Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone, on the poet’s pages.
Then follow women fresh and gay,
Living and loving and loved to-day.
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,
Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one cadence,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
III.
Dear rose, thy term is reached,
Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached:
Bees pass it unimpeached.
IV.
Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb,
You, great shapes of the antique time!
How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you,
Break my heart at your feet to please you?
Oh, to possess and be possessed!
Hearts that beat ‘neath each pallid breast!
Once but of love, the poesy, the passion,
Drink but once and die! — In vain, the same fashion,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
V.
Dear rose, thy joy’s undimmed,
Thy cup is ruby-rimmed,
Thy cup’s heart nectar-brimmed.
VI.
Deep, as drops from a statue’s plinth
The bee sucked in by the hyacinth,
So will I bury me while burning,
Quench like him at a plunge my yearning,
Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!
Fold me fast where the cincture slips,
Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure,
Girdle me for once! But no — the old measure,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
VII.
Dear rose without a thorn,
Thy bud’s the babe unborn:
First streak of a new morn.
VIII.
Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear!
What is far conquers what is near.
Roses will bloom nor want beholders,
Sprung from the dust where our flesh moulders.
What shall arrive with the cycle’s change?
A novel grace and a beauty strange.
I will make an Eve, be the artist that began her,
Shaped her to his mind! — Alas! in like manner
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
Protus
AMONG these latter busts we count by scores,
Half-emperors and quarter-emperors,
Each with his bay-leaf fillet, loose-thonged vest,
Loric and low-browed Gorgon on the breast, —
One loves a baby face, with violets there,
Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As those were all the little locks could bear.
Now read here. “Protus ends a period
Of empery beginning with a god:
Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant,
Queens by his cradle, proud and ministrant:
And if he quickened breath there, ‘twould like fire
Pantingly through the dim vast realm transpire.
A fame that he was missing spread afar —
The world from its four corners, rose in war,
Till he was borne out on a balcony
To pacify the world when it should see.
The captains ranged before him, one, his hand
Made baby points at, gained the chief command.
And day by day more beautiful he grew
In shape, all said, in feature and in hue,
While young Greek sculptors, gazing on the child,
Because with old Greek sculptore reconciled.
Already sages laboured to condense
In easy tomes a life’s experience:
And artists took grave counsel to impart
In one breath and one hand-sweep, all their art —
To make his graces prompt as blossoming
Of plentifully-watered palms in spring:
Since well beseems it, whoso mounts the throne,
For beauty, knowledge, strength, should stand alone,
And mortals love the letters of his name.”
— Stop! Have you turned two pages? Still the same.
New reign, same date. The scribe goes on to say
How that same year, on such a month and day,
“John the Pannonian, groundedly believed
A Blacksmith’s bastard, whose hard hand reprieved
The Empire from its fate the year before, —
Came, had a mind to take the crown, and wore
The same for six years (during which the Huns
Kept off their fingers from us), till his sons
Put something in his liquor” — and so forth.
Then a new reign. Stay — ”Take at its just worth”
(Subjoins an annotator) “what I give
As hearsay. Some think, John let Protus live
And slip away. ‘Tis said, he reached man’s age
At some blind northern court; made, first a page,
Then tutor to the children — last, of use
About the hunting-stables. I deduce
He wrote the little tract ‘On worming dogs,’
Whereof the name in sundry catalogues
Is extant yet. A Protus of the race
Is rumoured to have died a monk in Thrace, —
And if the same, he reached senility.”
Here’s John the Smith’s rough-hammered head.
Great eye,
Gross jaw and griped lips do what granite can
To give you the crown-grasper. What a man!
Holy-Cross Day
ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME.
[“Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous table here in Rome should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, under-trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally brought — nay (for He saith, ‘Compel them to come in’) haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience! Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an occasion; witness the abundance of conversions which did incontinently reward him: though not to my lord be altogether the glory.” — Diary by the Bishop’s Secretary, 1600.]
What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather to this effect: —
I.
FEE, faw, fum! bubble and squeak!
Blessedest Thursday’s the fat of the week.
Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough,
Stinking and savoury, simug and gruff,
Take the church-road, for the bell’s due chime
Gives us the summons — ’tis sermon-time!
II.
Bob, here’s Barnabas! Job, that’s you?
Up stumps Solomon — bustling too?
Shame, man! greedy beyond your years
To handsel the bishop’s shaving-shears?
Fair play’s a jewel! Leave friends in the lurch?
Stand on a line ere you start for the church!
III.
Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie,
Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye,
Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve,
Worms in a carcase, fleas in a sleeve.
Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs
And buzz for the bishop — here he comes.
IV.
Bow, wow, wow — a bone for the dog!
I liken his Grace to an acorned hog.
What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass,
To help and handle my lord’s hour-glass!
Didst ever behold so lithe a chine?
>
His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine.
V.
Aaron’s asleep — shove hip to haunch,
Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch!
Look at the purse with the tassel and knob,
And the gown with the angel and thingumbob!
What’s he at, quotha? reading his text!
Now you’ve his curtsey — and what comes next?
VI.
See to our converts — you doomed black dozen —
No stealing away — nor cog nor cozen!
You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly;
You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely;
You took your turn and dipped in the hat,
Got fortune — and fortune gets you; mind that!
VII.
Give your first groan — compunction’s at work;
And soft! from a Jew you mount to a Turk.
Lo, Micah, — the selfsame beard on chin
He was four times already converted in!
Here’s a knife, clip quick — it’s a sign of grace —
Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face.
VIII.
Whom now is the bishop a-leering at?
I know a point where his text falls pat.
I’ll tell him to-morrow, a word just now
Went to my heart and made me vow
I meddle no more with the worst of trades —
Let somebody else pay his serenades.
IX.
Groan all together now, whee-hee-hee!
It’s a-work, it’s a-work, ah, woe is me!
It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed,
Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist;
Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent
To usher in worthily Christian Lent.
X.
It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds,
Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds:
It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed
Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed:
And it overflows when, to even the odd,
Men I helped to their sins help me to their God.
XI.
But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock,
And the rest sit silent and count the clock,
Since forced to muse the appointed time
On these precious facts and truths sublime, —
Let us fitly ennploy it, under our breath,
In saying Ben Ezra’s Song of Death.
XII.
For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died,
Called sons and sons’ sons to his side,
And spoke, “This world has been harsh and strange;
“Something is wrong: there needeth a change.
“But what, or where? at the last or first?
“In one point only we sinned, at worst.
XIII.
“The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet,
“And again in his border see Israel set.
“When Judah beholds Jerusalem,
“The stranger-seed shall be joined to them:
“To Jacob’s House shall the Gentiles cleave.
“So the Prophet saith and his sons believe.
XIV.
“Ay, the children of the chosen race
“Shall carry and bring them to their place:
“In the land of the Lord shall lead the same,
“Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame,
“When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o’er
“The oppressor triumph for evermore?
XV.
“God spoke, and gave us the word to keep,
“Bade never fold the hands nor sleep
“‘Mid a faithless world, — at watch and ward,
“Till Christ at the end relieve our guard.
“By His servant Moses the watch was set:
“Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet.
XVI.
“Thou! if thou wast He, who at mid-watch came,
“By the starlight, naming a dubious name!
“And if, too heavy with sleep — too rash
“With fear — O Thou, if that martyr-gash
“Fell on Thee coming to take thine own,
“And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne —
XVII.
“Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus.
“But, the Judgment over, join sides with us!
“Thine too is the cause! and not more thine
“Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine,
“Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed!
“Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed!
XVIII.
“We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how
“At least we withstand Barabbas now!
“Was our outrage sore? But the worst we spared,
“To have called these — Christians, had we dared!
“Let defiance to them pay mistrust of Thee,
“And Rome make amends for Calvary!
XIX.
“By the torture, prolonged from age to age,
“By the infamy, Israel’s heritage,
“By the Ghetto’s plague, by the garb’s disgrace,
“By the badge of shame, by the felon’s place,
“By the branding-tool, the bloody whip,
“And the summons to Christian fellowship, —
XX.
“We boast our proof that at least the Jew
“Would wrest Christ’s name from the Devil’s crew.
“Thy face took never so deep a shade
“But we fought them in it, God our aid!
“A trophy to bear, as we marchs, thy band,
“South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land!”
[Pope Gregory XVI. abolished this bad business of the Sermon. — R. B.]
The Guardian-Angel
A PICTURE AT FANO.
I.
DEAR and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
II.
Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,
From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,
And suddenly my head is covered o’er
With those wings, white above the child who prays
Now on that tomb — and I shall feel thee guarding
Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding
Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.
III.
I would not look up thither past thy head
Because the door opes, like that child, I know,
For I should have thy gracious face instead,
Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low
Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,
And lift them up to pray, and gently tether
Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment’s spread?
IV.
If this was ever granted, I would rest
My bead beneath thine, while thy healing hands
Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,
Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,
Back to its proper size again, and smoothing
Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,
And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.
V.
How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.
O world, as God has made it! Al
l is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
What further may be sought for or declared?
VI.
Guercino drew this angel I saw teach
(Alfred, dear friend!) — that little child to pray,
Holding the little hands up, each to each
Pressed gently, — with his own head turned away
Over the earth where so much lay before him
Of work to do, though heaven was opening o’er him,
And he was left at Fano by the beach.
VII.
We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there,
And drink his beauty to our soul’s content
— My angel with me too: and since I care
For dear Guercino’s fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent) —
VIII.
And since he did not work thus earnestly
At all times, and has else endured some wrong —
I took one thought his picture struck from me,
And spread it out, translating it to song.
My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?
How rolls the Wairoa at your world’s far end?
This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.
Cleon
“As certain also of your own poets have said” —
(Acts 17.28)
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:
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:
And one white she-slave from the group dispersed
Of black and white slaves (like the chequer-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
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-counselled, king, in thy munificence!
For so shall men remark, in such an act
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.
Thou, in the daily building of thy tower, —
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil,
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 59
