
    "Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
    "Who, were he set to plan and execute
    "As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
    "Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"
    To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.
    I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see,
    Give the chalk here--quick, thus, the line should go!
    Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
    Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
    (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?
    Do you forget already words like those?)
    If really there was such a chance, so lost,--
    Is, whether you're--not grateful--but more pleased.
    Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
    This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
    If you would sit thus by me every night
    I should work better, do you comprehend?
    I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
    See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;
    Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
    The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
    Come from the window, love,--come in, at last,
    Inside the melancholy little house
    We built to be so gay with. God is just.
    King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
    When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
    The walls become illumined, brick from brick
    Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
    That gold of his I did cement them with!
    Let us but love each other. Must you go?
    That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
    Must see you--you, and not with me? Those loans?
    More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?
    Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
    While hand and eye and something of a heart
    Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?
    I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
    The grey remainder of the evening out,
    Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
    How I could paint, were I but back in France,
    One picture, just one more--the Virgin's face,
    Not yours this time! I want you at my side
    To hear them--that is, Michel Agnolo--
    Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
    Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.
    I take the subjects for his corridor,
    Finish the portrait out of hand--there, there,
    And throw him in another thing or two
    If he demurs; the whole should prove enough
    To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,
    What's better and what's all I care about,
    Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!
    Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
    The Cousin! what does he to please you more?
   I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.
    I regret little, I would change still less.
    Since there my past life lies, why alter it?
    The very wrong to Francis!--it is true
    I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
    And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
    My father and my mother died of want.
    Well, had I riches of my own? you see
    How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
    They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:
    And I have laboured somewhat in my time
    And not been paid profusely. Some good son
    Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try!
    No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,
    You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night.
    This must suffice me here. What would one have?
    In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance--
    Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
    Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
    For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me
    To cover--the three first without a wife,
    While I have mine! So--still they overcome
    Because there's still Lucrezia,--as I choose.
   
    Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.
   

FRA LIPPO LIPPI


    I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
    You need not clap your torches to my face.
    Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk!
    What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,
    And here you catch me at an alley's end
    Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?
    The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up,
    Do,--harry out, if you must show your zeal,
    Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,
    And nip each softling of a wee white mouse,
    Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company!
    Aha, you know your betters! Then, you'll take
    Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat,
    And please to know me likewise. Who am I?
    Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend
    Three streets off--he's a certain . . . how d'ye call?
    Master--a ...Cosimo of the Medici,
    I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best!
    Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged,
    How you affected such a gullet's-gripe!
    But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves
    Pick up a manner nor discredit you:
    Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets
    And count fair price what comes into their net?
    He's Judas to a tittle, that man is!
    Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends.
    Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hang-dogs go
    Drink out this quarter-florin to the health
    Of the munificent House that harbours me
    (And many more beside, lads! more beside!)
    And all's come square again. I'd like his face--
    His, elbowing on his comrade in the door
    With the pike and lantern,--for the slave that holds
    John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair
    With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say)
    And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!
    It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk,
    A wood-coal or the like? or you should see!
    Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so.
    What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down,
    You know them and they take you? like enough!
    I saw the proper twinkle in your eye--
    'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first.
    Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch.
    Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands
    To roam the town and sing out carnival,
    And I've been three weeks shut within my mew,
    A-painting for the great man, saints and saints
    And saints again. I could not paint all night--
    Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air.
    There came a hurry of feet and little feet,
    A sweep of lute strings, laughs, and whifts of song, --
    Flower o' the broom,
    Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!
    Flower o' the quince,
    I let Lisa go, and what good in life since?
    Flower o' the thyme--and so on. Round they went.
    Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter
    Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight,--three slim shapes,
    And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood,
    That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went,
    Curtain and counterpane and coverlet,
    All the bed-furniture--a dozen knots,
    There was a ladder! Down I let myself,
    Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped,
    And after them. I came up with the fun
    Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met,--
    Flower o' the rose,
    If I've been merry, what matter who knows?
    And so as I was stealing back again
    To get to bed and have a bit of sleep
    Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work
    On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast
    With his great round stone to subdue the flesh,
    You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see!
    Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head--
    Mine's shaved--a monk, you say--the sting 's in that!
    If Master Cosimo announced himself,
    Mum's the word naturally; but a monk!
    Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now!
    I was a baby when my mother died
    And father died and left me in the street.
    I starved there, God knows how, a year or two
    On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks,
    Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,
    My stomach being empty as your hat,
    The wind doubled me up and down I went.
    Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand,
    (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)
    And so along the wall, over the bridge,
    By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there,
    While I stood munching my first bread that month:
    "So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father
    Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time,--
    "To quit this very miserable world?
    Will you renounce" . . . "the mouthful of bread?" thought I;
    By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me;
    I did renounce the world, its pride and greed,
    Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house,
    Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici
    Have given their hearts to--all at eight years old.
    Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure,
    'T#was not for nothing--the good bellyful,
    The warm serge and the rope that goes all round,
    And day-long blessed idleness beside!
    "Let's see what the urchin's fit for"--that came next.
    Not overmuch their way, I must confess.
    Such a to-do! They tried me with their books:
    Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste!
    Flower o' the clove.
    All the Latin I construe is, "amo" I love!
    But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets
    Eight years together, as my fortune was,
    Watching folk's faces to know who will fling
    The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires,
    And who will curse or kick him for his pains,--
    Which gentleman processional and fine,
    Holding a candle to the Sacrament,
    Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch
    The droppings of the wax to sell again,
    Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped,--
    How say I?--nay, which dog bites, which lets drop
    His bone from the heap of offal in the street,--
    Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike,
    He learns the look of things, and none the less
    For admonition from the hunger-pinch.
    I had a store of such remarks, be sure,
    Which, after I found leisure, turned to use.
    I drew men's faces on my copy-books,
    Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge,
    Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes,
    Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's,
    And made a string of pictures of the world
    Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun,
    On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black.
    "Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d'ye say?
    In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark.
    What if at last we get our man of parts,
    We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese
    And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine
    And put the front on it that ought to be!"
    And hereupon he bade me daub away.
    Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank,
    Never was such prompt disemburdening.
    First, every sort of monk, the black and white,
    I drew them, fat and lean: then, folk at church,
    From good old gossips waiting to confess
    Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends,--
    To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot,
    Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there
    With the little children round him in a row
    Of admiration, half for his beard and half
    For that white anger of his victim's son
    Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm,
    Signing himself with the other because of Christ
    (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this
    After the passion of a thousand years)
    Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head,
    (Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve
    On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf,
    Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers
    (The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone.
    I painted all, then cried " `T#is ask and have;
    Choose, for more's ready!"--laid the ladder flat,
    And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall.
    The monks closed in a circle and praised loud
    Till checked, taught what to see and not to see,
    Being simple bodies,--"That's the very man!
    Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog!
    That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes
    To care about his asthma: it's the life!''
    But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked;
    Their betters took their turn to see and say:
    The Prior and the learned pulled a face
    And stopped all that in no time. "How? what's here?
    Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all!
    Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true
    As much as pea and pea! it's devil's-game!
    Your business is not to catch men with show,
    With homage to the perishable clay,
    But lift them over it, ignore it all,
    Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh.
    Your business is to paint the souls of men--
    Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . no, it's not . . .
    It's vapour done up like a new-born babe--
    (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)
    It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the soul!
    Give us no more of body than shows soul!
    Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God,
    That sets us praising--why not stop with him?
    Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head
    With wonder at lines, colours, and what not?
    Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms!
    Rub all out, try at it a second time.
    Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts,
    She's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say,--
    Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off!
    Have it all out!" Now, is this sense, I ask?
    A fine way to paint soul, by painting body
    So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further
    And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white
    When what you put for yellow's simply black,
    And any sort of meaning looks intense
    When all beside itself means and looks nought.
    Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn,
    Left foot and right foot, go a double step,
    Make his flesh liker and his soul more like,
    Both in their order? Take the prettiest face,
    The Prior's niece . . . patron-saint--is it so pretty
    You can't discover if it means hope, fear,
    Sorrow or joy? won't beauty go with these?
    Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue,
    Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash,
    And then add soul and heighten them three-fold?
    Or say there's beauty with no soul at all--
    (I never saw it--put the case the same--)
    If you get simple beauty and nought else,
    You get about the best thing God invents:
    That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed,
    Within yourself, when you return him thanks.
    "Rub all out!" Well, well, there's my life, in short,
    And so the thing has gone on ever since.
    I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds:
    You should not take a fellow eight years old
    And make him swear to never kiss the girls.
    I'm my own master, paint now as I please--
    Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house!
    Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front--
    Those great rings serve more purposes than just
    To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse!
    And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes
    Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work,
    The heads shake still--"It's art's decline, my son!
    You're not of the true painters, great and old;
    Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find;
    Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer:
    Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!"
    Flower o' the pine,
    You keep your mistr ... manners, and I'll stick to mine!
    I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know!
    Don't you think they're the likeliest to know,
    They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage,
    Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint
    To please them--sometimes do and sometimes don't;
    For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come
    A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints--
    A laugh, a cry, the business of the world--
    (Flower o' the peach
    Death for us all, and his own life for each!)
    And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over,
    The world and life's too big to pass for a dream,
    And I do these wild things in sheer despite,
    And play the fooleries you catch me at,
    In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass
    After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so,
    Although the miller does not preach to him
    The only good of grass is to make chaff.
    What would men have? Do they like grass or no--
    May they or mayn't they? all I want's the thing
    Settled for ever one way. As it is,
    You tell too many lies and hurt yourself:
    You don't like what you only like too much,
    You do like what, if given you at your word,
    You find abundantly detestable.
    For me, I think I speak as I was taught;
    I always see the garden and God there
    A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned,
    The value and significance of flesh,
    I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards.
   You understand me: I'm a beast, I know.
    But see, now--why, I see as certainly
    As that the morning-star's about to shine,
    What will hap some day. We've a youngster here
    Comes to our convent, studies what I do,
    Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop:
    His name is Guidi--he'll not mind the monks--
    They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk--
    He picks my practice up--he'll paint apace.
    I hope so--though I never live so long,
    I know what's sure to follow. You be judge!
    You speak no Latin more than I, belike;
    However, you're my man, you've seen the world
    --The beauty and the wonder and the power,
    The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades,
    Changes, surprises,--and God made it all!
    --For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no,
    For this fair town's face, yonder river's line,
    The mountain round it and the sky above,
    Much more the figures of man, woman, child,
    These are the frame to? What's it all about?
    To be passed over, despised? or dwelt upon,
    Wondered at? oh, this last of course!--you say.
    But why not do as well as say,--paint these
    Just as they are, careless what comes of it?
    God's works--paint any one, and count it crime
    To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works
    Are here already; nature is complete:
    Suppose you reproduce her--(which you can't)
    There's no advantage! you must beat her, then."
    For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love
    First when we see them painted, things we have passed
    Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;
    And so they are better, painted--better to us,
    Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;
    God uses us to help each other so,
    Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now,
    Your cullion's hanging face? A bit of chalk,
    And trust me but you should, though! How much more,
    If I drew higher things with the same truth!
    That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place,
    Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh,
    It makes me mad to see what men shall do
    And we in our graves! This world's no blot for us,
    Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good:
    To find its meaning is my meat and drink.
    "Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer!"
    Strikes in the Prior: "when your meaning's plain
    It does not say to folk--remember matins,
    Or, mind you fast next Friday!" Why, for this
    What need of art at all? A skull and bones,
    Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or, what's best,
    A bell to chime the hour with, does as well.
    I painted a Saint Laurence six months since
    At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style:
    "How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?"
    I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns--
    "Already not one phiz of your three slaves
    Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side,
    But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content,
    The pious people have so eased their own
    With coming to say prayers there in a rage:
    We get on fast to see the bricks beneath.
    Expect another job this time next year,
    For pity and religion grow i' the crowd--
    Your painting serves its purpose!" Hang the fools!
    --That is--you'll not mistake an idle word
    Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot,
    Tasting the air this spicy night which turns
    The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine!
    Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now!
    It's natural a poor monk out of bounds
    Should have his apt word to excuse himself:
    And hearken how I plot to make amends.
    I have bethought me: I shall paint a piece
    ... There's for you! Give me six months, then go, see
    Something in Sant' Ambrogio's! Bless the nuns!
    They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint
    God in the midst, Madonna and her babe,
    Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood,
    Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet
    As puff on puff of grated orris-root
    When ladies crowd to Church at midsummer.
    And then i' the front, of course a saint or two--
    Saint John' because he saves the Florentines,
    Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white
    The convent's friends and gives them a long day,
    And Job, I must have him there past mistake,
    The man of Uz (and Us without the z,
    Painters who need his patience). Well, all these
    Secured at their devotion, up shall come
    Out of a corner when you least expect,
    As one by a dark stair into a great light,
    Music and talking, who but Lippo! I!--
    Mazed, motionless, and moonstruck--I'm the man!
    Back I shrink--what is this I see and hear?
    I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake,
    My old serge gown and rope that goes all round,
    I, in this presence, this pure company!
    Where's a hole, where's a corner for escape?
    Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing
    Forward, puts out a soft palm--"Not so fast!"
    --Addresses the celestial presence, "nay--
    He made you and devised you, after all,
    Though he's none of you! Could Saint John there draw--
    His camel-hair make up a painting brush?
    We come to brother Lippo for all that,
    Iste perfecit opus! So, all smile--
    I shuffle sideways with my blushing face
    Under the cover of a hundred wings
    Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you're gay
    And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut,
    Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops
    The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off
    To some safe bench behind, not letting go
    The palm of her, the little lily thing
    That spoke the good word for me in the nick,
    Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say.
    And so all's saved for me, and for the church
    A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence!
    Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights!
    The street's hushed, and I know my own way back,
    Don't fear me! There's the grey beginning. Zooks!
   

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND


    ['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
    Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,
    With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.
    And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,
    And feels about his spine small eft-things course,
    Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:
    And while above his head a pompion-plant,
    Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,
    Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,
  And now a flower drops with a bee inside,
  And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,--
  He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross
  And recross till they weave a spider-web
  (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)
  And talks to his own self, howe'er he please,
  Touching that other, whom his dam called God.
  Because to talk about Him, vexes--ha,
  Could He but know! and time to vex is now,
  When talk is safer than in winter-time.
  Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep
  In confidence he drudges at their task,
  And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,
  Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]

    Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!
    'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.

    'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,
    But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;
    Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:
    Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,
    And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.

    'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:
    He hated that He cannot change His cold,
    Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish
    That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,
    And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine
    O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,
    A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;
    Only, she ever sickened, found repulse
    At the other kind of water, not her life,
    (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun)
    Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,
    And in her old bounds buried her despair,
    Hating and loving warmth alike: so He.

    'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,
    Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.
    Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;
    Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,
    That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown
    He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye
    By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue
    That pricks deep into oak warts for a worm,
    And says a plain word when she finds her prize,
    But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves
    That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks
    About their hole--He made all these and more,
    Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?
    He could not, Himself, make a second self
    To be His mate; as well have made Himself:
    He would not make what He mislikes or slights,
    An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains:
    But did, in envy, listlessness or sport,
    Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be--
    Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,
    Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,
    Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it.
    Because, so brave, so better though they be,
    It nothing skills if He begin to plague.
    Look, now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,
    Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,
    Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,--
    Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,
    Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain;
    Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme,
    And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.
    Put case, unable to be what I wish,
    I yet could make a live bird out of clay:
    Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban
    Able to fly?--for, there, see, he hath wings,
    And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,
    And there, a sting to do his foes offence,
    There, and I will that he begin to live,
    Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns
    Of grigs high up that make the merry din,
    Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not.
    In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,
    And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh;
    And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,
    Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,
    Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,--
    Well, as the chance were, this might take or else
    Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,
    And give the mankin three sound legs for one,
    Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg
    And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.
    Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,
    Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,
    Making and marring clay at will? So He.

    'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,
    Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.
    'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs
    That march now from the mountain to the sea;
    'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
    Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.
    'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots
    Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;
    'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,
    And two worms he whose nippers end in red;
    As it likes me each time, I do: so He.

    Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main,
    Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,
    But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!
    Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,
    And envieth that, so helped, such things do more
    Than He who made them! What consoles but this?
    That they, unless through Him, do nought at all,
    And must submit: what other use in things?
    'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint
    That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay
    When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:
    Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay
    Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt:
    Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth
    "I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,
    I make the cry my maker cannot make
    With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!'
    Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.

    But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?
    Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,
    What knows,--the something over Setebos
    That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,
    Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.
    There may be something quiet o'er His head,
    Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,
    Since both derive from weakness in some way.
    I joy because the quails come; would not joy
    Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:
    This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.
    'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,
    But never spends much thought nor care that way.
    It may look up, work up,--the worse for those
    It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos
    The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,
    Who, making Himself feared through what He does,
    Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar
    To what is quiet and hath happy life;
    Next looks down here, and out of very spite
    Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,
    These good things to match those as hips do grapes.
    'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.
    Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books
    Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:
    Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,
    Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;
    Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;
    Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe
    The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;
    And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,
    A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,
    Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,
    And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
    'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane
    He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;
    Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,
    Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,
    And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge
    In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;
    A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.
    'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,
    Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.
    His dam held that the Quiet made all things
    Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.
    Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.
    Had He meant other, while His hand was in,
    Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,
    Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,
    Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint
    Like an orc's armour? Ay,--so spoil His sport!
    He is the One now: only He doth all.

    'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.
    Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?
    'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast
    Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,
    But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate
    Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.
    Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,
    Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,
    By no means for the love of what is worked.
    'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world
    When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,
    And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,
    Than trying what to do with wit and strength.
    'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,
    And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,
    And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,
    And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,
    And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,
    Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.
    No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;
    'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.

    'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!
    One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.
    He hath a spite against me, that I know,
    Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?
    So it is, all the same, as well I find.
    'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm
    With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises
    Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,
    Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,
    Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,
    And licked the whole labour flat: so much for spite.
    'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)
    Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade:
    Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!
    'Dug up a newt He may have envied once
    And turned to stone, shut up Inside a stone.
    Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does?
    Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!
    There is the sport: discover how or die!
    All need not die, for of the things o' the isle
    Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;
    Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most
    When . . . when . . . well, never try the same way twice!
    Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.
    You must not know His ways, and play Him off,
    Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:
    'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears
    But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,
    And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:
    'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,
    Curls up into a ball, pretending death
    For fright at my approach: the two ways please.
    But what would move my choler more than this,
    That either creature counted on its life
    To-morrow and next day and all days to come,
    Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart,
    "Because he did so yesterday with me,
    And otherwise with such another brute,
    So must he do henceforth and always."--Ay?
    Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means!
    'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.

    'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,
    And we shall have to live in fear of Him
    So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,
    If He have done His best, make no new world
    To please Him more, so leave off watching this,--
    If He surprise not even the Quiet's self
    Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it
    As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,
    And there is He, and nowhere help at all.

    'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.
    His dam held different, that after death
    He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:
    Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,
    Giving just respite lest we die through pain,
    Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end.
    Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire
    Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,
    Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,
    Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.
    'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball
    On head and tail as if to save their lives:
    Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.

    Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose
    This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,
    And always, above all else, envies Him;
    Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,
    Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,
    And never speaks his mind save housed as now:
    Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here,
    O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"
    'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,
    Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,
    Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,
    Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:
    While myself lit a fire, and made a song
    And sung it, "What I hate, be consecrate
    To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate
    For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?"
    Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,
    Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,
    That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch
    And conquer Setebos, or likelier He
    Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.

    [What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!
    Crickets stop hissing: not a bird--or, yes,
    There scuds His raven that has told Him all!
    It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind
    Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,
    And fast invading fires begin! White blaze--
    A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there,
    His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!
    Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!
    'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,
    Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month
    One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]

RABBI BEN EZRA
    Grow old along with me!
    The best is yet to be,
    The last of life, for which the first was made:
    Our times are in His hand
    Who saith "A whole I planned,
    Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''
   
    Not that, amassing flowers,
    Youth sighed "Which rose make ours,
    Which lily leave and then as best recall?"
    Not that, admiring stars,
    It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars;
    Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"
   
    Not for such hopes and fears
    Annulling youth's brief years,
    Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
    Rather I prize the doubt
    Low kinds exist without,
    Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
   
    Poor vaunt of life indeed,
    Were man but formed to feed
    On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:
    Such feasting ended, then
    As sure an end to men;
    Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?
   
    Rejoice we are allied
    To That which doth provide
    And not partake, effect and not receive!
    A spark disturbs our clod;
    Nearer we hold of God
    Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.
   
    Then, welcome each rebuff
    That turns earth's smoothness rough,
    Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
    Be our joys three-parts pain!
    Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
    Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
   
    For thence,--a paradox
    Which comforts while it mocks,--
    Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
    What I aspired to be,
    And was not, comforts me:
    A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.
   
    What is he but a brute
    Whose flesh has soul to suit,
    Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
    To man, propose this test--
    Thy body at its best,
    How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?
   
    Yet gifts should prove their use:
    I own the Past profuse
    Of power each side, perfection every turn:
    Eyes, ears took in their dole,
    Brain treasured up the whole;
    Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn?"
   
    Not once beat "Praise be Thine!
    I see the whole design,
    I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:
    Perfect I call Thy plan:
    Thanks that I was a man!
    Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shalt do!"
   
    For pleasant is this flesh;
    Our soul, in its rose-mesh
    Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest;
    Would we some prize might hold
    To match those manifold
    Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best!
   
    Let us not always say,
    "Spite of this flesh to-day
    I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!"
    As the bird wings and sings,
    Let us cry "All good things
    Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"
   
    Therefore I summon age
    To grant youth's heritage,
    Life's struggle having so far reached its term:
    Thence shall I pass, approved
    A man, for aye removed
    From the developed brute; a god though in the germ.
   
    And I shall thereupon
    Take rest, ere I be gone
    Once more on my adventure brave and new:
    Fearless and unperplexed,
    When I wage battle next,
    What weapons to select, what armour to indue.
   
    Youth ended, I shall try
    My gain or loss thereby;
    Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
    And I shall weigh the same,
    Give life its praise or blame:
    Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.
   
    For note, when evening shuts,
    A certain moment cuts
    The deed off, calls the glory from the grey:
    A whisper from the west
    Shoots--"Add this to the rest,
    Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."
   
    So, still within this life,
    Though lifted o'er its strife,
    Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
    This rage was right i' the main,
    That acquiescence vain:
    The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."
   
    For more is not reserved
    To man, with soul just nerved
    To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
    Here, work enough to watch
    The Master work, and catch
    Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.
   
    As it was better, youth
    Should strive, through acts uncouth,
    Toward making, than repose on aught found made:
    So, better, age, exempt
    From strife, should know, than tempt
    Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!
   
    Enough now, if the Right
    And Good and Infinite
    Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own
    With knowledge absolute,
    Subject to no dispute
    From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.
   
    Be there, for once and all,
    Severed great minds from small,
    Announced to each his station in the Past!
    Was I, the world arraigned,
    Were they, my soul disdained,
    Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
   
    Now, who shall arbitrate?
    Ten men love what I hate,
    Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
    Ten, who in ears and eyes
    Match me: we all surmise,
    They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?
   
    Not on the vulgar mass
    Called "work," must sentence pass,
    Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
    O'er which, from level stand,
    The low world laid its hand,
    Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
   
    But all, the world's coarse thumb
    And finger failed to plumb,
    So passed in making up the main account;
    All instincts immature,
    All purposes unsure,
    That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:
   
    Thoughts hardly to be packed
    Into a narrow act,
    Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
    All I could never be,
    All, men ignored in me,
    This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
   
    Ay, note that Potter's wheel,
    That metaphor! and feel
    Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,--
    Thou, to whom fools propound,
    When the wine makes its round,
    "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"
   
    Fool! All that is, at all,
    Lasts ever, past recall;
    Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
    What entered into thee,
    That was, is, and shall be:
    Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
   
    He fixed thee mid this dance
    Of plastic circumstance,
    This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
    Machinery just meant
    To give thy soul its bent,
    Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.
   
    What though the earlier grooves,
    Which ran the laughing loves
    Around thy base, no longer pause and press?
    What though, about thy rim,
    Skull-things in order grim
    Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?
   
    Look not thou down but up!
    To uses of a cup,
    The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,
    The new wine's foaming flow,
    The Master's lips a-glow!
    Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel?
   
    But I need, now as then,
    Thee, God, who mouldest men;
    And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
    Did I,--to the wheel of life
    With shapes and colours rife,
    Bound dizzily,--mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:
   
    So, take and use Thy work:
    Amend what flaws may lurk,
    What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
    My times be in Thy hand!
    Perfect the cup as planned!
    Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!
   

"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"
    My first thought was, he lied in every word,
        That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
        Askance to watch the working of his lie
    On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
    Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored
        Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

    What else should he be set for, with his staff?
        What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
        All travellers who might find him posted there,
  And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
  Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
      For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

  If at his counsel I should turn aside
      Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
      Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
  I did turn as he pointed: neither pride
  Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,
      So much as gladness that some end might be.

  For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
      What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope
      Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
  With that obstreperous joy success would bring,
  I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring
      My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

  As when a sick man very near to death
      Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end
      The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,
  And hears one bid the other go, draw breath
  Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith,
      "And the blow fallen no grieving can amend";)

  While some discuss if near the other graves
      Be room enough for this, and when a day
      Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
  With care about the banners, scarves and staves:
  And still the man hears all, and only craves
      He may not shame such tender love and stay.

  Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,
      Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
      So many times among "The Band"--to wit,
  The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed
  Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best,
      And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?

  So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,
      That hateful cripple, out of his highway
      Into the path he pointed. All the day
  Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
  Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim
      Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

  For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
      Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
      Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
  O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round:
  Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
      I might go on; nought else remained to do.

  So, on I went. I think I never saw
      Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
      For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove!
  But cockle, spurge, according to their law
  Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,
        You'd think; a burr had been a treasure-trove.

  No! penury, inertness and grimace,
      In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See
      Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,
  "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
  'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,
      Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."

  If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
      Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents
      Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents
  In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk
  All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk
      Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.

  As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair
      In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud
      Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.
  One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
  Stood stupefied, however he came there:
      Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

  Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
      With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,
      And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;
  Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
  I never saw a brute I hated so;
      He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

  I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.
      As a man calls for wine before he fights,
      I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,
  Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.
  Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art:
      One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

  Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face
      Beneath its garniture of curly gold,
      Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold
  An arm in mine to fix me to the place
  That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!
      Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.

  Giles then, the soul of honour--there he stands
      Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.
      What honest men should dare (he said) he durst.
  Good--but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands
  In to his breast a parchment? His own bands
    Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!

  Better this present than a past like that;
    Back therefore to my darkening path again!
    No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.
  Will the night send a howlet or a bat?
  I asked: when something on the dismal flat
    Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

  A sudden little river crossed my path
    As unexpected as a serpent comes.
    No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;
  This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath
  For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath
    Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

  So petty yet so spiteful! All along
    Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;
    Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit
  Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:
  The river which had done them all the wrong,
    Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.

  Which, while I forded,--good saints, how I feared
    To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,
    Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek
  For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!
  --It may have been a water-rat I speared,
    But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.

  Glad was I when I reached the other bank.
    Now for a better country. Vain presage!
    Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,
  Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank
  Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,
    Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--

  The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.
    What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?
    No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,
  None out of it. Mad brewage set to work
  Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk
    Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

  And more than that--a furlong on--why, there!
    What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,
    Or brake, not wheel--that harrow fit to reel
  Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air
  Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware,
    Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.

  Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,
    Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth
    Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
  Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
  Changes and off he goes!) within a rood--
    Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.

  Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,
    Now patches where some leanness of the soil's
    Broke into moss or substances like boils;
  Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
  Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
    Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

  And just as far as ever from the end!
    Nought in the distance but the evening, nought
    To point my footstep further! At the thought,
  A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,
  Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned
    That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.

  For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
    'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
    All round to mountains--with such name to grace
  Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
  How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you!
    How to get from them was no clearer case.

  Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick
    Of mischief happened to me, God knows when--
    In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,
  Progress this way. When, in the very nick
  Of giving up, one time more, came a click
    As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den!

  Burningly it came on me all at once,
    This was the place! those two hills on the right,
    Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;
  While to the left, a tall scalped mountain . . . Dunce,
  Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
    After a life spent training for the sight!

  What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
    The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart
    Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
  In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf
  Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
    He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

  Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day
    Came back again for that! before it left,
    The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:
  The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay
  Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,--
    "Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!"

  Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled
    Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears
    Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--
  How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
  And such was fortunate, yet each of old
    Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

  There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
    To view the last of me, a living frame
    For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
  I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
  Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
    And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."