Men and Women Part 2

Should his child sicken unto death, why, look For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, 160 Or pretermission of the daily craft!

While a word, gesture, glance from that same child At play or in the school or laid asleep, Will startle him to an agony of fear, Exasperation, just as like. Demand The reason why--"'t is but a word," object-- "A gesture"--he regards thee as our lord Who lived there in the pyramid alone, Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young, We both would unadvisedly recite 170 Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.

Thou and the child have each a veil alike Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know!

He holds on firmly to some thread of life-- (It is the life to lead perforcedly) Which runs across some vast distracting orb 180 Of glory on either side that meagre thread, Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet-- The spiritual life around the earthly life: The law of that is known to him as this, His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.

So is the man perplext with impulses Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, Proclaiming what is right and wrong across, And not along, this black thread through the blaze-- "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." 190 And oft the man's soul springs into his face As if he saw again and heard again His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise.

Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within Admonishes: then back he sinks at once To ashes, who was very fire before, In sedulous recurrence to his trade Whereby he earneth him the daily bread; And studiously the humbler for that pride, Professedly the faultier that he knows 200 G.o.d's secret, while he holds the thread of life.

Indeed the especial marking of the man Is p.r.o.ne submission to the heavenly will-- Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.

'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last For that same death which must restore his being To equilibrium, body loosening soul Divorced even now by premature full growth: He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live So long as G.o.d please, and just how G.o.d please. 210 He even seeketh not to please G.o.d more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as G.o.d please.

Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do: How can he give his neighbor the real ground, His own conviction? Ardent as he is-- Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old "Be it as G.o.d please" rea.s.sureth him.

I probed the sore as thy disciple should: 220 "How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march To stamp out like a little spark thy town, Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?"

He merely looked with his large eyes on me.

The man is apathetic, you deduce?

Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, Able and weak, affects the very brutes And birds--how say I? flowers of the field-- As a wise workman recognizes tools 230 In a master's workshop, loving what they make.

Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin-- An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design, And happed to hear the land's pract.i.tioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, 240 Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure--and I must hold my peace!

Thou wilt object--Why have I not ere this Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, Conferring with the frankness that befits?

Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech Perished in a tumult many years ago, Accused--our learning's fate--of wizardry, Rebellion, to the setting up a rule 250 And creed prodigious as described to me.

His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone) Was wrought by the mad people--that's their wont!

On vain recourse, as I conjecture it, To his tried virtue, for miraculous help-- How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way!

The other imputations must be lies; 260 But take one, though I loathe to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame.

(And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says?

Perhaps not: though in writing to a leech 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As--G.o.d forgive me! who but G.o.d himself, Creator and sustainer of the world, That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile! 270 --'Sayeth that such an one was born and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house; Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was . . . what I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lazarus Who saith--but why all this of what he saith?

Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark?

I noticed on the margin of a pool 280 Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth!

Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with.

Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: 290 I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unaware, The man and I. I send thee what is writ.

Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian--he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. 300 Jerusalem's repose shall make amends For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine; Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!

The very G.o.d! think, Abib; dost thou think?

So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too-- So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, "0 heart I made, a heart beats here!

Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!

Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 310 And thou must love me who have died for thee!"

The madman saith He said so: it is strange.

NOTES

"An Epistle" gives the observations and opinions of Karshish, the Arab physician, writing to Abib, his master, upon meeting with Lazarus after he has been raised from the dead. Well versed in Eastern medical lore, he tries to explain the extraordinary phenomenon according to his knowledge. He attributes Lazarus'

version of the miracle to mania induced by trance, and the means used by the Nazarene physician to awaken him, and strengthens his view by describing the strange state of mind in which he finds Lazarus--like a child with no appreciation of the relative values of things. Through his renewal of life he had caught a glimpse of it from the infinite point of view, and lives now only with the desire to please G.o.d. His sole active quality is a great love for all humanity, his impatience manifests itself only at sin and ignorance, and is quickly curbed. Karshish, not able to realize this new plane of vision in which had been revealed to Lazarus the equal worth of all things in the divine plan, is incapable of understanding Lazarus; but in spite of his attempt to make light of the case, he is deeply impressed by the character of Lazarus, and has besides a hardly acknowledged desire to believe in this revelation, told of by Lazarus, of G.o.d as Love. Professor Corson says of this poem: "It may be said to polarize the idea, so often presented in Browning's poetry, that doubt is a condition of the vitality of faith."

17. Snakestone: a name given to any substance used as a remedy for snake-bites; for example, some are of chalk, some of animal charcoal, and some of vegetable substances.

28. Vespasian: Nero's general who marched against Palestine in 66, and was succeeded in the command, when he was proclaimed Emperor (70-79), by his son, t.i.tus.

29. Black lynx: the Syrian lynx is distinguished by black ears.

43. Tertians: fevers, recurring every third day; hence the name.

44. Falling-sickness: epilepsy. Caesar's disease ("Julius Caesar,"

I. 2, 258).

45. There's a spider here: "The habits of the aranead here described point very clearly to some one of the Wandering group, which stalk their prey in the open field or in divers lurking-places, and are distinguished by this habit from the other great group, known as the Sedentary spiders, because they sit or hang upon their webs and capture their prey by means of silken snares. The next line is not determinative of the species, for there is a great number of spiders any one of which might be described as 'Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back.' We have a little Saltigrade or Jumping spider, known as the Zebra spider (Epiblemum scenic.u.m), which is found in Europe, and I believe also in Syria. One often sees this species and its congeners upon the ledges of rocks, the edges of tombstones, the walls of buildings, and like situations, hunting their prey, which they secure by jumping upon it. So common is the Zebra spider, that I might think that Browning referred to it, if I were not in doubt whether he would express the stripes of white upon its ash-gray abdomen by the word 'mottles.' However, there arc other spiders belonging to the same tribe (Saltigrades) that really are mottled. There are also spiders known as the Lycosids or Wolf spiders or Ground spiders, which are often of an ash-gray color, and marked with little whitish spots after the manner of Browning's Syrian species. Perhaps the poet had one of these in mind, at least he accurately describes their manner of seeking prey. The next line is an interrupted one, 'Take five and drop them. . . .' Take five what? Five of these ash-gray mottled spiders? Certainly. But what can be meant by the expression 'drop them'? This opens up to us a strange chapter in human superst.i.tion. It was long a prevalent idea that the spider in various forms possessed some occult power of healing, and men administered it internally or applied it externally as a cure for many diseases. Pliny gives a number of such remedies. A certain spider applied in a piece of cloth, or another one ('a white spider with very elongated thin legs'), beaten up in oil is said by this ancient writer upon Natural History to form an ointment for the eyes. Similarly, 'the thick pulp of a spider's body, mixed with the oil of roses, is used for the ears.' Sir Matthew Lister, who was indeed the father of English araneology, is quoted in Dr. James's Medical Dictionary as using the distilled water of boiled black spiders as an excellent cure for wounds." (Dr. H. C. McCook in Poet-lore, Nov., 1889.)

53. Gum-tragacanth: yielded by the leguminous shrub, Astragalus tragacantha.

60. Zoar: the only one that was spared of the five cities of the plain (Genesis 14. 2).

108. Lazarus . . . fifty years of age: in The Academy, Sept. 16, 1896, Dr. Richard Garnett says: "Browning commits an oversight, it seems to me, in making Lazarus fifty years of age at the eve of the siege of Jerusalem, circa 68 A. D." The miracle is supposed to have been wrought about 33 A. D., and Lazarus would then have been only fifteen, although according to tradition he was thirty when he was raised from the dead, and lived only thirty years after. Upon this Prof. Charles B. Wright comments in Poet-lore, April, 1897: "I incline to think that the oversight is not Browning's. Let us stand by the tradition and the resulting age of sixty-five. . . . Karshish is simply stating his professional judgment. Lazarus is given an age suited to his appearance--he seems a man of fifty. The years have touched him lightly since 'heaven opened to his soul.'

. . . And that marvellous physical freshness deceives the very leech himself."

177. Greek fire: used by the Byzantine Greeks in warfare, first against the Saracens at the siege of Constantinople in 673 A. D.

Therefore an anachronism in this poem. Liquid fire was, however, known to the ancients, as a.s.syrian bas-reliefs testify. Greek fire was made possibly of naphtha, saltpetre, and sulphur, and was thrown upon the enemy from copper tubes; or pledgets of tow were dipped in it and attached to arrows.

281. Blue-flowering borage: (Borago officia.n.a.lis). The ancients deemed this plant one of the four "cordial flowers," for cheering the spirits, the others being the rose, violet, and alkanet. Pliny says it produces very exhilarating effects.

JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION

1842

There's heaven above, and night by night I look right through its gorgeous roof; No suns and moons though e'er so bright Avail to stop me; splendor-proof I keep the broods of stars aloof: For I intend to get to G.o.d, For 't is to G.o.d I speed so fast, For in G.o.d's breast, my own abode, Those shoals of dazzling glory, pa.s.sed, I lay my spirit down at last. 10 I lie where I have always lain, G.o.d smiles as he has always smiled; Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled The heavens, G.o.d thought on me his child; Ordained a life for me, arrayed Its circ.u.mstances every one To the minutest; ay, G.o.d said This head this hand should rest upon Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun. 20 And having thus created me, Thus rooted me, he bade me grow, Guiltless forever, like a tree That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know The law by which it prospers so: But sure that thought and word and deed All go to swell his love for me, Me, made because that love had need Of something irreversibly Pledged solely its content to be. 30 Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend, No poison-gourd foredoomed to stoop!

I have G.o.d's warrant, could I blend All hideous sins, as in a cup, To drink the mingled venoms up; Secure my nature will convert The draught to blossoming gladness fast: While sweet dews turn to the gourd's hurt, And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast, As from the first its lot was cast. 40 For as I lie, smiled on, full-fed By unexhausted power to bless, I gaze below on h.e.l.l's fierce bed, And those its waves of flame oppress, Swarming in ghastly wretchedness; Whose life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!--to win If not love like G.o.d's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin. 50 Priest, doctor, hermit, monk grown white With prayer, the broken-hearted nun, The martyr, the wan acolyte, The incense-swinging child--undone Before G.o.d fashioned star or sun!

G.o.d, whom I praise; how could I praise, If such as I might understand, Make out and reckon on his ways, And bargain for his love, and stand, Paying a price, at his right hand? 60

NOTES

"Johannes Agricola in Meditation" presents the doctrine of predestination as it appears to a devout and poetic soul whose conviction of the truth of such a doctrine has the strength of a divine revelation. Those elected for G.o.d's love can do nothing to weaken it, those not elected can do nothing to gain it, but it is not his to reason why; indeed, he could not praise a G.o.d whose ways he could understand or for whose love he had to bargain.

Johannes Agricola: (1492-1566), Luther's secretary, 1519, afterward in conflict with him, and author of the doctrine called by Luther antinomian, because it rejected the Law of the Old Testament as of no use under the Gospel dispensation. In a note accompanying the first publication of this poem, Browning quotes from "The Dictionary of All Religions" (1704): "They say that good works do not further, nor evil works hinder salvation; that the child of G.o.d cannot sin, that G.o.d never chastiseth him, that murder, drunkenness, etc., are sins in the wicked but not in him, that the child of grace being once a.s.sured of salvation, afterwards never doubteth . . . that G.o.d doth not love any man for his holiness, that sanctification is no evidence of justification." Though many antinomians taught thus, says George Willis Cooke in his "Browning Guide Book," it does not correctly represent the position of Agricola, who in reality held moral obligations to be inc.u.mbent upon the Christian, but for guidance in these he found in the New Testament all the principles and motives necessary.

PICTOR IGNOTUS

FLORENCE, 15-

1845

I could have painted pictures like that youth's Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar Stayed me--ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!

--Never did fate forbid me, star by star, To outburst on your night with all my gift Of fires from G.o.d: nor would my flesh have shrunk From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk To the centre, of an instant; or around Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan 10 The license and the limit, s.p.a.ce and bound, Allowed to truth made visible in man.

And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw, Over the canvas could my hand have flung, Each face obedient to its pa.s.sion's law, Each pa.s.sion clear proclaimed without a tongue; Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place; 20 Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up, And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved-- 0 human faces, hath it spilt, my cup?

What did ye give me that I have not saved?

Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!) Of going--I, in each new picture--forth, As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell, To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, Bound for the calmly-satisfied great State, Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, 30 Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, Through old streets named afresh from the event, Till it reached home, where learned age should greet My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct Above his hair, lie learning at my feet!-- Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked With love about, and praise, till life should end, And then not go to heaven, but linger here, Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend-- The thought grew frightful, 't was so wildly dear! 40 But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights Have scared me, like the revels through a door Of some strange house of idols at its rites!

This world seemed not the world it was before: Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped . . . Who summoned those cold faces that begun To press on me and judge me? Though I stooped Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . enough!

These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, 50 Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate, Partakers of their daily pettiness, Discussed of--"This I love, or this I hate, This likes me more, and this affects me less!"

Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series. Virgin, Babe and Saint, 60 With the same cold calm beautiful regard-- At least no merchant traffics in my heart; The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart; Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke.

So, die my pictures! surely, gently die!

O youth, men praise so--holds their praise its worth? 70 Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry?

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth?