Browning and the Dramatic Monologue Part 33

Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day: So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis!

Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due!

'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his shield, Ran like fire once more: and the s.p.a.ce 'twixt the Fennel-field And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through, Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine thro' clay, Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.

So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the n.o.ble strong man Who could race like a G.o.d, bear the face of a G.o.d, whom a G.o.d loved so well, He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute: "Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.

PROSPICE

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe, Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go; For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness, and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute's at end, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall dwindle, shall blend, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, Then a light, then thy breast, Oh, thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with G.o.d be the rest!

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 G.o.d, 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 s.n.a.t.c.h from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, G.o.d 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 G.o.d, I know not, I!...

Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 ma.n.u.scripts, 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 thro' centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the ma.s.s, And see G.o.d 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 ingrat.i.tude To death--ye wish it--G.o.d, 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!

SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS

Plague take all your pedants, say I!

He who wrote what I hold in my hand, Centuries back was so good as to die, Leaving this rubbish to c.u.mber the land; This, that was a book in its time, Printed on paper and bound in leather, Last month in the white of a matin-prime Just when the birds sang all together.

Into the garden I brought it to read, And under the arbute and laurustine Read it, so help me grace in my need, From t.i.tle-page to closing line.

Chapter on chapter did I count, As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge; Added up the mortal amount; And then proceeded to my revenge.

Yonder's a plum-tree, with a crevice An owl would build in, were he but sage; For a lap of moss like a fine pontlevis In a castle of the middle age, Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber; Where he'd be private, there might he spend Hours alone in his lady's chamber: Into this crevice I dropped our friend.

Splash went he, as under he ducked, --I knew at the bottom rain-drippings stagnate; Next a handful of blossoms I plucked To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate; Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf, Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis; Lay on the gra.s.s and forgot the oaf Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.

Now, this morning, betwixt the moss And gum that locked our friend in limbo, A spider had spun his web across, And sate in the midst with arms a-kimbo: So, I took pity, for learning's sake, And, _de profundis, accentibus laetis, Cantate_! quoth I, as I got a rake, And up I fished his delectable treatise.

Here you have it, dry in the sun, With all the binding all of a blister, And great blue spots where the ink has run, And reddish streaks that wink and glister O'er the page so beautifully yellow-- Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks!

Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow?

Here's one stuck in his chapter six!

How did he like it when the live creatures Tickled and toused and browsed him all over, And worm, slug, eft, with serious features, Came in, each one, for his right of trover; When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face Made of her eggs the stately deposit, And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet.

All that life, and fun, and romping, All that frisking, and twisting, and coupling, While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping, And clasps were cracking, and covers suppling!

As if you had carried sour John Knox To the play-house at Paris, Vienna, or Munich, Fastened him into a front-row box, And danced off the Ballet with trousers and tunic.

Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it?

Back to my room shall you take your sweet self!

Good-by, mother-beetle; husband-eft, SUFFICIT!

See the snug niche I have made on my shelf: A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you, Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay, And with E. on each side, and F. right over you, Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day!

ABT VOGLER

(AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION)

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, h.e.l.l-deep removed,-- Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princes 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 h.e.l.l, 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 gla.s.s, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sion, to scale the sky: Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; Meteor-moons, b.a.l.l.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, that made them, and lo, they are!