Browning's England Part 46

I very soon had enough of it.

The hot smell and the human noises, And my neighbor's coat, the greasy cuff of it, Were a pebble-stone that a child's hand poises, Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure Of the preaching man's immense stupidity, As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure, To meet his audience's avidity.

You needed not the wit of the Sibyl To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling: No sooner our friend had got an inkling Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible, (Whene'er 'twas the thought first struck him, How death, at unawares, might duck him Deeper than the grave, and quench The gin-shop's light in h.e.l.l's grim drench) Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence, As to hug the book of books to pieces: And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance, Not improved by the private dog's-ears and creases, Having clothed his own soul with, he'd fain see equipt yours,-- So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.

And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt: Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors Appeared to suspect that the preacher's labors Were help which the world could be saved without, 'Tis odds but I might have borne in quiet A qualm or two at my spiritual diet, Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon: But the flock sat on, divinely fl.u.s.tered, Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon With such content in every snuffle, As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.

My old fat woman purred with pleasure, And thumb round thumb went twirling faster, While she, to his periods keeping measure, Maternally devoured the pastor.

The man with the handkerchief untied it, Showed us a horrible wen inside it, Gave his eyelids yet another s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g, And rocked himself as the woman was doing.

The shoemaker's lad, discreetly choking, Kept down his cough. 'Twas too provoking!

My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it; So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple, "I wanted a taste, and now there's enough of it,"

I flung out of the little chapel.

IV

There was a lull in the rain, a lull In the wind too; the moon was risen, And would have shone out pure and full, But for the ramparted cloud-prison, Block on block built up in the West, For what purpose the wind knows best, Who changes his mind continually.

And the empty other half of the sky Seemed in its silence as if it knew What, any moment, might look through A chance gap in that fortress ma.s.sy:-- Through its fissures you got hints Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints, Now, a dull lion-color, now, bra.s.sy Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow, Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow, All a-simmer with intense strain To let her through,--then blank again, At the hope of her appearance failing.

Just by the chapel, a break in the railing Shows a narrow path directly across; 'Tis ever dry walking there, on the moss-- Besides, you go gently all the way uphill.

I stooped under and soon felt better; My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple, As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.

My mind was full of the scene I had left, That placid flock, that pastor vociferant, --How this outside was pure and different!

The sermon, now--what a mingled weft Of good and ill! Were either less, Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly; But alas for the excellent earnestness, And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly, But as surely false, in their quaint presentment, However to pastor and flock's contentment!

Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes, With his provings and parallels twisted and twined, Till how could you know them, grown double their size In the natural fog of the good man's mind, Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps, Haloed about with the common's damps?

Truth remains true, the fault's in the prover; The zeal was good, and the aspiration; And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over, Pharaoh received no demonstration, By his Baker's dream of Baskets Three, Of the doctrine of the Trinity,-- Although, as our preacher thus embellished it, Apparently his hearers relished it With so unfeigned a gust--who knows if They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?

But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!

These people have really felt, no doubt, A something, the motion they style the _Call_ of them; And this is their method of bringing about, By a mechanism of words and tones, (So many texts in so many groans) A sort of reviving and reproducing, More or less perfectly, (who can tell?) The mood itself, which strengthens by using; And how that happens, I understand well.

A tune was born in my head last week, Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester; And when, next week, I take it back again.

My head will sing to the engine's clack again, While it only makes my neighbor's haunches stir, --Finding no dormant musical sprout In him, as in me, to be jolted out.

'Tis the taught already that profits by teaching; He gets no more from the railway's preaching Than, from this preacher who does the rail's office, I: Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.

Still, why paint over their door "Mount Zion,"

To which all flesh shall come, saith the prophecy?

The reasoning which follows upon this is characteristic of Browning.

Perceiving everywhere in the world transcendent power, and knowing love in little, from that transcendent love may be deduced. His reasoning finally brings him to a state of vision. His subjective intuitions become palpable objective symbols, a not infrequent occurrence in highly wrought and sensitive minds.

V

But wherefore be harsh on a single case?

After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve, Does the self-same weary thing take place?

The same endeavor to make you believe, And with much the same effect, no more: Each method abundantly convincing, As I say, to those convinced before, But scarce to be swallowed without wincing By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me, I have my own church equally: And in this church my faith sprang first!

(I said, as I reached the rising ground, And the wind began again, with a burst Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound From the heart beneath, as if, G.o.d speeding me, I entered his church-door, nature leading me) --In youth I looked to these very skies, And probing their immensities, I found G.o.d there, his visible power; Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense Of the power, an equal evidence That his love, there too, was the n.o.bler dower.

For the loving worm within its clod, Were diviner than a loveless G.o.d Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.

You know what I mean: G.o.d's all, man's nought: But also, G.o.d, whose pleasure brought Man into being, stands away As it were a handbreadth off, to give Room for the newly-made to live, And look at him from a place apart, And use his gifts of brain and heart, Given, indeed, but to keep for ever.

Who speaks of man, then, must not sever Man's very elements from man, Saying, "But all is G.o.d's"--whose plan Was to create man and then leave him Able, his own word saith, to grieve him, But able to glorify him too, As a mere machine could never do, That prayed or praised, all unaware Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer, Made perfect as a thing of course.

Man, therefore, stands on his own stock Of love and power as a pin-point rock: And, looking to G.o.d who ordained divorce Of the rock from his boundless continent, Sees, in his power made evident, Only excess by a million-fold O'er the power G.o.d gave man in the mould.

For, note: man's hand, first formed to carry A few pounds' weight, when taught to marry Its strength with an engine's, lifts a mountain, --Advancing in power by one degree; And why count steps through eternity?

But love is the ever-springing fountain: Man may enlarge or narrow his bed For the water's play, but the water-head-- How can he multiply or reduce it?

As easy create it, as cause it to cease; He may profit by it, or abuse it, But 'tis not a thing to bear increase As power does: be love less or more In the heart of man, he keeps it shut Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but Love's sum remains what it was before.

So, gazing up, in my youth, at love As seen through power, ever above All modes which make it manifest, My soul brought all to a single test-- That he, the Eternal First and Last, Who, in his power, had so surpa.s.sed All man conceives of what is might,-- Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite, --Would prove as infinitely good; Would never, (my soul understood,) With power to work all love desires, Bestow e'en less than man requires; That he who endlessly was teaching, Above my spirit's utmost reaching, What love can do in the leaf or stone, (So that to master this alone, This done in the stone or leaf for me, I must go on learning endlessly) Would never need that I, in turn, Should point him out defect unheeded, And show that G.o.d had yet to learn What the meanest human creature needed, --Not life, to wit, for a few short years, Tracking his way through doubts and fears, While the stupid earth on which I stay Suffers no change, but pa.s.sive adds Its myriad years to myriads, Though I, he gave it to, decay, Seeing death come and choose about me, And my dearest ones depart without me.

No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it, Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it, The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it, Shall arise, made perfect, from death's repose of it.

And I shall behold thee, face to face, O G.o.d, and in thy light retrace How in all I loved here, still wast thou!

Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now, I shall find as able to satiate The love, thy gift, as my spirit's wonder Thou art able to quicken and sublimate, With this sky of thine, that I now walk under, And glory in thee for, as I gaze Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine-- Be this my way! And this is mine!

VI

For lo, what think you? suddenly The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky Received at once the full fruition Of the moon's consummate apparition.

The black cloud-barricade was riven, Ruined beneath her feet, and driven Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless, North and South and East lay ready For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless, Sprang across them and stood steady.

'Twas a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect, From heaven to heaven extending, perfect As the mother-moon's self, full in face.

It rose, distinctly at the base With its seven proper colors chorded, Which still, in the rising, were compressed, Until at last they coalesced, And supreme the spectral creature lorded In a triumph of whitest white,-- Above which intervened the night.

But above night too, like only the next, The second of a wondrous sequence, Reaching in rare and rarer frequence, Till the heaven of heavens were circ.u.mflexed, Another rainbow rose, a mightier, Fainter, flushier and flightier,-- Rapture dying along its verge.

Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge, Whose, from the straining topmost dark, On to the keystone of that arc?

VII

This sight was shown me, there and then,-- Me, one out of a world of men, Singled forth, as the chance might hap To another if, in a thunderclap Where I heard noise and you saw flame, Some one man knew G.o.d called his name.

For me, I think I said, "Appear!

Good were it to be ever here.

If thou wilt, let me build to thee Service-tabernacles three, Where, forever in thy presence, In ecstatic acquiescence, Far alike from thriftless learning And ignorance's undiscerning, I may worship and remain!"

Thus at the show above me, gazing With upturned eyes, I felt my brain Glutted with the glory, blazing Throughout its whole ma.s.s, over and under Until at length it burst asunder And out of it bodily there streamed, The too-much glory, as it seemed, Pa.s.sing from out me to the ground, Then palely serpentining round Into the dark with mazy error.

VIII

All at once I looked up with terror.

He was there.

He himself with his human air.

On the narrow pathway, just before.

I saw the back of him, no more-- He had left the chapel, then, as I.

I forgot all about the sky.

No face: only the sight Of a sweepy garment, vast and white, With a hem that I could recognize.

I felt terror, no surprise; My mind filled with the cataract, At one bound of the mighty fact.

"I remember, he did say Doubtless that, to this world's end, Where two or three should meet and pray, He would be in the midst, their friend; Certainly he was there with them!"

And my pulses leaped for joy Of the golden thought without alloy, That I saw his very vesture's hem.

Then rushed the blood back, cold and clear, With a fresh enhancing shiver of fear; And I hastened, cried out while I pressed To the salvation of the vest, "But not so, Lord! It cannot be That thou, indeed, art leaving me-- Me, that have despised thy friends!

Did my heart make no amends?

Thou art the love _of G.o.d_--above His power, didst hear me place his love, And that was leaving the world for thee.

Therefore thou must not turn from me As I had chosen the other part!

Folly and pride o'ercame my heart.

Our best is bad, nor bears thy test; Still, it should be our very best.

I thought it best that thou, the spirit, Be worshipped in spirit and in truth, And in beauty, as even we require it-- Not in the forms burlesque, uncouth, I left but now, as scarcely fitted For thee: I knew not what I pitied.

But, all I felt there, right or wrong, What is it to thee, who curest sinning?

Am I not weak as thou art strong?

I have looked to thee from the beginning, Straight up to thee through all the world Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled To nothingness on either side: And since the time thou wast descried, Spite of the weak heart, so have I Lived ever, and so fain would die, Living and dying, thee before!

But if thou leavest me----"

IX

Less or more, I suppose that I spoke thus.

When,--have mercy, Lord, on us!

The whole face turned upon me full.

And I spread myself beneath it, As when the bleacher spreads, to seethe it In the cleansing sun, his wool,-- Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness Some defiled, discolored web-- So lay I, saturate with brightness.

And when the flood appeared to ebb, Lo, I was walking, light and swift, With my senses settling fast and steadying, But my body caught up in the whirl and drift Of the vesture's amplitude, still eddying On, just before me, still to be followed, As it carried me after with its motion: What shall I say?--as a path were hollowed And a man went weltering through the ocean, Sucked along in the flying wake Of the luminous water-snake.

Darkness and cold were cloven, as through I pa.s.sed, upborne yet walking too.

And I turned to myself at intervals,-- "So he said, so it befalls.