Browning's Shorter Poems Part 18

Fool! All that is, at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and G.o.d stand sure: What entered into thee, 160 _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 circ.u.mstance, 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 tho' the earlier grooves Which ran the laughing loves 170 Around thy base, no longer pause and press? 171 What tho' about thy rim, Scull-things in order grim Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? 174

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 needst thou with earth's wheel? 180

But I need, now as then, Thee, G.o.d, 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! 190 Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes, Each in its tether Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, Cared-for till c.o.c.k-crow: Look out if yonder be not day again r.i.m.m.i.n.g the rock-row!

That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought, Rarer, intenser, 10 Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought, Chafes in the censer.

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; Seek we sepulture On a tall mountain, citied to the top, Crowded with culture!

All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; Clouds overcome it; No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's Circling its summit. 20 Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights: Wait ye the warning?

Our low life was the level's and the night's: 23 He's for the morning.

Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 'Ware the beholders!

This is our master, famous calm and dead, Borne on our shoulders.

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, Safe from the weather! 30 He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy face and throat, Lyric Apollo!

Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note Winter would follow?

Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!

Cramped and diminished, Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!

My dance is finished?" 40 No, that's the world's way; (keep the mountain-side, Make for the city!) He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride Over men's pity; Left play for work, and grappled with the world Bent on escaping: 46 "What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled?

Show me their shaping, 48 Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,-- Give!"--So, he gowned him, 50 Straight got by heart that book to its last page: Learned, we found him.

Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, Accents uncertain: "Time to taste life," another would have said, "Up with the curtain!"

This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?

Patience a moment!

Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still there's the comment. 60

Let me know all! Prate not of most or least, Painful or easy!

Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, Ay, nor feel queasy."

Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, When he had learned it, When he had gathered all books had to give!

Sooner, he spurned it.

Image the whole, then execute the parts-- Fancy the fabric 70 Quite, ere you build, ere steel strikes fire from quartz, Ere mortar dab brick.

(Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place Gaping before us.) Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace (Hearten our chorus!) That before living he'd learn how to live-- No end to learning: Earn the means first--G.o.d surely will contrive Use for our earning. 80 Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes!

Live now or never!"

He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!

Man has Forever."

Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: _Calculus_ racked him: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: _Tussis_ attacked him.

"Now, master, take a little rest!"--not he!

(Caution redoubled! 90 Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) Not a whit troubled, Back to his studies, fresher than at first, Fierce as a dragon He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) Sucked at the flagon.

Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, 98 Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure Bad is our bargain! 100 Was it not great? did not he throw on G.o.d (He loves the burthen)-- G.o.d's task to make the heavenly period Perfect the earthen?

Did not he magnify the mind, show clear Just what it all meant?

He would not discount life, as fools do here, Paid by instalment.

He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success Found, or earth's failure: 110 "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes!

Hence with life's pale lure!"

That low man seeks a little thing to do, Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies ere he knows it.

That low man goes on adding one to one, His hundred's soon hit: This high man, aiming at a million, Misses an unit. 120 That, has the world here--should he need the next, Let the world mind him!

This, throws himself on G.o.d, and unperplexed Seeking shall find Him.

So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, Ground he at grammar; Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife: While he could stammer He settled _Hoti's_ business--let it be!-- 129 Properly based _Oun_-- 130 Gave as the doctrine of the enc.l.i.tic _De_ 131 Dead from the waist down.

Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus, All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Swallows and curlews: Here's the top-peak; the mult.i.tude below Live, for they can, there: This man decided not to Live, but Know-- Bury this man there? 140 Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send!

Lofty designs must close in like effects: Loftily lying, Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying.

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! 10 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, 15 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! 20 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 p.r.i.c.k 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, 30 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 grayness 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. 40 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 G.o.d's hand.

How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; 50 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, 60 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, 70 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 pa.s.sing with your robes afloat,-- Yet do much less, so much less. Someone says, (I know his name, no matter)--so much less!