Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Has fled my roof, plundered me and decamped

  In company with the priest her paramour:

  And I gave chase, came up with, caught the two

  At the wayside inn where both had spent the night,

  Found them in flagrant fault, and found as well,

  By documents with name and plan and date,

  The fault was furtive then that’s flagrant now,

  Their intercourse a long established crime.

  I did not take the license law’s self gives

  To slay both criminals o’ the spot at the time,

  But held my hand, — preferred play prodigy

  Of patience which the world calls cowardice,

  Rather than seem anticipate the law

  And cast discredit on its organs, — you —

  So, to your bar I brought both criminals,

  And made my statement: heard their counter-charge

  Nay, — their corroboration of my tale,

  Nowise disputing its allegements, not

  I’ the main, not more than nature’s decency

  Compels men to keep silence in this kind, —

  Only contending that the deeds avowed

  Would take another colour and bear excuse.

  You were to judge between us; so you did.

  You disregard the excuse, you breathe away

  The colour of innocence and leave guilt black,

  “Guilty” is the decision of the court,

  And that I stand in consequence untouched,

  One white intergity from head to heel.

  Not guilty? Why then did you punish them?

  True, punishment has been inadequate —

  ‘Tis not I only, not my friends that joke,

  My foes that jeer, who echo “inadequate” —

  For, by a chance that comes to help for once,

  The same case simultaneously was judged

  At Arezzo, in the province of the Court

  Where the crime had beginning but not end.

  They then, deciding on but half o’ the crime,

  The effraction, robbery, — features of the fault

  I never cared to dwell upon at Rome, —

  What was it they adjudged as penalty

  To Pompilia, — the one criminal o’ the pair

  Amenable to their judgment, not the priest

  Who is Rome’s? Why, just imprisonment for life

  I’ the Stinche. There was Tuscany’s award

  To a wife that robs her husband: you at Rome

  Having to deal with adultery in a wife

  And, in a priest, breach of the priestly vow,

  Give gentle sequestration for a month

  In a manageable Convent, then release,

  You call imprisonment, in the very house

  O’ the very couple, the sole aim and end

  Of the culprits’ crime was — there to reach and rest

  And there take solace and defy me: well, —

  This difference ‘twixt their penalty and yours

  Is immaterial: make your penalty less —

  Merely that she should henceforth wear black gloves

  And white fan, she who wore the opposite —

  Why, all the same the fact o’ the thing subsists.

  Reconcile to your conscience as you may,

  Be it on your own heads, you pronounced one half

  O’ the penalty for heinousness like hers

  And his, that’s for a fault at Carnival

  Of comfit-pelting past discretion’s law,

  Or accident to handkerchief in Lent

  Which falls perversely as a lady kneels

  Abruptly, and but half conceals her neck!

  I acquiesce for my part, — punished, though

  By a pin-point scratch, means guilty: guilty means

  — What have I been but innocent hitherto?

  Anyhow, here the offence, being punished, ends.

  Ends? — for you deemed so, did you not, sweet lords?

  That was throughout the veritable aim

  O’ the sentence light or heavy, — to redress

  Recognised wrong? You righted me, I think?

  Well then, — what if I, at this last of all,

  Demonstrate you, as my whole pleading proves,

  No particle of wrong received thereby

  One atom of right? — that cure grew worse disease?

  That in the process you call “justice done”

  All along you have nipped away just inch

  By inch the creeping climbing length of plague

  Breaking my tree of life from root to branch,

  And left me, after all and every act

  Of your interference, — lightened of what load?

  At liberty wherein? Mere words and wind!

  “Now I was saved, now I should feel no more

  “The hot breath, find a respite from fixed eye

  “And vibrant tongue!” Why, scarce your back was turned,

  There was the reptile, that feigned death at first,

  Renewing its detested spire and spire

  Around me, rising to such heights of hate

  That, so far from mere purpose now to crush

  And coil itself on the remains of me,

  Body and mind, and there flesh fang content.

  Its aim is now to evoke life from death,

  Make me anew, satisfy in my son

  The hunger I may feed but never sate,

  Tormented on to perpetuity, —

  My son, whom, dead, I shall know, understand,

  Feel, hear, see, never more escape the sight

  In heaven that’s turned to hell, or hell returned

  (So, rather, say) to this same earth again, —

  Moulded into the image and made one,

  Fashioned of soul as featured like in face,

  First taught to laugh and lisp and stand and go

  By that thief, poisoner, and adulteress

  I call Pompilia, he calls . . . sacred name,

  Be unpronounced, be unpolluted here!

  And last led up to the glory and prize of hate

  By his . . . foster-father, Caponsacchi’s self,

  The perjured priest, pink of conspirators,

  Tricksters and knaves, yet polished, superfine,

  Manhood to model adolescence by . . .

  Lords, look on me, declare, — when, what I show,

  Is nothing more nor less than what you deemed

  And doled me out for justice, — what did you say?

  For reparation, restitution and more, —

  Will you not thank, praise, bid me to your breasts

  For having done the thing you thought to do,

  And thoroughly trampled out sin’s life at last?

  I have heightened phrase to make your soft speech serve,

  Doubled the blow you but essayed to strike,

  Carried into effect your mandate here

  That else had fallen to ground: mere duty done,

  Oversight of the master just supplied

  By zeal i’ the servant: I, being used to serve,

  Have simply . . . what is it they charge me with?

  Blackened again, made legible once more

  Your own decree, not permanently writ,

  Rightly conceived but all too faintly traced, —

  It reads efficient, now, comminatory,

  A terror to the wicked, answers so

  The mood o’ the magistrate, the mind of law.

  Absolve, then, me, law’s mere executant!

  Protect your own defender, — save me, Sirs!

  Give me my life, give me my liberty,

  My good name and my civic rights again!

  It would be too fond, too complacent play

  Into the hands o’ the devil, should we lose

  The game here, I for God: a soldier-bee

  That yields his life, exenterate with the stroke

  O’ the sting that saves the hive. I
need that life,

  Oh, never fear! I’ll find life plenty use

  Though it should last five years more, aches and all!

  For, first thing, there’s the mother’s age to help —

  Let her come break her heart upon my breast,

  Not on the blank stone of my nameless tomb!

  The fugitive brother has to be bidden back

  To the old routine, repugnant to the tread,

  Of daily suit and service to the Church, —

  Thro’ gibe and jest, those stones that Shimei flung!

  Ay, and the spirit-broken youth at home,

  The awe-struck altar-ministrant, shall make

  Amends for faith now palsied at the source,

  Shall see truth yet triumphant, justice yet

  A victor in the battle of this world!

  Give me — for last, best gift, my son again,

  Whom law makes mine, — I take him at your word,

  Mine be he, by miraculous mercy, lords!

  Let me lift up his youth and innocence

  To purify my palace, room by room

  Purged of the memories, lend from his bright brow

  Light to the old proud paladin my sire

  Shrunk now for shame into the darkest shade

  O’ the tapestry, showed him once and shrouds him now!

  Then may we, — strong from that rekindled smile, —

  Go forward, face new times, the better day.

  And when, in times made better through your brave

  Decision now, — might but Utopia be! —

  Rome rife with honest women and strong men,

  Manners reformed, old habits back once more,

  Customs that recognise the standard worth, —

  The wholesome household rule in force again,

  Husbands once more God’s representative,

  Wives like the typical Spouse once more, and Priests

  No longer men of Belial, with no aim

  At leading silly women captive, but

  Of rising to such duties as yours now, —

  Then will I set my son at my right hand

  And tell his father’s story to this point,

  Adding “The task seemed superhuman, still

  “I dared and did it, trusting God and law:

  “And they approved of me: give praise to both!”

  And if, for answer, he shall stoop to kiss

  My hand, and peradventure start thereat, —

  I engage to smile “That was an accident

  “I’ the necessary process, — just a trip

  “O’ the torture-irons in their search for truth, —

  “Hardly misfortune, and no fault at all.”

  Giuseppe Caponsacchi

  ANSWER you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?

  Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell, —

  So things disguise themselves, — I cannot see

  My own hand held thus broad before my face

  And know it again. Answer you? Then that means

  Tell over twice what I, the first time, told

  Six months ago: ‘twas here, I do believe,

  Fronting you same three in this very room,

  I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,

  Who then . . . nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,

  As good as laugh, what in a judge we style

  Laughter — no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!

  Only, — I think I apprehend the mood:

  There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,

  The pen’s pretence at play with the pursed mouth,

  The titter stifled in the hollow palm

  Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,

  When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,

  “The sly one, all this we are bound believe!

  “Well, he can say no other than what he says.

  “We have been young, too, — come, there’s greater guilt!

  “Let him but decently disembroil himself,

  “Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud, —

  “We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!”

  And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast

  As if I were a phantom: now ‘tis — ”Friend,

  “Collect yourself!” — no laughing matter more —

  “Counsel the Court in this extremity,

  “Tell us again!” — tell that, for telling which,

  I got the jocular piece of punishment,

  Was sent to lounge a little in the place

  Whence now of a sudden here you summon me

  To take the intelligence from just — your lips

  You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most, —

  That she I helped eight months since to escape

  Her husband, is retaken by the same,

  Three days ago, if I have seized your sense, —

  (I being disallowed to interfere,

  Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,

  For you and law were guardians quite enough

  O’ the innocent, without a pert priest’s help) —

  And that he has butchered her accordingly,

  As she foretold and as myself believed, —

  And, so foretelling and believing so,

  We were punished, both of us, the merry way:

  Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?

  Pompilia is only dying while I speak!

  Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?

  My masters, there’s an old book, you should con

  For strange adventures, applicable yet,

  ‘Tis stuffed with. Do you know that there was once

  This thing: a multitude of worthy folk

  Took recreation, watched a certain group

  Of soldiery intent upon a game, —

  How first they wrangled, but soon fell to play,

  Threw dice, — the best diversion in the world.

  A word in your ear, — they are now casting lots,

  Ay, with that gesture quaint and cry uncouth,

  For the coat of One murdered an hour ago!

  I am a priest, — talk of what I have learned.

  Pompilia is bleeding out her life belike,

  Gasping away the latest breath of all,

  This minute, while I talk — not while you laugh?

  Yet, being sobered now, what is it you ask

  By way of explanation? There’s the fact!

  It seems to fill the universe with sight

  And sound, — from the four corners of this earth

  Tells itself over, to my sense at least.

  But you may want it lower set i’ the scale, —

  Too vast, too close it clangs in the ear, perhaps;

  You’d stand back just to comprehend it more:

  Well then, let me, the hollow rock, condense

  The voice o’ the sea and wind, interpret you

  The mystery of this murder. God above!

  It is too paltry, such a transference

  O’ the storm’s roar to the cranny of the stone!

  This deed, you saw begin — why does its end

  Surprise you? Why should the event enforce

  The lesson, we ourselves learned, she and I,

  From the first o’ the fact, and taught you, all in vain?

  This Guido from whose throat you took my grasp,

  Was this man to be favoured, now, or feared,

  Let do his will, or have his will restrained,

  In the relation with Pompilia? — say!

  Did any other man need interpose

  — Oh, though first comer, though as strange at the work

  As fribble must be, coxcomb, fool that’s near

  To knave as, say, a priest who fears the world —

  Was he bound brave the peril, save the doomed,

  Or go on, sing his snatch and pluck his flower,

  Keep the straight path and let the victim die?


  I held so; you decided otherwise,

  Saw no such peril, therefore no such need

  To stop song, loosen flower, and leave path: Law,

  Law was aware and watching, would suffice,

  Wanted no priest’s intrusion, palpably

  Pretence, too manifest a subterfuge!

  Whereupon I, priest, coxcomb, fribble, and fool,

  Ensconced me in my corner, thus rebuked,

  A kind of culprit, over-zealous hound

  Kicked for his pains to kennel; I gave place,

  To you, and let the law reign paramount:

  I left Pompilia to your watch and ward,

  And now you point me — there and thus she lies!

  Men, for the last time, what do you want with me?

  Is it, — you acknowledge, as it were, a use,

  A profit in employing me? — at length

  I may conceivably help the august law?

  I am free to break the blow, next hawk that swoops

  On next dove, nor miss much of good repute?

  Or what if this your summons, after all,

  Be but the form of mere release, no more,

  Which turns the key and lets the captive go?

  I have paid enough in person at Civita,

  Am free, — what more need I concern me with?

  Thank you! I am rehabilitated then,

  A very reputable priest. But she —

  The glory of life, the beauty of the world,

  The splendour of heaven, . . . well, Sirs, does no one move?

  Do I speak ambiguously? The glory, I say,

  And the beauty, I say, and splendour, still say I,

  Who, a priest, trained to live my whole life long

  On beauty and splendour, solely at their source,

  God, — have thus recognised my food in one,

  You tell me, is fast dying while we talk,

  Pompilia, — how does lenity to me,

  Remit one death-bed pang to her? Come, smile!

  The proper wink at the hot-headed youth

  Who lets his soul show, through transparent words,

  The mundane love that’s sin and scandal too!

  You are all struck acquiescent now, it seems:

  It seems the oldest, gravest signor here,

  Even the redoubtable Tommati, sits

  Chop-fallen, — understands how law might take

  Service like mine, of brain and heart and hand,

  In good part. Better late than never, law!

  You understand of a sudden, gospel too

  Has a claim here, may possibly pronounce

  Consistent with my priesthood, worthy Christ,

  That I endeavoured to save Pompilia?

  Then,

  You were wrong, you see: that’s well to see, though late:

  That’s all we may expect of man, this side

  The grave: his good is — knowing he is bad: