Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  The fact’s the same, — belief’s fire, once in us,

  Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself:

  We penetrate our life with such a glow

  As fire lends wood and iron — this turns steel,

  That burns to ash — all’s one, fire proves its power

  For good or ill, since men call flare success.

  But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn.

  Light one in me, I’ll find it food enough!

  Why, to be Luther — that’s a life to lead,

  Incomparably better than my own.

  He comes, reclaims God’s earth for God, he says,

  Sets up God’s rule again by simple means,

  Re-opens a shut book, and all is done.

  He flared out in the flaring of mankind;

  Such Luther’s luck was: how shall such be mine?

  If he succeeded, nothing’s left to do:

  And if he did not altogether — well,

  Strauss is the next advance. All Strauss should be

  I might be also. But to what result?

  He looks upon no future: Luther did.

  What can I gain on the denying side?

  Ice makes no conflagration. State the facts,

  Read the text right, emancipate the world —

  The emancipated world enjoys itself

  With scarce a thank-you — Blougram told it first

  It could not owe a farthing, — not to him

  More than Saint Paul! ‘twould press its pay, you think?

  Then add there’s still that plaguey hundredth chance

  Strauss may be wrong. And so a risk is run —

  For what gain? not for Luther’s, who secured

  A real heaven in his heart throughout his life,

  Supposing death a little altered things.

  ”Ay, but since really you lack faith,” you cry,

  “You run the same risk really on all sides,

  In cool indifference as bold unbelief.

  As well be Strauss as swing ‘twixt Paul and him.

  It’s not worth having, such imperfect faith,

  No more available to do faith’s work

  Than unbelief like mine. Whole faith, or none!”

  Softly, my friend! I must dispute that point

  Once own the use of faith, I’ll find you faith.

  We’re back on Christian ground. You call for faith:

  I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.

  The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,

  If faith o’ercomes doubt. How I know it does?

  By life and man’s free will, God gave for that!

  To mould life as we choose it, shows our choice:

  That’s our one act, the previous work’s his own.

  You criticize the soul? it reared this tree —

  This broad life and whatever fruit it bears!

  What matter though I doubt at every pore,

  Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my fingers’ ends,

  Doubts in the trivial work of every day,

  Doubts at the very bases of my soul

  In the grand moments when she probes herself —

  If finally I have a life to show,

  The thing I did, brought out in evidence

  Against the thing done to me underground

  By hell and all its brood, for aught I know?

  I say, whence sprang this? shows it faith or doubt?

  All’s doubt in me; where’s break of faith in this?

  It is the idea, the feeling and the love,

  God means mankind should strive for and show forth

  Whatever be the process to that end, —

  And not historic knowledge, logic sound,

  And metaphysical acumen, sure!

  “What think ye of Christ,” friend? when all’s done and said,

  Like you this Christianity or not?

  It may be false, but will you wish it true?

  Has it your vote to be so if it can?

  Trust you an instinct silenced long ago

  That will break silence and enjoin you love

  What mortified philosophy is hoarse,

  And all in vain, with bidding you despise?

  If you desire faith — then you’ve faith enough:

  What else seeks God — nay, what else seek ourselves?

  You form a notion of me, we’ll suppose,

  On hearsay; it’s a favourable one:

  “But still” (you add), “there was no such good man,

  Because of contradiction in the facts.

  One proves, for instance, he was born in Rome,

  This Blougram — yet throughout the tales of him

  I see he figures as an Englishman.”

  Well, the two things are reconcileable.

  But would I rather you discovered that,

  Subjoining — ”Still, what matter though they be?

  Blougram concerns me nought, born here or there.”

  Pure faith indeed — you know not what you ask!

  Naked belief in God the Omnipotent,

  Omniscient, Omnipresent, sears too much

  The sense of conscious creatures to be borne.

  It were the seeing him, no flesh shall dare

  Some think, Creation’s meant to show him forth:

  I say it’s meant to hide him all it can,

  And that’s what all the blessed evil’s for.

  Its use in Time is to environ us,

  Our breath, our drop of dew, with shield enough

  Against that sight till we can bear its stress.

  Under a vertical sun, the exposed brain

  And lidless eye and disemprisoned heart

  Less certainly would wither up at once

  Than mind, confronted with the truth of him.

  But time and earth case-harden us to live;

  The feeblest sense is trusted most; the child

  Feels God a moment, ichors o’er the place,

  Plays on and grows to be a man like us.

  With me, faith means perpetual unbelief

  Kept quiet like the snake ‘neath Michael’s foot

  Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe.

  Or, if that’s too ambitious, — here’s my box —

  I need the excitation of a pinch

  Threatening the torpor of the inside-nose

  Nigh on the imminent sneeze that never comes.

  “Leave it in peace” advise the simple folk:

  Make it aware of peace by itching-fits,

  Say I — let doubt occasion still more faith!

  You’ll say, once all believed, man, woman, child,

  In that dear middle-age these noodles praise.

  How you’d exult if I could put you back

  Six hundred years, blot out cosmogony,

  Geology, ethnology, what not

  (Greek endings, each the little passing-bell

  That signifies some faith’s about to die),

  And set you square with Genesis again, —

  When such a traveller told you his last news,

  He saw the ark a-top of Ararat

  But did not climb there since ‘twas getting dusk

  And robber-bands infest the mountain’s foot!

  How should you feel, I ask, in such an age,

  How act? As other people felt and did;

  With soul more blank than this decanter’s knob,

  Believe — and yet lie, kill, rob, fornicate

  Full in belief’s face, like the beast you’d be!

  No, when the fight begins within himself,

  A man’s worth something. God stoops o’er his head,

  Satan looks up between his feet — both tug —

  He’s left, himself, i’ the middle: the soul wakes

  And grows. Prolong that battle through his life!

  Never leave growing till the life to come!

  Here, we’ve got callous to the Virgin’s winks

 
; That used to puzzle people wholesomely —

  Men have outgrown the shame of being fools.

  What are the laws of nature, not to bend

  If the Church bid them brother Newman asks.

  Up with the Immaculate Conception, then —

  On to the rack with faith! — is my advice.

  Will not that hurry us upon our knees,

  Knocking our breasts, “It can’t be — yet it shall!

  Who am I, the worm, to argue with my Pope?

  Low things confound the high things!” and so forth.

  That’s better than acquitting God with grace

  As some folk do. He’s tried — no case is proved,

  Philosophy is lenient — he may go!

  You’ll say — the old system’s not so obsolete

  But men believe still: ay, but who and where?

  King Bomba’s lazzaroni foster yet

  The sacred flame, so Antonelli writes;

  But even of these, what ragamuffin-saint

  Believes God watches him continually,

  As he believes in fire that it will burn,

  Or rain that it will drench him? Break fire’s law,

  Sin against rain, although the penalty

  Be just a singe or soaking? No, he smiles;

  Those laws are laws that can enforce themselves.

  The sum of all is — yes, my doubt is great,

  My faith’s still greater, then my faith’s enough.

  I have read much, thought much, experienced much,

  Yet would die rather than avow my fear

  The Naples’ liquefaction may be false,

  When set to happen by the palace-clock

  According to the clouds or dinner-time.

  I hear you recommend, I might at least

  Eliminate, decrassify my faith

  Since I adopt it; keeping what I must

  And leaving what I can — such points as this.

  I won’t — that is, I can’t throw one away.

  Supposing there’s no truth in what I hold

  About the need of trial to man’s faith,

  Still, when you bid me purify the same,

  To such a process I discern no end.

  Clearing off one excrescence to see two;

  There’s ever a next in size, now grown as big,

  That meets the knife: I cut and cut again!

  First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last

  But Fichte’s clever cut at God himself?

  Experimentalize on sacred things!

  I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain

  To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike.

  The first step, I am master not to take.

  You’d find the cutting-process to your taste

  As much as leaving growths of lies unpruned,

  Nor see more danger in it, you retort.

  Your taste’s worth mine; but my taste proves more wise

  When we consider that the steadfast hold

  On the extreme end of the chain of faith

  Gives all the advantage, makes the difference

  With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule:

  We are their lords, or they are free of us,

  Just as we tighten or relax our hold.

  So, others matters equal, we’ll revert

  To the first problem — which, if solved my way

  And thrown into the balance, turns the scale —

  How we may lead a comfortable life,

  How suit our luggage to the cabin’s size.

  Of course you are remarking all this time

  How narrowly and grossly I view life,

  Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule

  The masses, and regard complacently

  “The cabin,” in our old phrase! Well, I do.

  I act for, talk for, live for this world now,

  As this world prizes action, life and talk —

  No prejudice to what next world may prove,

  Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge

  To observe then, is that I observe these now,

  Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile.

  Let us concede (gratuitously though)

  Next life relieves the soul of body, yields

  Pure spiritual enjoyment: well, my friend,

  Why lose this life in the meantime, since its use

  May be to make the next life more intense?

  Do you know, I have often had a dream

  (Work it up in your next month’s article)

  Of man’s poor spirit in its progress, still

  Losing true life for ever and a day

  Through ever trying to be and ever being

  In the evolution of successive spheres

  Before its actual sphere and place of life,

  Halfway into the next, which having reached,

  It shoots with corresponding foolery

  Halfway into the next still, on and off!

  As when a traveller, bound from North to South,

  Scouts fur in Russia — what’s its use in France?

  In France spurns flannel — where’s its need in Spain?

  In Spain drops cloth — too cumbrous for Algiers!

  Linen goes next, and last the skin itself,

  A superfluity at Timbuctoo.

  When, through his journey, was the fool at ease?

  I’m at ease now, friend; worldly in this world,

  I take and like its way of life; I think

  My brothers, who administer the means,

  Live better for my comfort — that’s good too;

  And God, if he pronounce upon such life,

  Approves my service, which is better still.

  If he keep silence, — why, for you or me

  Or that brute beast pulled-up in to-day’s “Times,”

  What odds is’t, save to ourselves, what life we lead?

  You meet me at this issue: you declare, —

  All special-pleading done with — truth is truth,

  And justifies itself by undreamed ways.

  You don’t fear but it’s better, if we doubt,

  To say so, act up to our truth perceived

  However feebly. Do then, — act away!

  ‘Tis there I’m on the watch for you. How one acts

  Is, both of us agree, our chief concern:

  And how you’ll act is what I fain would see

  If, like the candid person you appear,

  You dare to make the most of your life’s scheme

  As I of mine, live up to its full law

  Since there’s no higher law that counterchecks.

  Put natural religion to the test

  You’ve just demolished the revealed with — quick,

  Down to the root of all that checks your will,

  All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve,

  Or even to be an atheistic priest!

  Suppose a pricking to incontinence —

  Philosophers deduce you chastity

  Or shame, from just the fact that at the first

  Whoso embraced a woman in the field,

  Threw club down and forewent his brains beside,

  So, stood a ready victim in the reach

  Of any brother savage, club in hand;

  Hence saw the use of going out of sight

  In wood or cave to prosecute his loves:

  I read this in a French book t’other day.

  Does law so analysed coerce you much?

  Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end,

  But you who reach where the first thread begins,

  You’ll soon cut that! — which means you can, but won’t,

  Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out,

  You dare not set aside, you can’t tell why,

  But there they are, and so you let them rule.

  Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I,

  A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite,

  Without the good
the slave expects to get,

  In case he has a master after all!

  You own your instincts? why, what else do I,

  Who want, am made for, and must have a God

  Ere I can be aught, do aught? — no mere name

  Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth,

  To wit, a relation from that thing to me,

  Touching from head to foot — which touch I feel,

  And with it take the rest, this life of ours!

  I live my life here; yours you dare not live.

  Not as I state it, who (you please subjoin)

  Disfigure such a life and call it names,

  While, to your mind, remains another way

  For simple men: knowledge and power have rights,

  But ignorance and weakness have rights too.

  There needs no crucial effort to find truth

  If here or there or anywhere about —

  We ought to turn each side, try hard and see,

  And if we can’t, be glad we’ve earned at least

  The right, by one laborious proof the more,

  To graze in peace earth’s pleasant pasturage.

  Men are not angels, but, properly, are brutes:

  Something we may see, all we cannot see —

  What need of lying? I say, I see all,

  And swear to each detail the most minute

  In what I think a Pan’s face — you, mere cloud:

  I swear I hear him speak and see him wink,

  For fear, if once I drop the emphasis,

  Mankind may doubt there’s any cloud at all.

  You take the simple life — ready to see,

  Willing to see — for no cloud’s worth a face —

  And leaving quiet what no strength can move,

  And which, who bids you move? who has the right?

  I bid you; but you are God’s sheep, not mine:

  “Pastor est tui Dominus.” You find

  In this the pleasant pasture of our life

  Much you may eat without the least offence,

  Much you don’t eat because your maw objects,

  Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock

  Open great eyes at you and even butt,

  And thereupon you like your mates so well

  You cannot please yourself, offending them —

  Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep,

  You weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats

  And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears

  Restrain you — real checks since you find them so —

  Sometimes you please yourself and nothing checks;

  And thus you graze through life with not one lie,

  And like it best.

  But do you, in truth’s name?

  If so, you beat — which means — you are not I —

  Who needs must make earth mine and feed my fill

  Not simply unbutted at, unbickered with,