Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  “To the proper manly instinct! Cast your lot

  “Into our lap, one genius ruled our births,

  “We’ll compass joy by concert; take with us

  “The regular irregular way i’ the wood;

  “You’ll miss no game through riding breast by breast,

  “In this preserve, the Church’s park and pale,

  “Rather than outside where the world is waste!”

  Come, if you said not that, did you say this?

  Give plain and terrible warning, “Live, enjoy?

  “Such life begins in death and ends in hell!

  “Dare you bid us assist you to your sins

  “Who hurry sin and sinners from the earth?

  “No such delight for us, why then for you?

  “Leave earth, seek heaven or find its opposite!”

  Had you so warned me, not in lying words

  But veritable deeds with tongues of flame,

  That had been fair, that might have struck a man,

  Silenced the squabble between soul and sense,

  Compelled him make his mind up, take one course

  Or the other, peradventure! — wrong or right,

  Foolish or wise, you would have been at least

  Sincere, no question, — forced me choose, indulge

  Or else renounce my instincts, still play wolf

  Or find my way submissive to the fold,

  Be red-crossed on the fleece, one sheep the more.

  But you as good as bade me wear sheep’s wool

  Over wolf’s skin, suck blood and hide the noise

  By mimicry of something like a bleat, —

  Whence it comes that because, despite my care,

  Because I smack my tongue too loud for once,

  Drop baaing, here’s the village up in arms!

  Have at the wolf’s throat, you who hate the breed!

  Oh, were it only open to choose —

  One little time more — whether I’d be free

  Your foe, or subsidised your friend forsooth!

  Should not you get a growl through the white fangs

  In answer to your beckoning! Cardinal,

  Abate, managers o’ the multitude,

  I’d turn your gloved hands to account, be sure!

  You should manipulate the coarse rough mob:

  ‘Tis you I’d deal directly with, not them, —

  Using your fears: why touch the thing myself

  When I could see you hunt and then cry “Shares!

  “Quarter the carcass or we quarrel; come,

  “Here’s the world ready to see justice done!”

  Oh, it had been a desperate game, but game

  Wherein the winner’s chance were worth the pains

  To try conclusions! — at the worst, what’s worse

  Than this Mannaia-machine, each minute’s talk,

  Helps push an inch the nearer me? Fool, fool!

  You understand me and forgive, sweet Sirs?

  I blame you, tear my hair and tell my woe —

  All’s but a flourish, figure of rhetoric!

  One must try each expedient to save life.

  One makes fools look foolisher fifty-fold

  By putting in their place the wise like you

  To take the full force of an argument

  Would buffet their stolidity in vain.

  If you should feel aggrieved by the mere wind

  O’ the blow that means to miss you and maul them,

  That’s my success! Is it not folly, now,

  To say with folks, “A plausible defence —

  “We see through notwithstanding, and reject?”

  Reject the plausible they do, these fools,

  Who never even make pretence to show

  One point beyond its plausibility

  In favour of the best belief they hold!

  “Saint Somebody-or-other raised the dead:”

  Did he? How do you come to know as much?

  “Know it, what need? The story’s plausible,

  “Avouched for by a martyrologist,

  “And why should good men sup on cheese and leeks

  “On such a saint’s day, if there were no saint?”

  I praise the wisdom of these fools, and straight

  Tell them my story — ”plausible, but false!”

  False, to be sure! What else can story be

  That runs — a young wife tired of an old spouse,

  Found a priest whom she fled away with, — both

  Took their full pleasure in the two-days’ flight,

  Which a grey-headed greyer-hearted pair,

  (Whose best boast was, their life had been a lie)

  Helped for the love they bore all liars. Oh,

  Here incredulity begins! Indeed?

  Allow then, were no one point strictly true,

  There’s that i’ the tale might seem like truth at least

  To the unlucky husband, — jaundiced patch, —

  Jealousy maddens people, why not him?

  Say, he was maddened, so, forgivable!

  Humanity pleads that though the wife were true,

  The priest true, and the pair of liars true,

  They might seem false to one man in the world!

  A thousand gnats make up a serpent’s sting,

  And many sly soft stimulants to wrath

  Compose a formidable wrong at last,

  That gets called easily by some one name

  Not applicable to the single parts,

  And so draws down a general revenge,

  Excessive if you take crime, fault by fault.

  Jealousy! I have known a score of plays,

  Were listened to and laughed at in my time

  As like the everyday-life on all sides,

  Wherein the husband, mad as a March hare,

  Suspected all the world contrived his shame;

  What did the wife? The wife kissed both eyes blind,

  Explained away ambiguous circumstance,

  And while she held him captive by the hand,

  Crowned his head, — you know what’s the mockery, —

  By half her body behind the curtain. That’s

  Nature now! That’s the subject of a piece

  I saw in Vallombrosa Convent, made

  Expressly to teach men what marriage was!

  But say “Just so did I misapprehend!”

  Or “Just so she deceived me to my face!”

  And that’s pretence too easily seen through!

  All those eyes of all husbands in all plays,

  At stare like one expanded peacock-tail,

  Are laughed at for pretending to be keen

  While horn-blind: but the moment I step forth —

  Oh, I must needs o’ the sudden prove a lynx

  And look the heart, that stone-wall, through and through!

  Such an eye, God’s may be, — not yours nor mine.

  Yes, presently . . . what hour is fleeting now?

  When you cut earth away from under me,

  I shall be left alone with, pushed beneath

  Some such an apparitional dread orb;

  I fancy it go filling up the void

  Above my mote-self it devours, or what

  Immensity please wreak on nothingness.

  Just so I felt once, couching through the dark,

  Hard by Vittiano; young I was, and gay,

  And wanting to trap fieldfares: first a spark

  Tipped a bent, as a mere dew-globule might

  Any stiff grass-stalk on the meadow, — this

  Grew fiercer, flamed out full, and proved the sun.

  What do I want with proverbs, precepts here?

  Away with man! What shall I say to God?

  This, if I find the tongue and keep the mind —

  “Do Thou wipe out the being of me, and smear

  “This soul from off Thy white of things, I blot!

  “I am one huge and sheer mistake, — whose fault
?

  “Not mine at least, who did not make myself!”

  Someone declares my wife excused me so!

  Perhaps she knew what argument to use.

  Grind your teeth, Cardinal, Abate, writhe!

  What else am I to cry out in my rage,

  Unable to repent one particle

  O’ the past? Oh, how I wish some cold wise man

  Would dig beneath the surface which you scrape,

  Deal with the depths, pronounce on my desert

  Groundedly! I want simple sober sense,

  That asks, before it finishes with a dog,

  Who taught the dog that trick you hang him for?

  You both persist to call that act a crime,

  Sense would call . . . yes, I do assure you, Sirs, . . .

  A blunder! At the worst, I stood in doubt

  On cross-road, took one path of many paths:

  It leads to the red thing, we all see now,

  But nobody at first saw one primrose

  In bank, one singing-bird in bush, the less,

  To warn from wayfare: let me prove you that!

  Put me back to the cross-road, start afresh!

  Advise me when I take the first false step!

  Give me my wife: how should I use my wife,

  Love her or hate her? Prompt my action now!

  There she stands, there she is alive and pale,

  The thirteen-years’-old child, with milk for blood,

  Pompilia Comparini, as at first,

  Which first is only four brief years ago!

  I stand too in the little ground-floor room

  O’ the father’s house at Via Vittoria: see!

  Her so-called mother, — one arm round the waist

  O’ the child to keep her from the toys — let fall,

  At wonder I can live yet look so grim, —

  Ushers her in, with deprecating wave

  Of the other, — there she fronts me loose, at large,

  Held only by her mother’s finger-tip —

  Struck dumb, for she was white enough before!

  She eyes me with those frightened balls of black,

  As heifer — the old simile comes pat —

  Eyes tremblingly the altar and the priest:

  The amazed look, all one insuppressive prayer, —

  Might she but be set free as heretofore,

  Have this cup leave her lips unblistered, bear

  Any cross anywhither anyhow,

  So but alone, so but apart from me!

  You are touched? So am I, quite otherwise,

  If ‘tis with pity. I resent my wrong,

  Being a man: we only show man’s soul

  Through man’s flesh, she sees mine, it strikes her thus!

  Is that attractive? To a youth perhaps —

  Calf-creature, one-part boy to three-parts girl,

  To whom it is a flattering novelty

  That he, men use to motion from their path,

  Can thus impose, thus terrify in turn

  A chit whose terror shall be changed apace

  To bliss unbearable when, grace and glow,

  Prowess and pride descend the throne and touch

  Esther in all that pretty tremble, cured

  By the dove o’ the sceptre! But myself am old,

  O’ the wane at least, in all things: what do you say

  To her who frankly thus confirms my doubt?

  I am past the prime, I scare the woman-world,

  Done-with that way: you like this piece of news?

  A little saucy rose-bud minx can strike

  Death-damp into the breast of doughty king

  Though ‘twere French Louis, — soul I understand, —

  Saying, by gesture of repugnance, just

  “Sire, you are regal, puissant and so forth,

  “But — young you have been, are not, nor will be!”

  In vain the mother nods, winks, bustles up

  “Count, girls incline to mature worth like you!

  “As for Pompilia, what’s flesh, fish, or fowl

  “To one who apprehends no difference,

  “And would accept you even were you old

  “As you are . . . youngish by her father’s side?

  “Trim but your beard a little, thin your bush

  “Of eyebrow; and for presence, portliness

  “And decent gravity, you beat a boy!”

  Deceive you for a second, if you may,

  In presence of the child that so loves age,

  Whose neck writhes, cords itself against your kiss,

  Whose hand you wring stark, rigid with despair!

  Well, I resent this; I am young in soul,

  Nor old in body, — thews and sinews here, —

  Though the vile surface be not smooth as once, —

  Far beyond the first wheelwork that went wrong

  Through the untempered iron ere ‘twas proof:

  I am the steel man worth ten times the crude, —

  Would woman see what this declines to see,

  Declines to say “I see,” — the officious word

  That makes the thing, pricks on the soul to shoot

  New fire into the half-used cinder, flesh!

  Therefore ‘tis she begins with wronging me,

  Who cannot but begin with hating her.

  Our marriage follows: there we stand again!

  Why do I laugh? Why, in the very gripe

  O’ the jaws of death’s gigantic skull do I

  Grin back his grin, make sport of my own pangs?

  Why from each clashing of his molars, ground

  To make the devil bread from out my grist,

  Leaps out a spark of mirth, a hellish toy?

  Take notice we are lovers in a church,

  Waiting the sacrament to make us one

  And happy! Just as bid, she bears herself,

  Comes and kneels, rises, speaks, is silent, — goes:

  So have I brought my horse, by word and blow,

  To stand stock-still and front the fire he dreads.

  How can I other than remember this,

  Resent the very obedience? Gain thereby?

  Yes, I do gain my end and have my will, —

  Thanks to whom? When the mother speaks the word,

  She obeys it — even to enduring me!

  There had been compensation in revolt —

  Revolt’s to quell: but martyrdom rehearsed,

  But determined saintship for the sake

  O’ the mother? — ”Go!” thought I, “we meet again!”

  Pass the next weeks of dumb contented death,

  She lives, — wakes up, installed in house and home,

  Is mine, mine all day-long, all night-long mine.

  Good folks begin at me with open mouth

  “Now, at least, reconcile the child to life!

  “Study and make her love . . . that is, endure

  “The . . . hem! the . . . all of you though somewhat old,

  “Till it amount to something, in her eye,

  “As good as love, better a thousand times —

  “Since nature helps the woman in such strait,

  “Makes passiveness her pleasure: failing which,

  “What if you give up boys’ and girls’ fools’-play

  “And go on to wise friendship all at once?

  “Those boys and girls kiss themselves cold, you know.

  “Toy themselves tired and slink aside full soon

  “To friendship, as they name satiety;

  “Thither go you and wait their coming!” Thanks,

  Considerate advisers, — but, fair play!

  Had you and I but started fair at first

  We, keeping fair, might reach it, neck by neck,

  This blessed goal, whenever fate so please:

  But why am I to miss the daisied mile

  The course begins with, why obtain the dust

  Of the end precisely at the starting-point?

>   Why quaff life’s cup blown free of all the beads,

  The bright red froth wherein our beard should steep

  Before our mouth essay the black o’ the wine?

  Foolish, the love-fit? Let me prove it such

  Like you, before like you I puff things clear!

  “The best’s to come, no rapture but content!

  “Not the first glory but a sober glow,

  “Nor a spontaneous outburst in pure boon,

  “So much as, gained by patience, care and toil!”

  Go preach that to your nephews, not to me

  Who, tired i’ the midway of my life, would stop

  And take my first refreshment in a rose:

  What’s this coarse woolly hip, worn smooth of leaf,

  You counsel I go plant in garden-pot,

  Water with tears, manure with sweat and blood,

  In confidence the seed shall germinate

  And, for its very best, some far-off day,

  Grow big, and blow me out a dog-rose bell?

  Why must your nephews begin breathing spice

  O’ the hundred-petalled Provence prodigy?

  Nay, more and worse, — would such my root bear rose —

  Prove really flower and favourite, not the kind

  That’s queen, but those three leaves that make one cup.

  And hold the hedge-bird’s breakfast, — then indeed

  The prize though poor would pay the care and toil!

  Respect we Nature that makes least as most,

  Marvellous in the minim! But this bud,

  Bit through and burned black by the tempter’s tooth,

  This bloom whose best grace was the slug outside

  And the wasp inside its bosom, — call you “rose?”

  Claim no immunity from a weed’s fate

  For the horrible present! What you call my wife

  I call a nullity in female shape,

  Vapid disgust, soon to be pungent plague,

  When mixed with, made confusion and a curse

  By two abominable nondescripts,

  That father and that mother: think you see

  The dreadful bronze our boast, we Aretines,

  The Etruscan monster, the three-headed thing,

  Bellerophon’s foe! How name you the whole beast?

  You choose to name the body from one head,

  That of the simple kid which droops the eye,

  Hangs the neck and dies tenderly enough:

  I rather see the griesly lion belch

  Flame out i’ the midst, the serpent writhe her rings,

  Grafted into the common stock for tail,

  And name the brute, Chimæra, which I slew!

  How was there ever more to be — (concede

  My wife’s insipid harmless nullity) —

  Dissociation from that pair of plagues —

  That mother with her cunning and her cant —