An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 56

Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains, And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." And now these old trains Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus--

13.

"Yea, my King,"

I began--"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute: {150} In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.

Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,--how its stem trembled first Till it pa.s.sed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburst The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more was to learn, E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight, When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall stanch Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine. {160} Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine!

By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy More indeed, than at first when, inconscious, the life of a boy.

Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hast done Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the sun Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tempests efface, Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace The results of his past summer-prime,--so, each ray of thy will, Every flash of thy pa.s.sion and prowess, long over, shall thrill Thy whole people, the countless, with ardor, till they too give forth {170} A like cheer to their sons: who in turn, fill the South and the North With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past!

But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last.

As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height, So with man--so his power and his beauty forever take flight.

No! Again a long draught of my soul-wine! Look forth o'er the years!

Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's!

Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb--bid arise A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to the skies, Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: whose fame would ye know?

Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go {181} In great characters cut by the scribe,--Such was Saul, so he did; With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid,-- For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend, In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend (See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record With the gold of the graver, Saul's story,--the statesman's great word Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's a-wave With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave: So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part {190} In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank G.o.d that thou art!"

14.

And behold while I sang. . .but O Thou who didst grant me, that day, And, before it, not seldom hast granted thy help to essay, Carry on and complete an adventure,--my shield and my sword In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was my word,-- Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavor And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever On the new stretch of heaven above me--till, mighty to save, Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance--G.o.d's throne from man's grave!

Let me tell out my tale to its ending--my voice to my heart {200} Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part, As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep!

And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep, For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine.

15.

I say then,--my song While I sang thus, a.s.suring the monarch, and, ever more strong, Made a proffer of good to console him--he slowly resumed His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes {210} Of his turban, and see--the huge sweat that his countenance bathes, He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore, And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before.

He is Saul, ye remember in glory,--ere error had bent The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, G.o.d did choose, To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose.

So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile, And sat out my singing,--one arm round the tent-prop, to raise {220} His bent head, and the other hung slack--till I touched on the praise I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there; And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak-roots which please To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: through my hair The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power-- All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. {231} Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine-- And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign?

I yearned--"Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this; I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, As this moment,--had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense!"

16.

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more--no song more! outbroke--

17.

"I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke; I, a work of G.o.d's hand for that purpose, received in my brain {240} And p.r.o.nounced on the rest of his handwork--returned him again His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw.

I report, as a man may of G.o.d's work--all's love, yet all's law.

Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked.

Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.

Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!

Do I task any faculty highest, to image success?

I but open my eyes,--and perfection, no more and no less, In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and G.o.d is seen G.o.d {250} In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.

And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew (With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) The submission of man's nothing-perfect to G.o.d's all-complete, As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet.

Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known, I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own.

There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, I am fain to keep still in abeyance (I laugh as I think), Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst {260} E'en the Giver in one gift.--Behold, I could love if I durst!

But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake G.o.d's own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love's sake.

--What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appal?

In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?

Do I find love so full in my nature, G.o.d's ultimate gift, That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here the parts shift?

Here, the creature surpa.s.s the creator,--the end, what began?

Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, {270} And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?

Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power, To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul, Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole?

And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest) These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best?

Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height This perfection,--succeed, with life's dayspring, death's minute of night?

Interpose at the difficult minute, s.n.a.t.c.h Saul, the mistake, {280} Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,--and bid him awake From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set Clear and safe in new light and new life,--a new harmony yet To be run and continued, and ended--who knows?--or endure!

The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make sure; By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this.

18.

"I believe it! 'Tis thou, G.o.d, that givest, 'tis I who receive: In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe.

All's one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer, {290} As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air.

From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth: I will?--the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair?

This;--'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

See the King--I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through.

Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would--knowing which, I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now! {300} Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou--so wilt thou!

So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown-- And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!

As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved!

He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.

'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek In the G.o.dhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be {310} A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"

19.

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.

There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there, As a runner beset by the populace famished for news-- Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, h.e.l.l loosed with her crews; And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot {320} Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.

Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth-- Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills; In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore oft, each with eye sidling still Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill {330} That rose heavily as I approached them, made stupid with awe: E'en the serpent that slid away silent--he felt the new law.

The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices--"E'en so, it is so!"

-- 320 et seq.: see note to St. 37, 38, of 'By the Fireside'.

A Death in the Desert.

{Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene: It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth, Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu: Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest, {5} Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth, Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xi, From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now at peace: Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name.

I may not write it, but I make a cross {10} To show I wait His coming, with the rest, And leave off here: beginneth Pamphylax.}

-- 1-12. The bracketed prefatory lines, explanatory of the parchment on which are recorded the last hours and last talk of St. John with his devoted attendants, purport to have been written by one who was at the time the owner of the parchment. It appears to have come into his possession through his wife, a niece of the Xanthus who, with Pamphylax of Antioch, the supposed author of the narrative (he having told it on the eve of his martyrdom to a certain Phoebas, v. 653), and two others, is represented therein as waiting on the dying apostle, and who afterwards "escaped to Rome, was burned, and could not write the chronicle." (vv. 56, 57.)

4. And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu: the reference is to some numbering on the parchment.

6. terebinth: the turpentine tree.