Dramatic Romances Part 5

And you saw by the flash on his forehead, By the hope in those eyes wide and steady, He was leagues in the desert already Driving the flocks up the mountain Or catlike couched hard by the fountain 70 To waylay the date-gathering negress: So guarded he entrance or egress.

"How he stands!" quoth the King: "we may well swear, (No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere And so can afford the confession) We exercise wholesome discretion In keeping aloof from his threshold; Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold, Their first would too pleasantly purloin The visitor's brisket or surloin: 80 But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?

Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!"

The sentence no sooner was uttered, Than over the rails a glove fluttered, Fell close to the lion, and rested: The dame 'twas, who flung it and jested With life so, De Lorge had been wooing For months past; he sat there pursuing His suit, weighing out with nonchalance Fine speeches like gold from a balance. 90

Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!

De Lorge made one leap at the barrier, Walked straight to the glove--while the lion Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire, And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir-- Picked it up, and as calmly retreated, Leaped back where the lady was seated, And full in the face of its owner Flung the glove.

"Your heart's queen, you dethrone her? 100 So should I!"--cried the King--"'twas mere vanity Not love set that task to humanity!"

Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing.

Not so, I; for I caught an expression In her brow's undisturbed self-possession Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment, As if from no pleasing experiment She rose, yet of pain not much heedful So long as the process was needful,-- 110 As if she had tried in a crucible, To what "speeches like gold" were reducible, And, finding the finest prove copper, Felt the smoke in her face was but proper; To know what she had not to trust to, Was worth all the ashes and dust too.

She went out 'mid hooting and laughter; Clement Marot stayed; I followed after, And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?

If she wished not the rash deed's recalment? 120 For I"--so I spoke--"am a poet: Human nature,--behoves that I know it!"

She told me, "Too long had I heard Of the deed proved alone by the word: For my love--what De Lorge would not dare!

With my scorn--what De Lorge could compare!

And the endless descriptions of death He would brave when my lip formed a breath, I must reckon as braved, or, of course, Doubt his word--and moreover, perforce, 130 For such gifts as no lady could spurn, Must offer my love in return.

When I looked on your lion, it brought All the dangers at once to my thought, Encountered by all sorts of men, Before he was lodged in his den-- From the poor slave whose club or bare hands Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands, With no King and no Court to applaud, By no shame, should he shrink, overawed, 140 Yet to capture the creature made shift, That his rude boys might laugh at the gift --To the page who last leaped o'er the fence Of the pit, on no greater pretence Than to get back the bonnet he dropped, Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.

So, wiser I judged it to make One trial what 'death for my sake'

Really meant, while the power was yet mine,

Than to wait until time should define 150 Such a phrase not so simply as I, Who took it to mean just 'to die.'

The blow a glove gives is but weak: Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?

But when the heart suffers a blow, Will the pain pa.s.s so soon, do you know?"

I looked, as away she was sweeping.

And saw a youth eagerly keeping As close as he dared to the doorway.

No doubt that a n.o.ble should more weigh 160 His life than befits a plebeian; And yet, had our brute been Nemean-- (I judge by a certain calm fervour The youth stepped with, forward to serve her) --He'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn If you whispered "Friend, what you'd get, first earn!"

And when, shortly after, she carried Her shame from the Court, and they married, To that marriage some happiness, maugre The voice of the Court, I dared augur. 170

For De Lorge, he made women with men vie, Those in wonder and praise, these in envy; And in short stood so plain a head taller.

That he wooed and won... how do you call her?

The beauty, that rose in the sequel To the King's love, who loved her a week well.

And 'twas noticed he never would honour De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her) With the easy commission of stretching His legs in the service, and fetching 180 His wife, from her chamber, those straying Sad gloves she was always mislaying, While the King took the closet to chat in,-- But of course this adventure came pat in.

And never the King told the story, How bringing a glove brought such glory, But the wife smiled--"His nerves are grown firmer: Mine he brings now and utters no murmur."

Venienti occurrite morbo!

With which moral I drop my theorbo. 190

NOTES: "The Glove" gives a transcript from Court life, in Paris, under Francis I. In making Ronsard the mouthpiece for a deeper observation of the meaning of the incident he is supposed to witness and describe than Marot and the rest saw, characteristic differences between these two poets of the time are brought out, the genuineness of courtly love and chivalry is tested, and to the original story of the glove is added a new view of the lady's character; a sketch of her humbler and truer lover, and their happiness; and a pendent scene showing the courtier De Lorges, having won a beauty for his wife, in the ignominious position of a.s.sisting the king to enjoy her favors and of submitting to pleasantries upon his discomfiture. The original story as told by Poullain de St. Croix in his Essais Historiques sur Paris ran thus: "One day whilst Francis I amused himself with looking at a combat between his lions, a lady, having let her glove drop, said to De Lorges, 'If you would have me believe that you love me as much as you swear you do, go and bring back my glove.' De Lorges went down, picked up the glove from amidst the ferocious beasts, returned, and threw it in the lady's face; and in spite of all her advances and cajoleries would never look at her again.'' Schiller running across this anecdote of St. Croix, in 1797, as he writes Goethe, wrote a poem on it which adds nothing to the story. Leigh Hunt's 'The Glove and the Lions' adds some traits. It characterizes the lady as shallow and vain, with smiles and eyes which always seem'd the same.'' She calculates since "king, ladies, lovers, all look on," that "the occasion is divine" to drop her glove and "prove his love, then look at him and smile"; and after De Lorges has returned and thrown the glove, "but not with love, right in the lady's face,'' Hunt makes the king rise and swear "rightly done! No love, quoth he, but vanity, sets love a task like that!'' This is the material Browning worked on; he makes use of this speech of the king's, but remodels the lady's character wholly, and gives her an appreciative lover, and also a keen-eyed young poet to tell her story afresh and to reveal through his criticism the narrowness of the Court and the Court poets.

12. Naso: Ovid. Love of the cla.s.sics and curiosity as to human nature were both characteristic of Peter Ronsard (1524-1585), at one time page to Francis I, the most erudite and original of French medieval poets.

45. Clement Marot: (1496-1544), Court poet to Francis I.

His nature and verse were simpler than Ronsard's, and he belonged more peculiarly to his own day.

48. Versifies David: Marot was suspected of Protestant leanings which occasioned his imprisonment twice, and put him in need of the protection Francis and his sister gave him. Among his works were sixty-five epistles addressed to grandees, attesting his courtiership, and the paraphrase of forty-nine of the Psalms to which Ronsard alludes.

50. Illum Juda, etc.: that lion of the tribe of Judah.

89. Venienti, etc.: Meet the coming disease; that is, if evil be antic.i.p.ated, don't wait till it seizes you, but dare to a.s.sure yourself and then forestall it as the lady did.

190. Theorbo: an old Italian stringed instrument such as pages used.

TIME'S REVENGES

I've a Friend, over the sea; I like him, but he loves me.

It all grew out of the books I write; They find such favour in his sight That he slaughters you with savage looks Because you don't admire my books.

He does himself though,--and if some vein Were to snap tonight in this heavy brain, To-morrow month, if I lived to try, Round should I just turn quietly, 10 Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand Till I found him, come from his foreign land To be my nurse in this poor place, And make my broth and wash my face And light my fire and, all the while, Bear with his old good-humoured smile That I told him "Better have kept away Than come and kill me, night and day, With, worse than fever throbs and shoots, The creaking of his clumsy boots." 20 I am as sure that this he would do, As that Saint Paul's is striking two.

And I think I rather... woe is me!

--Yes, rather would see him than not see, If lifting a hand could seat him there Before me in the empty chair To-night, when my head aches indeed, And I can neither think nor read Nor make these purple fingers hold The pen; this garret's freezing cold! 30

And I've a Lady--there he wakes, The laughing fiend and prince of snakes Within me, at her name, to pray Fate send some creature in the way Of my love for her, to be down-torn, Upthrust and outward-borne, So I might prove myself that sea Of pa.s.sion which I needs must be!

Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint And my style infirm and its figures faint, 40 All the critics say, and more blame yet, And not one angry word you get.

But, please you, wonder I would put My cheek beneath that lady's foot Rather than trample under mine That laurels of the Florentine, And you shall see how the devil spends A fire G.o.d gave for other ends!

I tell you, I stride up and down This garret, crowned with love's best crown, 50 And feasted with love's perfect feast, To think I kill for her, at least, Body and soul and peace and fame, Alike youth's end and manhood's aim, --So is my spirit, as flesh with sin, Filled full, eaten out and in With the face of her, the eyes of her, The lips, the little chin, the stir Of shadow round her mouth; and she --I'll tell you,--calmly would decree 60 That I should roast at a slow fire,

If that would compa.s.s her desire And make her one whom they invite To the famous ball to-morrow night.

There may be heaven; there must be h.e.l.l; Meantime, there is our earth here--well!

NOTES: "Time's Revenges." An author soliloquizes in his garret over the fact that he possesses a friend who loves him and would do anything in his power to serve him, but for whom he cares almost nothing. At the same time he himself loves a woman to such distraction that he counts himself crowned with love's best crown while sacrificing his soul, his body, his peace, and his fame in brooding on his love, while she could calmly decree that he should roast at a slow fire if it would compa.s.s her frivolously ambitious designs. Thus his indifference to his friend is avenged by the indifference the lady shows toward him.

46. The Florentine: Dante. Used here, seemingly, as a symbol of the highest attainments in poesy, his (the speaker's) reverence for which is so great that he would rather put his cheek under his lady's foot than that poetry should suffer any indignity at his hands; yet in spite of all the possibilities open to him through his enthusiasm for poetry, he prefers wasting his entire energies upon one unworthy of him.

THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND

That second time they hunted me From hill to plain, from sh.o.r.e to sea, And Austria, hounding far and wide Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side, Breathed hot and instant on my trace,-- I made six days a hiding-place Of that dry green old aqueduct Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked The fire-flies from the roof above, Bright creeping thro' the moss they love: 10 --How long it seems since Charles was lost!

Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed The country in my very sight; And when that peril ceased at night, The sky broke out in red dismay With signal fires; well, there I lay Close covered o'er in my recess, Up to the neck in ferns and cress, Thinking on Metternich our friend, And Charles's miserable end, 20 And much beside, two days; the third, Hunger overcame me when I heard The peasants from the village go To work among the maize; you know, With us in Lombardy, they bring Provisions packed on mules, a string With little bells that cheer their task, And casks, and boughs on every cask To keep the sun's heat from the wine; These I let pa.s.s in jingling line, 30 And, close on them, dear noisy crew, The peasants from the village, too; For at the very rear would troop Their wives and sisters in a group To help, I knew. When these had pa.s.sed, I threw my glove to strike the last, Taking the chance: she did not start, Much less cry out, but stooped apart, One instant rapidly glanced round, And saw me beckon from the ground. 40 A wild bush grows and hides my crypt; She picked my glove up while she stripped A branch off, then rejoined the rest With that; my glove lay in her breast.

Then I drew breath; they disappeared: It was for Italy I feared.

An hour, and she returned alone Exactly where my glove was thrown.

Meanwhile came many thoughts: on me Rested the hopes of Italy. 50 I had devised a certain tale Which, when 'twas told her, could not fail Persuade a peasant of its truth; I meant to call a freak of youth This hiding, and give hopes of pay, And no temptation to betray.

But when I saw that woman's face, Its calm simplicity of grace, Our Italy's own att.i.tude In which she walked thus far, and stood, 60 Planting each naked foot so firm, To crush the snake and spare the worm-- At first sight of her eyes, I said, "I am that man upon whose head They fix the price, because I hate The Austrians over us: the State Will give you gold--oh, gold so much!

If you betray me to their clutch, And be your death, for aught I know, If once they find you saved their foe. 70 Now, you must bring me food and drink, And also paper, pen and ink, And carry safe what I shall write To Padua, which you'll reach at night Before the duomo shuts; go in, And wait till Tenebrae begin; Walk to the third confessional, Between the pillar and the wall, And kneeling whisper, Whence comes peace?

Say it a second time, then cease; 80 And if the voice inside returns, From Christ and Freedom; what concerns The cause of Peace?--for answer, slip My letter where you placed your lip; Then come back happy we have done Our mother service--I, the son, As you the daughter of our land!"

Three mornings more, she took her stand In the same place, with the same eyes: I was no surer of sun-rise 90 Than of her coming. We conferred Of her own prospects, and I heard She had a lover--stout and tall, She said--then let her eyelids fall, "He could do much"--as if some doubt Entered her heart,--then, pa.s.sing out

"She could not speak for others, who Had other thoughts; herself she knew,"

And so she brought me drink and food.

After four days, the scouts pursued 100 Another path; at last arrived The help my Paduan friends contrived To furnish me: she brought the news.

For the first time I could not choose But kiss her hand, and lay my own Upon her head--"This faith was shown To Italy, our mother; she Uses my hand and blesses thee."