Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  And the rest o’ the tale? Yet the tale ‘s true, you know:

  Such undeserving clod was graced so once;

  Why not graced likewise undeserving Sludge?

  Are we merit-mongers, flaunt we filthy rags?

  All you can bring against my privilege

  Is, that another way was taken with you, —

  Which I don’t question. It ‘s pure grace, my luck:

  I ‘m broken to the way of nods and winks,

  And need no formal summoning. You ‘ve a help;

  Holloa his name or whistle, clap your hands,

  Stamp with your foot or pull the bell: all ‘s one,

  He understands you want him, here he comes.

  Just so, I come at the knocking: you, sir, wait

  The tongue o’ the bell, nor stir before you catch

  Reason’s clear tingle, nature’s clapper brisk,

  Or that traditional peal was wont to cheer

  Your mother’s face turned heavenward: short of these

  There ‘s no authentic intimation, eh?

  Well, when you hear, you ‘ll answer them, start up

  And stride into the presence, top of toe,

  And there find Sludge beforehand, Sludge that sprang

  At noise o’ the knuckle on the partition-wall!

  I think myself the more religious man.

  Religion ‘s all or nothing; it ‘s no mere smile

  O’ contentment, sigh of aspiration, sir —

  No quality o’ the finelier-tempered clay

  Like its whiteness or its lightness; rather, stuff

  O’ the very stuff, life of life, and self of self.

  I tell you, men won’t notice; when they do,

  They ‘ll understand. I notice nothing else:

  I ‘m eyes, ears, mouth of me, one gaze and gape,

  Nothing eludes me, everything ‘s a hint,

  Handle and help. It ‘s all absurd, and yet

  There’s something in it all, I know: how much?

  No answer! What does that prove? Man’s still man.

  Still meant for a poor blundering piece of work

  When all’s done; but, if somewhat ‘s done, like this,

  Or not done, is the case the same? Suppose

  I blunder in my guess at the true sense

  O’ the knuckle-summons, nine times out of ten, —

  What if the tenth guess happen to be right?

  If the tenth shovel-load of powdered quartz

  Yield me the nugget? I gather, crush, sift all,

  Pass o’er the failure, pounce on the success.

  To give you a notion, now — (let who wins, laugh!)

  When first I see a man, what do I first?

  Why, count the letters which make up his name,

  And as their number chances, even or odd,

  Arrive at my conclusion, trim my course:

  Hiram H. Horsefall is your honoured name,

  And haven’t I found a patron, sir, in you?

  “Shall I cheat this stranger?” I take apple-pips,

  Stick one in either canthus of my eye,

  And if the left drops first — (your left, sir, stuck)

  I ‘m warned, I let the trick alone this time.

  Yon, sir, who smile, superior to such trash,

  You judge of character by other rules:

  Don’t your rules sometimes fail you? Pray, what rule

  Have you judged Sludge by hitherto?

  Oh, be sure,

  You, everybody blunders, just as I,

  In simpler things than these by far! For see:

  I knew two farmers, — one, a wiseacre

  Who studied seasons, rummaged almanacs,

  Quoted the dew-point, registered the frost,

  And then declared, for outcome of his pains,

  Next summer must be dampish: ‘t was a drought.

  His neighbour prophesied such drought would fall,

  Saved hay and corn, made cent. per cent. thereby,

  And proved a sage indeed: how came his lore?

  Because one brindled heifer, late in March,

  Stiffened her tail of evenings, and somehow

  He got into his head that drought was meant!

  I don’t expect all men can do as much:

  Such kissing goes by favour. You must take

  A certain turn of mind for this, — a twist

  I’ the flesh, as well. Be lazily alive,

  Open-mouthed, like my friend the ant-eater,

  Letting all nature’s loosely-guarded motes

  Settle and, slick, be swallowed! Think yourself

  The one i’ the world, the one for whom the world

  Was made, expect it tickling at your mouth!

  Then will the swarm of busy buzzing flies,

  Clouds of coincidence, break egg-shell, thrive,

  Breed, multiply, and bring you food enough.

  I can’t pretend to mind your smiling, sir!

  Oh, what you mean is this! Such intimate way,

  Close converse, frank exchange of offices,

  Strict sympathy of the immeasurably great

  With the infinitely small, betokened here

  By a course of signs and omens, raps and sparks, —

  Flow does it suit the dread traditional text

  O’ the “Great and Terrible Name”? Shall the Heaven of Heavens

  Stoop to such child’s play?

  Please, sir, go with me

  A moment, and I ‘ll try to answer you.

  The “Magnum et terribile” (is that right?)

  Well, folk began with this in the early day;

  And all the acts they recognized in proof

  Were thunders, lightnings, earthquakes, whirlwinds, dealt

  Indisputably on men whose death they caused.

  There, and there only, folk saw Providence

  At work, — and seeing it, ‘t was right enough

  All heads should tremble, hands wring hands amain,

  And knees knock hard together at the breath

  O’ the Name’s first letter; why, the Jews, I’m told,

  Won’t write it down, no, to this very hour,

  Nor speak aloud; you know best if ‘t be so.

  Each ague-fit of fear at end, they crept

  (Because somehow people once born must live)

  Out of the sound, sight, swing and sway o’ the Name,

  Into a corner, the dark rest of the world,

  And safe space where as yet no fear had reached;

  ‘T was there they looked about them, breathed again,

  And felt indeed at home, as we might say.

  The current o’ common things, the daily life,

  This had their due contempt; no Name pursued

  Man from the mountain-top where fires abide,

  To his particular mouse-hole at its foot

  Where he ate, drank, digested, lived in short:

  Such was man’s vulgar business, far too small

  To be worth thunder: “small,” folk kept on, “small,”

  With much complacency in those great days!

  A mote of sand, you know, a blade of grass —

  What was so despicable as mere grass,

  Except perhaps the life o’ the worm or fly

  Which fed there? These were “small” and men were great.

  Well, sir, the old way’s altered somewhat since,

  And the world wears another aspect now:

  Somebody turns our spyglass round, or else

  Puts a new lens in it: grass, worm, fly grow big:

  We find great things are made of little things,

  And little things go lessening till at last

  Comes God behind them. Talk of mountains now?

  We talk of mould that heaps the mountain, mites

  That throng the mould, and God that makes the mites.

  The Name comes close behind a stomach-cyst,

  The simplest of creations, just a sac

&
nbsp; That’s mouth, heart, legs and belly at once, yet lives

  And feels, and could do neither, we conclude,

  If simplified still further one degree:

  The small becomes the dreadful and immense

  Lightning, forsooth? No word more upon that!

  A tin-foil bottle, a strip of greasy silk,

  With a bit of wire and knob of brass, and there’s

  Your dollar’s-worth of lightning! But the cyst —

  The life of the least of the little things?

  No, no!

  Preachers and teachers try another tack,

  Come near the truth this time: they put aside

  Thunder and lightning: “That ‘s mistake,” they cry,

  “Thunderbolts fall for neither fright nor sport,

  “But do appreciable good, like tides,

  “Changes o’ the wind, and other natural facts —

  “‘Good’ meaning good to man, his body or soul.

  “Mediate, immediate, all things minister

  “To man, — that ‘s settled: be our future text

  “‘We are His children!’” So, they now harangue

  About the intention, the contrivance, all

  That keeps up an incessant play of love, —

  See the Bridgewater book.

  Amen to it!

  Well, sir, I put this question: I ‘m a child?

  I lose no time, but take you at your word:

  How shall I act a child’s part properly?

  Your sainted mother, sir, — used you to live

  With such a thought as this a-worrying you?

  “She has it in her power to throttle me,

  “Or stab or poison: she may turn me out,

  “Or lock me in, — nor stop at this to-day,

  “But cut me off to-morrow from the estate

  “I look for” (long may you enjoy it, sir!)

  “In brief, she may unchild the child I am.”

  You never had such crotchets? Nor have I!

  Who, frank confessing childship from the first

  Cannot both fear and take my ease at once,

  So, don’t fear, — know what might be, well enough

  But know too, child-like, that it will not be,

  At least in my case, mine, the son and heir

  O’ the kingdom, as yourself proclaim my style.

  But do you fancy I stop short at this?

  Wonder if suit and service, son and heir

  Needs must expect, I dare pretend to find?

  If, looking for signs proper to such an one,

  I straight perceive them irresistible?

  Concede that homage is a son’s plain right,

  And, never mind the nods and raps and winks,

  ‘T is the pure obvious supernatural

  Steps forward, does its duty: why, of course!

  I have presentiments; my dreams come true:

  I fancy a friend stands whistling all in white

  Blithe as a boblink, and he ‘s dead I learn.

  I take dislike to a dog my favourite long,

  And sell him; he goes mad next week and snaps.

  I guess that stranger will turn up to-day

  I have not seen these three years; there ‘s his knock

  I wager “sixty peaches on that tree!” —

  That I pick up a dollar in my walk,

  That your wife’s brother’s cousin’s name was George —

  And win on all points. Oh, you wince at this?

  You’d fain distinguish between gift and gift,

  Washington’s oracle and Sludge’s itch

  O’ the elbow when at whist he ought to trump?

  With Sludge it’s too absurd? Fine, draw the line

  Somewhere, but, sir, your somewhere is not mine!

  Bless us, I’m turning poet! It’s time to end.

  How you have drawn me out, sir! All I ask

  Is — am I heir or not heir? If I’m he,

  Then, sir, remember, that same personage

  (To judge by what we read i’ the newspaper)

  Requires, beside one nobleman in gold

  To carry up and down his coronet,

  Another servant, probably a duke,

  To hold egg-nogg in readiness: why want

  Attendance, sir, when helps in his father’s house

  Abound, I ‘d like to know?

  Enough of talk!

  My fault is that I tell too plain a truth.

  Why, which of those who say they disbelieve,

  Your clever people, but has dreamed his dream,

  Caught his coincidence, stumbled on his fact

  He can’t explain, (he’ll tell you smilingly)

  Which he ‘s too much of a philosopher

  To count as supernatural, indeed,

  So calls a puzzle and problem, proud of it

  Bidding you still be on your guard, you know,

  Because one fact don’t make a system stand,

  Nor prove this an occasional escape

  Of spirit beneath the matter: that’s the way!

  Just so wild Indians picked up, piece by piece,

  The fact in California, the fine gold

  That underlay the gravel — hoarded these,

  But never made a system stand, nor dug!

  So wise men hold out in each hollowed palm

  A handful of experience, sparkling fact

  They can’t explain; and since their rest of life

  Is all explainable, what proof in this?

  Whereas I take the fact, the grain of gold,

  And fling away the dirty rest of life,

  And add this grain to the grain each fool has found

  O’ the million other such philosophers, —

  Till I see gold, all gold and only gold,

  Truth questionless though unexplainable,

  And the miraculous proved the commonplace!

  The other fools believed in mud, no doubt —

  Failed to know gold they saw: was that so strange?

  Are all men born to play Bach’s fiddle-fugues,

  “Time” with the foil in carte, jump their own height,

  Cut the mutton with the broadsword, skate a five,

  Make the red hazard with the cue, clip nails

  While swimming, in five minutes row a mile,

  Pull themselves three feet up with the left arm,

  Do sums of fifty figures in their head,

  And so on, by the scores of instances?

  The Sludge with luck, who sees the spiritual facts

  His fellows strive and fail to see, may rank

  With these, and share the advantage.

  Ay, but share

  The drawback! Think it over by yourself;

  I have not heart, sir, and the fire ‘s gone grey.

  Defect somewhere compensates for success,

  Everyone knows that. Oh, we’re equals, sir!

  The big-legged fellow has a little arm

  And a less brain, though big legs win the race:

  Do you suppose I ‘scape the common lot?

  Say, I was born with flesh so sensitive,

  Soul so alert, that, practice helping both,

  I guess what ‘s going on outside the veil,

  Just as a prisoned crane feels pairing-time

  In the islands where his kind are, so must fall

  To capering by himself some shiny night,

  As if your back-yard were a plot of spice —

  Thus am I ‘ware o’ the spirit world: while you,

  Blind as a beetle that way, — for amends.

  Why, you can double fist and floor me, sir!

  Ride that hot hardmouthed horrid horse of yours,

  Laugh while it lightens, play with the great dog,

  Speak your mind though it vex some friend to hear,

  Never brag, never bluster, never blush, —

  In short, you’ve pluck, when I’m a coward — there!

  I know it, I can’t he
lp it, — folly or no,

  I ‘m paralyzed, my hand’s no more a hand,

  Nor my head a head, in danger: you can smile

  And change the pipe in your cheek. Your gift ‘s not mine.

  Would you swap for mine? No! but you’d add my gift

  To yours: I dare say! I too sigh at times,

  Wish I were stouter, could tell truth nor flinch,

  Kept cool when threatened, did not mind so much

  Being dressed gaily, making strangers stare,

  Eating nice things; when I ‘d amuse myself,

  I shut my eyes and fancy in my brain

  I ‘m — now the President, now Jenny Lind,

  Now Emerson, now the Benicia Boy —

  With all the civilized world a-wondering

  And worshipping. I know it ‘s folly and worse;

  I feel such tricks sap, honeycomb the soul,

  But I can’t cure myself: despond, despair,

  And then, hey, presto, there ‘s a turn o’ the wheel,

  Under comes uppermost, fate makes full amends;

  Sludge knows and sees and bears a hundred things

  You all are blind to, — I ‘ve my taste of truth,

  Likewise my touch of falsehood, — vice no doubt,

  But you ‘ve your vices also: I ‘m content.

  What, sir? You won’t shake hands? “Because I cheat!”

  “You’ve found me out in cheating!” That’s enough

  To make an apostle swear! Why, when I cheat,

  Mean to cheat, do cheat, and am caught in the act,

  Are you, or, rather, am I sure o’ the fact?

  (There ‘s verse again, but I ‘m inspired somehow.)

  Well then I ‘m not sure! I may be, perhaps,

  Free as a babe from cheating: how it began,

  My gift, — no matter; what ‘t is got to be

  In the end now, that ‘s the question; answer that!

  Had I seen, perhaps, what hand was holding mine,

  Leading me whither, I had died of fright:

  So, I was made believe I led myself.

  If I should lay a six-inch plank from roof

  To roof, you would not cross the street, one step,

  Even at your mother’s summons: but, being shrewd

  If I paste paper on each side the plank

  And swear ‘t is solid pavement, why, you ‘ll cross

  Humming a tune the while, in ignorance

  Beacon Street stretches a hundred feet below:

  I walked thus, took the paper-cheat for stone.

  Some impulse made me set a thing o’ the move

  Which, started once, ran really by itself;

  Beer flows thus, suck the siphon; toss the kite,

  It takes the wind and floats of its own force.

  Don’t let truth’s lump rot stagnant for the lack

  Of a timely helpful lie to leaven it!

  Put a chalk-egg beneath the clucking hen,