Selections From The Poems And Plays Of Robert Browning Part 19

I take the subjects for his corridor, 235 Finish the portrait out of hand--there, there, And throw him in another thing or two If he demurs; the whole should prove enough To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, What's better and what's all I care about, 240 Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!

Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, The Cousin! what does he to please you more?

I am grown peaceful as old age tonight.

I regret little, I would change still less. 245 Since there my past life lies, why alter it?

The very wrong to Francis!--it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said.

My father and my mother died of want. 250 Well, had I riches of my own? You see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.

They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have labored somewhat in my time And not been paid profusely. Some good son 255 Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try!

No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, You loved me quite enough, it seems tonight.

This must suffice me here. What would one have?

In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance-- 260 Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo, and me To cover--the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So--still they overcome 265 Because there's still Lucrezia--as I choose.

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH

ROME, 15--

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!

Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?

Nephews--sons mine ... ah G.o.d, I know not! Well-- She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! 5 What's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.

Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 10 In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.

Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought 15 With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: --Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that s.n.a.t.c.h from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, G.o.d curse the same!

Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20 One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, 25 And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 30 --Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!

Draw close: that conflagration of my church --What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! 35 My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find ... Ah G.o.d, I know not, I! ...

Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah G.o.d, of _lapis lazuli_, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast ...

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, 45 That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like G.o.d the Father's globe on both his hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! 50 Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black-- 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? 55 The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pan and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Savior at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables ... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp 65 Bricked o'er with beggar's moldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!

Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!

'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve My bath must needs be left behind, alas! 70 One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world-- And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek ma.n.u.scripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? 75 --That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line-- Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!

And then how I shall lie through centuries, 80 And hear the blessed mutter of the ma.s.s, And see G.o.d made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, 85 Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: 90 And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals, and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, 95 Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, --Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?

No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! 100 Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.

All _lapis_, all, sons! Else I give the Pope My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?

Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul, 105 Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a visor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, 110 To comfort me on my entablature Whereon I am to lie till I must ask, "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!

For ye have stabbed me with ingrat.i.tude To death--ye wish it--G.o.d, ye wish it! Stone-- 115 Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through-- And no more _lapis_ to delight the world!

Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs 120 --Aye, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers-- Old Gandolf--at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was! 125

CLEON

"As certain also of your own poets have said"--

Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea, And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")-- To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!

They give thy letter to me, even now; 5 I read and seem as if I heard thee speak.

The master of thy galley still unlades Gift after gift; they block my court at last And pile themselves along its portico Royal with sunset, like a thought of thee; 10 And one white she-slave from the group dispersed Of black and white slaves (like the checker-work Pavement, at once my nation's work and gift, Now covered with this settle-down of doves), One lyric woman, in her crocus vest 15 Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands Commends to me the strainer and the cup Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine.

Well-counseled, king, in thy munificence!

For so shall men remark, in such an act 20 Of love for him whose song gives life its joy, Thy recognition of the use of life; Nor call thy spirit barely adequate To help on life in straight ways, broad enough For vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest. 25 Thou, in the daily building of thy tower-- Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil, Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth, Or when the general work 'mid good acclaim Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect-- 30 Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's sake-- Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope Of some eventual rest a-top of it, Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed, Thou first of men mightst look out to the East. 35 The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun.

For this, I promise on thy festival To pour libation, looking o'er the sea, Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak Thy great words, and describe thy royal face-- 40 Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most, Within the eventual element of calm.

Thy letter's first requirement meets me here.

It is as thou hast heard: in one short life I, Cleon, have effected all those things 45 Thou wonderingly dost enumerate.

That epos on thy hundred plates of gold Is mine--and also mine the little chant, So sure to rise from every fishing-bark When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net. 50 The image of the sun-G.o.d on the phare, Men turn from the sun's self to see, is mine; The Poecile, o'er-storied its whole length, As thou didst hear, with painting, is mine too.

I know the true proportions of a man 55 And woman also, not observed before; And I have written three books on the soul, Proving absurd all written hitherto, And putting us to ignorance again.

For music--why, I have combined the moods, 60 Inventing one. In brief, all arts are mine; Thus much the people know and recognize, Throughout our seventeen islands. Marvel not.

We of these latter days, with greater mind Than our forerunners, since more composite, 65 Look not so great, beside their simple way, To a judge who only sees one way at once, One mind-point and no other at a time-- Compares the small part of a man of us With some whole man of the heroic age, 70 Great in his way--not ours, nor meant for ours.

And ours is greater, had we skill to know: For, what we call this life of men on earth, This sequence of the soul's achievements here Being, as I find much reason to conceive, 75 Intended to be viewed eventually As a great whole, not a.n.a.lyzed to parts, But each part having reference to all-- How shall a certain part, p.r.o.nounced complete, Endure effacement by another part? 80 Was the thing done?--then, what's to do again?

See, in the checkered pavement opposite, Suppose the artist made a perfect rhomb, And next a lozenge, then a trapezoid-- He did not overlay them, superimpose 85 The new upon the old and blot it out, But laid them on a level in his work, Making at last a picture; there it lies.

So, first the perfect separate forms were made, The portions of mankind; and after, so, 90 Occurred the combination of the same.

For where had been a progress, otherwise?

Mankind, made up of all the single men-- In such a synthesis the labor ends.

Now mark me! those divine men of old time 95 Have reached, thou sayest well, each at one point The outside verge that rounds our faculty; And where they reached, who can do more than reach?

It takes but little water just to touch At some one point the inside of a sphere, 100 And, as we turn the sphere, touch all the rest In due succession; but the finer air Which not so palpably nor obviously, Though no less universally, can touch The whole circ.u.mference of that emptied sphere, 105 Fills it more fully than the water did; Holds thrice the weight of water in itself Resolved into a subtler element.

And yet the vulgar call the sphere first full Up to the visible height--and after, void; 110 Not knowing air's more hidden properties.

And thus our soul, misknown, cries out to Zeus To vindicate his purpose in our life: Why stay we on the earth unless to grow?

Long since, I imaged, wrote the fiction out, 115 That he or other G.o.d descended here And, once for all, showed simultaneously What, in its nature, never can be shown, Piecemeal or in succession--showed, I say, The worth both absolute and relative 120 Of all his children from the birth of time, His instruments for all appointed work.

I now go on to image--might we hear The judgment which should give the due to each, Show where the labor lay and where the ease, 125 And prove Zeus' self, the latent everywhere!

This is a dream--but no dream, let us hope, That years and days, the summers and the springs, Follow each other with unwaning powers.

The grapes which dye thy wine are richer far, 130 Through culture, than the wild wealth of the rock; The suave plum than the savage-tasted drupe; The pastured honey-bee drops choicer sweet; The flowers turn double, and the leaves turn flowers; That young and tender crescent-moon, thy slave, 135 Sleeping above her robe as buoyed by clouds, Refines upon the women of my youth.

What, and the soul alone deteriorates?

I have not chanted verse like Homer, no-- Nor swept string like Terpander, no--nor carved 140 And painted men like Phidias and his friend: I am not great as they are, point by point.

But I have entered into sympathy With these four, running these into one soul, Who, separate, ignored each other's art. 145 Say, is it nothing that I know them all?

The wild flower was the larger; I have dashed Rose-blood upon its petals, p.r.i.c.ked its cup's Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit, And show a better flower if not so large: 150 I stand myself. Refer this to the G.o.ds Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare (All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext That such a gift by chance lay in my hand, Discourse of lightly or depreciate? 155 It might have fallen to another's hand: what then?

I pa.s.s too surely: let at least truth stay!

And next, of what thou followest on to ask.

This being with me as I declare, O king, My works, in all these varicolored kinds, 160 So done by me, accepted so by men-- Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men's hearts) I must not be accounted to attain The very crown and proper end of life?

Inquiring thence how, now life closeth up, 165 I face death with success in my right hand: Whether I fear death less than dost thyself The fortunate of men? "For" (writest thou) "Thou leavest much behind, while I leave naught.

Thy life stays in the poems men shall sing, 170 The pictures men shall study; while my life, Complete and whole now in its power and joy, Dies altogether with my brain and arm, Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?

The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave, 175 Set on the promontory which I named.

And that--some supple courtier of my heir Shall use its robed and sceptered arm, perhaps, To fix the rope to, which best drags it down.

I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!" 180

Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind.

Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief, That admiration grows as knowledge grows?

That imperfection means perfection hid, 185 Reserved in part, to grace the after-time?

If, in the morning of philosophy, Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived, Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have looked On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird, 190 Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage-- Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, and deduced The perfectness of others yet unseen.

Conceding which--had Zeus then questioned thee, "Shall I go on a step, improve on this, 195 Do more for visible creatures than is done?"

Thou wouldst have answered, "Aye, by making each Grow conscious in himself--by that alone.

All's perfect else: the sh.e.l.l sucks fast the rock, The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims 200 And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight, Till life's mechanics can no further go-- And all this joy in natural life is put Like fire from off thy finger into each, So exquisitely perfect is the same. 205 But 'tis pure fire, and they mere matter are; It has them, not they it: and so I choose For man, thy last premeditated work (If I might add a glory to the scheme), That a third thing should stand apart from both, 210 A quality arise within his soul, Which, introactive, made to supervise And feel the force it has, may view itself, And so be happy." Man might live at first The animal life: but is there nothing more? 215 In due time, let him critically learn How he lives; and, the more he gets to know Of his own life's adaptabilities, The more joy-giving will his life become.

Thus man, who hath this quality, is best. 220