Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 40

I

No, for I'll save it! Seven years since, I pa.s.sed through Paris, stopped a day To see the baptism of your Prince; Saw, made my bow, and went my way: Walking the heat and headache off, I took the Seine-side, you surmise, Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff, Cavour's appeal and Buol's replies, So sauntered till--what met my eyes?

II

Only the Doric little Morgue!

The dead-house where you show your drowned: Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.

One pays one's debt in such a case; I plucked up heart and entered,--stalked, Keeping a tolerable face Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked: Let them! No Briton's to be baulked!

III

First came the silent gazers; next, A screen of gla.s.s, we're thankful for; Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text, The three men who did most abhor Their life in Paris yesterday, So killed themselves: and now, enthroned Each on his copper couch, they lay Fronting me, waiting to be owned.

I thought, and think, their sin's atoned.

IV

Poor men, G.o.d made, and all for that!

The reverence struck me; o'er each head Religiously was hung its hat, Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, Sacred from touch: each had his berth, His bounds, his proper place of rest, Who last night tenanted on earth Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,-- Unless the plain asphalte seemed best.

V

How did it happen, my poor boy?

You wanted to be Buonaparte And have the Tuileries for toy, And could not, so it broke your heart?

You, old one by his side, I judge, Were, red as blood, a socialist, A leveller! Does the Empire grudge You've gained what no Republic missed?

Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

VI

And this--why, he was red in vain, Or black,--poor fellow that is blue!

What fancy was it turned your brain?

Oh, women were the prize for you!

Money gets women, cards and dice Get money, and ill-luck gets just The copper couch and one clear nice Cool squirt of water o'er your bust, The right thing to extinguish l.u.s.t!

VII

It's wiser being good than bad; It's safer being meek than fierce: It's fitter being sane than mad.

My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That, after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compa.s.s round be fetched; That what began best, can't end worst, Nor what G.o.d blessed once, prove accurst.

The poem _Rephan_, the t.i.tle of which was taken from the Book of Acts, has the same pleasant teaching we find in the play by Ludwig Fulda, called _Schlaraffenland_, published in 1899. In this drama, a boy, ragged, cold, and chronically hungry, falls asleep in a miserable room, and dreams that he is in a country of unalloyed delight.

Broiled chickens fly slowly by, easy to clutch and devour: expensive wardrobes await his immediate pleasure, and every conceivable wish is instantly and completely fulfilled. For a short time the boy is in ecstasies of joy: then the absence of effort, of counterbalancing privation, begins to make his heart dull: finally the paradise becomes so intolerable that he wakes with a scream--wakes in a dark, cold room, wakes in rags with his belly empty: and wakes in rapture at finding the good old earth of struggle and toil around him.

Contentment is stagnation: development is happiness. The mystery of life, its uncertainty, its joys paid for by effort, these make human existence worth while.

Browning delights to prove that the popular longing for static happiness would result in misery: that the sharp sides of life sting us into the real joy of living. He loves to take popular proverbs, which sum up the unconscious pessimism of humanity, and then show how false they are to fact. For example, we hear every day the expression, "No rose without a thorn," and we know very well what is meant. In _The Ring and the Book_, Browning says:

So a thorn comes to the aid of and completes the rose.

REPHAN

1889

How I lived, ere my human life began In this world of yours,--like you, made man,-- When my home was the Star of my G.o.d Rephan?

Come then around me, close about, World-weary earth-born ones! Darkest doubt Or deepest despondency keeps you out?

Nowise! Before a word I speak, Let my circle embrace your worn, your weak, Brow-furrowed old age, youth's hollow cheek--

Diseased in the body, sick in soul, Pinched poverty, satiate wealth,--your whole Array of despairs! Have I read the roll?

All here? Attend, perpend! O Star Of my G.o.d Rephan, what wonders are In thy brilliance fugitive, faint and far!

Far from me, native to thy realm, Who shared its perfections which o'erwhelm Mind to conceive. Let drift the helm,

Let drive the sail, dare unconfined Embark for the vast.i.tude, O Mind, Of an absolute bliss! Leave earth behind!

Here, by extremes, at a mean you guess: There, all's at most--not more, not less: Nowhere deficiency nor excess.

No want--whatever should be, is now: No growth--that's change, and change comes--how To royalty born with crown on brow?

Nothing begins--so needs to end: Where fell it short at first? Extend Only the same, no change can mend!

I use your language: mine--no word Of its wealth would help who spoke, who heard, To a gleam of intelligence. None preferred,

None felt distaste when better and worse Were uncontrastable: bless or curse What--in that uniform universe?

Can your world's phrase, your sense of things Forth-figure the Star of my G.o.d? No springs, No winters throughout its s.p.a.ce. Time brings

No hope, no fear: as to-day, shall be To-morrow: advance or retreat need we At our stand-still through eternity?

All happy: needs must we so have been, Since who could be otherwise? All serene: What dark was to banish, what light to screen?

Earth's rose is a bud that's checked or grows As beams may encourage or blasts oppose: Our lives leapt forth, each a full-orbed rose--

Each rose sole rose in a sphere that spread Above and below and around--rose-red: No fellowship, each for itself instead.

One better than I--would prove I lacked Somewhat: one worse were a jarring fact Disturbing my faultlessly exact.

How did it come to pa.s.s there lurked Somehow a seed of change that worked Obscure in my heart till perfection irked?--

Till out of its peace at length grew strife-- Hopes, fears, loves, hates,--obscurely rife,-- My life grown a-tremble to turn your life?