Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

And bid him rule his race! You pledge

  Your fealty to such rule? What, all —

  From Heavenly John and Attic Paul,

  And that brave weather-battered Peter

  Whose stout faith only stood completer

  For buffets, sinning to be pardoned,

  As the more his hands hauled nets, they hardened, —

  All, down to you, the man of men,

  Professing here at Göttingen,

  Compose Christ’s flock! So, you and I

  Are sheep of a good man! and why?

  The goodness, — how did he acquire it?

  Was it self-gained, did God inspire it?

  Choose which; then tell me, on what ground

  Should its possessor dare propound

  His claim to rise o’er us an inch?

  Were goodness all some man’s invention,

  Who arbitrarily made mention

  What we should follow, and where flinch, —

  What qualities might take the style

  Of right and wrong, — and had such guessing

  Met with as general acquiescing

  As graced the Alphabet erewhile,

  When A got leave an Ox to be,

  No Camel (quoth the Jews) like G, —

  For thus inventing thing and title

  Worship were that man’s fit requital.

  But if the common conscience must

  Be ultimately judge, adjust

  Its apt name to each quality

  Already known, — I would decree

  Worship for such mere demonstration

  And simple work of nomenclature,

  Only the day I praised, not Nature,

  But Harvey, for the circulation.

  I would praise such a Christ, with pride

  And joy, that he, as none beside,

  Had taught us how to keep the mind

  God gave him, as God gave his kind,

  Freer than they from fleshly taint!

  I would call such a Christ our Saint,

  As I declare our Poet, him

  Whose insight makes all others dim:

  A thousand poets pried at life,

  And only one amid the strife

  Rose to be Shakespeare! Each shall take

  His crown, I’d say, for the world’s sake —

  Though some objected — ”Had we seen

  “The heart and head of each, what screen

  “Was broken there to give them light,

  “While in ourselves it shuts the sight,

  “We should no more admire, perchance,

  “That these found truth out at a glance,

  “Than marvel how the bat discerns

  “Some pitch-dark cavern’s fifty turns,

  “Led by a finer tact, a gift

  “He boasts, which other birds must shift

  “Without, and grope as best they can.”

  No, freely I would praise the man. —

  Nor one whit more, if he contended

  That gift of his, from God, descended.

  Ah, friend, what gift of man’s does not?

  No nearer Something, by a jot,

  Rise an infinity of Nothings

  Than one: take Euclid for your teacher:

  Distinguish kinds: do crownings, clothings,

  Make that Creator which was creature?

  Multiply gifts upon his head,

  And what, when all’s done, shall be said

  But . . . the more gifted he, I ween!

  That one’s made Christ, another, Pilate,

  And This might be all That has been, —

  So what is there to frown or smile at?

  What is left for us, save, in growth,

  Of soul, to rise up, far past both,

  From the gift looking to the Giver,

  And from the cistern to the River,

  And from the finite to Infinity,

  And from man’s dust to God’s divinity?

  XVII.

  Take all in a word: the Truth in God’s breast

  Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed:

  Though He is so bright and we so dim,

  We are made in His image to witness Him;

  And were no eye in us to tell,

  Instructed by no inner sense.

  The light of Heaven from the dark of Hell,

  That light would want its evidence, —

  Though Justice, Good and Truth were still

  Divine, if by some demon’s will,

  Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed

  Law through the worlds, and Right misnamed.

  No mere exposition of morality

  Made or in part or in totality,

  Should win you to give it worship, therefore:

  And, if no better proof you will care for,

  — Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?

  Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more

  Of what Right is, than arrives at birth

  In the best man’s acts that we bow before:

  This last knows better — true; but my fact is,

  ‘Tis one thing to know, and another to practise;

  And thence I conclude that the real God-function

  Is to furnish a motive and injunction

  For practising what we know already.

  And such an injunction and such a motive

  As the God in Christ, do you waive, and “heady

  High minded,” hang your tablet-votive

  Outside the fane on a finger-post?

  Morality to the uttermost,

  Supreme in Christ as we all confess,

  Why need we prove would avail no jot

  To make Him God, if God He were not?

  What is the point where Himself lays stress

  Does the precept run “Believe in Good,

  “In Justice, Truth, now understood

  “For the first time?” — or, “Believe in ME,

  “Who lived and died, yet essentially

  “Am Lord of Life?” Whoever can take

  The same to his heart and for mere love’s sake

  Conceive of the love, — that man obtains

  A new truth; no conviction gains

  Of an old one only, made intense

  By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.

  XVIII.

  Can it be that He stays inside?

  Is the Vesture left me to commune with?

  Could my soul find aught to sing in tune with

  Even at this lecture, if she tried?

  Oh, let me at lowest sympathise

  With the lurking drop of blood that lies

  In the desiccated brain’s white roots

  Without a throb for Christ’s attributes,

  As the Lecturer makes his special boast!

  If love’s dead there, it has left a ghost.

  Admire we, how from heart to brain

  (Though to say so strike the doctors dumb)

  One instinct rises and falls again,

  Restoring the equilibrium.

  And how when the Critic had done his best,

  And the Pearl of Price, at reason’s test,

  Lay dust and ashes levigable

  On the Professor’s lecture-table;

  When we looked for the inference and monition

  That our faith, reduced to such a condition,

  Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole, —

  He bids us, when we least expect it,

  Take back our faith, — if it be not just whole,

  Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it,

  Which fact pays the damage done rewardingly,

  So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly!

  “Go home and venerate the Myth

  “I thus have experimented with —

  “This Man, continue to adore him

  “Rather than all who went before him,

  “And all who ever followed after!” —

  Surely for this I may praise you, my brother!

/>   Will you take the praise in tears or laughter?

  That’s one point gained: can I compass another?

  Unlearned love was safe from spurning —

  Can’t we respect your loveless learning?

  Let us at least give Learning honour!

  What laurels had we showered upon her,

  Girding her loins up to perturb

  Our theory of the Middle Verb;

  Or Turklike brandishing a scimetar

  O’er anapests in comic-trimeter;

  Or curing the halt and maimed Iketides,

  While we lounged on at our indebted ease:

  Instead of which, a tricksy demon

  Sets her at Titus or Philemon!

  When Ignorance wags his ears of leather

  And hates God’s word, ‘tis altogether;

  Nor leaves he his congenial thistles

  To go and browze on Paul’s Epistles.

  — And you, the audience, who might ravage

  The world wide, enviably savage

  Nor heed the cry of the retriever,

  More than Herr Heine (before his fever), —

  I do not tell a lie so arrant

  As say my passion’s wings are furled up,

  And, without the plainest Heavenly warrant,

  I were ready and glad to give this world up —

  But still, when you rub the brow meticulous,

  And ponder the profit of turning holy

  If not for God’s, for your own sake solely,

  — God forbid I should find you ridiculous!

  Deduce from this lecture all that eases you,

  Nay, call yourselves, if the calling pleases you,

  “Christians,” — abhor the Deist’s pravity, —

  Go on, you shall no more move my gravity,

  Than, when I see boys ride a-cockhorse

  I find it in my heart to embarrass them

  By hinting that their stick’s a mock horse,

  And they really carry what they say carries them.

  XIX.

  So sate I talking with my mind.

  I did not long to leave the door

  And find a new church, as before,

  But rather was quiet and inclined

  To prolong and enjoy the gentle resting

  From further tracking and trying and testing.

  This tolerance is a genial mood!

  (Said I, and a little pause ensued).

  One trims the bark ‘twixt shoal and shelf,

  And sees, each side, the good effects of it,

  A value for religion’s self,

  A carelessness about the sects of it.

  Let me enjoy my own conviction,

  Not watch my neighbour’s faith with fretfulness,

  Still spying there some dereliction

  Of truth, perversity, forgetfulness!

  Better a mild indifferentism,

  To teach that all our faiths (though duller

  His shines through a dull spirit’s prism)

  Originally had one colour —

  Sending me on a pilgrimage

  Through ancient and through modern times

  To many peoples, various climes,

  Where I may see Saint, Savage, Sage

  Fuse their respective creeds in one

  Before the general Father’s throne!

  XX.

  . . . ’T was the horrible storm began afresh!

  The black night caught me in his mesh

  Whirled me up, and flung me prone.

  I was left on the college-step alone.

  I looked, and far there, ever fleeting

  Far, far away, the receding gesture,

  And looming of the lessening Vesture,

  Swept forward from my stupid hand,

  While I watched my foolish heart expand

  In the lazy glow of benevolence,

  O’er the various modes of man’s belief.

  I sprang up with fear’s vehemence.

  — Needs must there be one way, our chief

  Best way of worship: let me strive

  To find it, and when found, contrive

  My fellows also take their share.

  This constitutes my earthly care:

  God’s is above it and distinct!

  For I, a man, with men am linked,

  And not a brute with brutes; no gain

  That I experience, must remain

  Unshared: but should my best endeavour

  To share it, fail — subsisteth ever

  God’s care above, and I exult

  That God, by God’s own ways occult,

  May — doth, I will believe — bring back

  All wanderers to a single track!

  Meantime, I can but testify

  God’s care for me — no more, can I —

  It is but for myself I know.

  The world rolls witnessing around me

  Only to leave me as it found me;

  Men cry there, but my ear is slow.

  Their races flourish or decay

  — What boots it, while yon lucid way

  Loaded with stars, divides the vault?

  How soon my soul repairs its fault

  When, sharpening senses’ hebetude,

  She turns on my own life! So viewed,

  No mere mote’s-breadth but teems immense

  With witnessings of providence:

  And woe to me if when I look

  Upon that record, the sole book

  Unsealed to me, I take no heed

  Of any warning that I read!

  Have I been sure, this Christmas-Eve;

  God’s own hand did the rainbow weave,

  Whereby the truth from heaven slid

  Into my soul? — I cannot bid

  The world admit He stooped to heal

  My soul, as if in a thunder-peal

  Where one heard noise, and one saw flame,

  I only knew He named my name.

  And what is the world to me, for sorrow

  Or joy in its censures, when to-morrow

  It drops the remark, with just-turned head

  Then, on again — That man is dead?

  Yes, — but for me — my name called, — drawn

  As a conscript’s lot from the lap’s black yawn,

  He has dipt into on a battle-dawn:

  Bid out of life by a nod, a glance, —

  Stumbling, mute-mazed, at nature’s chance, —

  With a rapid finger circled round,

  Fixed to the first poor inch of ground,

  To light from, where his foot was found;

  Whose ear but a minute since lay free

  To the wide camp’s buzz and gossipry —

  Summoned, a solitary man,

  To end his life where his life began,

  From the safe glad rear, to the dreadful van!

  Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held

  By the hem of the Vesture . . .

  XXI.

  And I caught

  At the flying Robe, and unrepelled

  Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught

  With warmth and wonder and delight,

  God’s mercy being infinite.

  And scarce had the words escaped my tongue,

  When, at a passionate bound, I sprung

  Out of the wandering world of rain,

  Into the little chapel again.

  XXII.

  How else was I found there, bolt upright

  On my bench, as if I had never left it?

  — Never flung out on the common at night

  Nor met the storm and wedge-like cleft it,

  Seen the raree-show of Peter’s successor,

  Or the laboratory of the Professor!

  For the Vision, that was true, I wist,

  True as that heaven and earth exist.

  There sate my friend, the yellow and tall,

  With his neck and its wen in the selfsame place;

  Yet my nearest neighbour’s cheek s
howed gall,

  She had slid away a contemptuous space:

  And the old fat woman, late so placable,

  Eyed me with symptoms, hardly mistakeable,

  Of her milk of kindness turning rancid:

  In short a spectator might have fancied

  That I had nodded betrayed by a slumber,

  Yet kept my seat, a warning ghastly,

  Through the heads of the sermon, nine in number,

  To wake up now at the tenth and lastly.

  But again, could such a disgrace have happened?

  Each friend at my elbow had surely nudged it;

  And, as for the sermon, where did my nap end?

  Unless I heard it, could I have judged it?

  Could I report as I do at the close,

  First, the preacher speaks through his nose:

  Second, his gesture is too emphatic:

  Thirdly, to waive what’s pedagogic,

  The subject-matter itself lacks logic:

  Fourthly, the English is ungrammatic.

  Great news! the preacher is found no Pascal,

  Whom, if I pleased, I might to the task call

  Of making square to a finite eye

  The circle of infinity,

  And find so all-but-just-succeeding!

  Great news! the sermon proves no reading

  Where bee-like in the flowers I may bury me,

  Like Taylor’s, the immortal Jeremy!

  And now that I know the very worst of him,

  What was it I thought to obtain at first of him?

  Ha! Is God mocked, as He asks?

  Shall I take on me to change His tasks,

  And dare, despatched to a river-head

  For a simple draught of the element,

  Neglect the thing for which He sent,

  And return with another thing instead? —

  Saying . . . ”Because the water found

  “Welling up from underground,

  “Is mingled with the taints of earth,

  “While Thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth,

  “And couldest, at a word, convulse

  “The world with the leap of its river-pulse, —

  “Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy,

  “And bring thee a chalice I found, instead:

  “See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy!

  “One would suppose that the marble bled.

  “What matters the water? A hope I have nursed,

  “That the waterless cup will quench my thirst.”

  — Better have knelt at the poorest stream

  That trickles in pain from the straitest rift!

  For the less or the more is all God’s gift,

  Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite-seam.

  And here, is there water or not, to drink?

  I, then, in ignorance and weakness,

  Taking God’s help, have attained to think

  My heart does best to receive in meekness

  This mode of worship, as most to His mind,

  Where earthly aids being cast behind,

  His All in All appears serene,