Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  To bid men dig down deep or build up high,

  Spend bone and marrow that the king might feast

  Entrenched and buttressed from the vulgar gaze.

  Yet they all lived, nay, lingered to old age:

  As though Zeus loved that they should laugh to scorn

  The vanity of seeking other ends

  In rule, than just the ruler’s pastime. They

  Lived; I must die.”

  And, as some long last moan

  Of a minor suddenly is propped beneath 2490

  By note which, new-struck, turns the wail, that was,

  Into a wonder and a triumph, so

  Began Alkestis: “Nay, thou art to live!

  The glory that, in the disguise of flesh,

  Was helpful to our house, — he prophesied

  The coming fate: whereon, I pleaded sore

  That he, — I guessed a God, who to his couch

  Amid the clouds must go and come again,

  While we were darkling, — since he loved us both,

  He should permit thee, at whatever price, 2500

  To live and carry out to heart’s content

  Soul’s purpose, turn each thought to very deed,

  Nor let Zeus lose the monarch meant in thee.

  “To which Apollon, with a sunset smile,

  Sadly — ‘And so should mortals arbitrate!

  It were unseemly if they aped us Gods,

  And, mindful of our chain of consequence,

  Lost care of the immediate earthly link:

  Forewent the comfort of life’s little hour,

  In prospect of some cold abysmal blank 2510

  Alien eternity, — unlike the time

  They know, and understand to practise with, —

  No, — our eternity — no heart’s blood, bright

  And warm outpoured in its behoof, would tinge

  Never so palely, warm a whit the more:

  Whereas retained and treasured — left to beat

  Joyously on, a life’s length, in the breast

  O’ the loved and loving, — it would throb itself

  Through, and suffuse the earthly tenement,

  Transform it, even as your mansion here 2520

  Is love-transformed into a temple-home

  Where I, a God, forget the Olumpian glow,

  I’ the feel of human richness like the rose:

  Your hopes and fears, so blind and yet so sweet

  With death about them. Therefore, well in thee

  To look, not on eternity, but time:

  To apprehend that, should Admetos die,

  All, we Gods purposed in him, dies as sure:

  That, life’s link snapping, all our chain is lost.

  And yet a mortal glance might pierce, methinks, 2530

  Deeper into the seeming dark of things,

  And learn, no fruit, man’s life can bear, will fade:

  Learn, if Admetos die now, so much more

  Will pity for the frailness found in flesh,

  Will terror at the earthly chance and change

  Frustrating wisest scheme of noblest soul,

  Will these go wake the seeds of good asleep

  Throughout the world: as oft a rough wind sheds

  The unripe promise of some field-flower, — true!

  But loosens too the level, and lets breathe 2540

  A thousand captives for the year to come.

  Nevertheless, obtain thy prayer, stay fate!

  Admetos lives — if thou wilt die for him!’

  “So was the pact concluded that I die,

  And thou live on, live for thyself, for me,

  For all the world. Embrace and bid me hail,

  Husband, because I have the victory —

  Am, heart, soul, head to foot, one happiness!”

  Whereto Admetos, in a passionate cry:

  “Never, by that true word Apollon spoke! 2550

  All the unwise wish is unwished, O wife!

  Let purposes of Zeus fulfil themselves,

  If not through me, then through some other man!

  Still, in myself he had a purpose too,

  Inalienably mine, to end with me:

  This purpose — that, throughout my earthly life.

  Mine should be mingled and made up with thine, —

  And we two prove one force and play one part

  And do one thing. Since death divides the pair,

  ‘T is well that I depart and thou remain 2560

  Who wast to me as spirit is to flesh:

  Let the flesh perish, be perceived no more,

  So thou, the spirit that informed the flesh,

  Bend yet awhile, a very flame above

  The rift I drop into the darkness by, —

  And bid remember, flesh and spirit once

  Worked in the world, one body, for man’s sake.

  Never be that abominable show

  Of passive death without a quickening life —

  Admetos only, no Alkestis now!” 2570

  Then she: “O thou Admetos, must the pile

  Of truth on truth, which needs but one truth more

  To tower up in completeness, trophy-like,

  Emprize of man, and triumph of the world,

  Must it go ever to the ground again

  Because of some faint heart or faultering hand,

  Which we, that breathless world about the base,

  Trusted should carry safe to altitude,

  Superimpose o’ the summit, our supreme

  Achievement, our victorious coping-stone? 2580

  Shall thine, Beloved, prove the hand and heart

  That fail again, flinch backward at the truth

  Would cap and crown the structure this last time, —

  Precipitate our monumental hope

  To strew the earth ignobly yet once more?

  See how, truth piled on truth, the structure wants,

  Waits just the crowning truth I claim of thee!

  Would’st thou, for any joy to be enjoyed,

  For any sorrow that thou might’st escape,

  Unwill thy will to reign a righteous king? 2590

  Nowise! And were there two lots, death and life, —

  Life, wherein good resolve should go to air,

  Death, whereby finest fancy grew plain fact

  I’ the reign of thy survivor, — life or death?

  Certainly death, thou choosest. Here stand I

  The wedded, the beloved one: hadst thou loved

  One who less worthily could estimate

  Both life and death than thou? Not so should say

  Admetos, whom Apollon made come court

  Alkestis in a car, submissive brutes 2600

  Of blood were yoked to, symbolizing soul

  Must dominate unruly sense in man.

  Then, shall Admetos and Alkestis see

  Good alike, and alike choose, each for each,

  Good, — and yet, each for other, at the last,

  Choose evil? What? thou soundest in my soul

  To depths below the deepest, reachest good

  In evil, that makes evil good again,

  And so allottest to me that I live

  And not die — letting die, not thee alone, 2610

  But all true life that lived in both of us?

  Look at me once ere thou decree the lot!”

  Therewith her whole soul entered into his,

  He looked the look back, and Alkestis died.

  And even while it lay, i’ the look of him,

  Dead, the dimmed body, bright Alkestis’ soul

  Had penetrated through the populace

  Of ghosts, was got to Koré, — throned and crowned

  The pensive queen o’ the twilight, where she dwells

  Forever in a muse, but half away 2620

  From flowery earth she lost and hankers for, —

  And there demanded to become a ghost

  Before the time.

  Whereat th
e softened eyes

  Of the lost maidenhood that lingered still

  Straying among the flowers in Sicily,

  Sudden was startled back to Hades’ throne,

  By that demand: broke through humanity

  Into the orbed omniscience of a God,

  Searched at a glance Alkestis to the soul,

  And said — while a long slow sigh lost itself 2630

  I’ the hard and hollow passage of a laugh:

  “Hence, thou deceiver! This is not to die,

  If, by the very death which mocks me now,

  The life, that’s left behind and past my power,

  Is formidably doubled. Say, there fight

  Two athletes, side by side, each athlete armed

  With only half the weapons, and no more,

  Adequate to a contest with their foe:

  If one of these should fling helm, sword and shield

  To fellow — shieldless, swordless, helmless late — 2640

  And so leap naked o’er the barrier, leave

  A combatant equipped from head to heel,

  Yet cry to the other side, ‘Receive a friend

  Who fights no longer!’ ‘Back, friend, to the fray!’

  Would be the prompt rebuff; I echo it.

  Two souls in one were formidable odds:

  Admetos must not be himself and thou!”

  And so, before the embrace relaxed a whit,

  The lost eyes opened, still beneath the look;

  And lo, Alkestis was alive again, 2650

  And of Admetos’ rapture who shall speak?

  So, the two lived together long and well.

  But never could I learn, by word of scribe

  Or voice of poet, rumour wafts our way,

  That, — of the scheme of rule in righteousness,

  The bringing back again the Golden Age,

  Which, rather than renounce, our pair would die —

  That ever one faint particle came true,

  With both alive to bring it to effect:

  Such is the envy Gods still bear mankind! 2660

  So might our version of the story prove,

  And no Euripidean pathos plague

  Too much my critic-friend of Syracuse.

  “Besides your poem failed to get the prize:

  (That is, the first prize: second prize is none.)

  Sophokles got it!” Honour the great name!

  All cannot love two great names; yet some do:

  I know the poetess who graved in gold,

  Among her glories that shall never fade,

  This style and title for Euripides, 2670

  The Human with his droppings of warm tears.

  I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong

  As Herakles, though rosy with a robe

  Of grace that softens down the sinewy strength:

  And he has made a picture of it all.

  There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun,

  She longed to look her last upon, beside

  The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us

  To come trip over its white waste of waves,

  And try escape from earth, and fleet as free. 2680

  Behind the body, I suppose there bends

  Old Pheres in his hoary impotence;

  And women-wailers, in a corner crouch

  — Four, beautiful as you four — yes, indeed! —

  Close, each to other, agonizing all,

  As fastened, in fear’s rhythmic sympathy,

  To two contending opposite. There strains

  The might o’ the hero ‘gainst his more than match,

  — Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like

  The envenomed substance that exudes some dew 2690

  Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood

  Will fester up and run to ruin straight,

  Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome

  The poisonous impalpability

  That simulates a form beneath the flow

  Of those grey garments; I pronounce that piece

  Worthy to set up in our Poikilé!

  And all came, — glory of the golden verse,

  And passion of the picture, and that fine

  Frank outgush of the human gratitude 2700

  Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse, —

  Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps

  Away from you, friends, while I told my tale,

  — It all came of this play that gained no prize!

  Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?

  PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY

  First published in 1871, this long poem concerns the French Emperor Napoleon III and was mostly written in Florence in the early 1860s, before Browning abandoned the work. Largely forgotten while Browning worked on Dramatis Personae and The Ring and the Book, with the news of the forced end of Napoleon’s reign in 1871, Browning decided to return to the project, extensively revising the text before publishing it in December of the same year.

  At first it was a particularly popular work, selling more than 1,500 copies in the first week. However, interest soon waned due to the poem’s length and complexity, and so the first printing run failed to sell out.

  The nephew and heir of Napoleon I, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (1808–1873) was the first President of the French Republic and the ruler of the Second French Empire. He was both the first titular president and the last monarch of France.

  PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU, SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY

  I slew the Hydra, and from labor pass’d

  To labor — tribes of labors! Till, at last,

  Attempting one more labor, in a trice,

  Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

  YOU have seen better days, dear? So have I —

  And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth

  As yours to lisp “You wish you knew me! — Well,

  Wise men, ‘tis said, have sometimes wished the same,

  And wished and had their trouble for their pains.

  Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last

  Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,

  And, lateish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?

  Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,

  Grown sick of snapping foolish people’s heads,

  And jealous for her riddle’s proper rede, —

  Jealous that the good trick which served the turn

  Have justice rendered it, nor class one day

  With friend Home’s stilts and tongs and medium-ware, —

  What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,

  (Because night draws on, and the sands increase,

  And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)

  Tell all to Corinth of her own accord,

  Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Laïs’ sake,

  Who finds me hardly gray, and likes my nose,

  And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?

  Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!

  But listen, for we must co-operate;

  I don’t drink tea: permit me the cigar!

  First, how to make the matter plain, of course —

  What was the law by which I lived. Let’s see:

  Ay, we must take one instant of my life

  Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:

  Watch well the way I use it, and don’t laugh!

  Here’s paper on the table, pen and ink:

  Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!

  See! having sat an hour, I’m rested now,

  Therefore want work: and spy no better work

  For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,

  During this instant, than to draw my pen

  From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —

  Which I at last reach, thus, and here’s my line

  Five inches long and tolerably straight:

  Better to draw than leave undrawn,
I think,

  Fitter to do than let alone, I hold,

  Though better, fitter, by but one degree.

  Therefore it was that, rather than sit still

  Simply, my right-hand drew it while my left

  Pulled smooth and pinched the moustache to a point.

  Now I permit your plump lips to unpurse:

  “So far, one possibly may understand

  Without recourse to witchcraft!” True, my dear.

  Thus folks begin with Euclid, — finish, how?

  Trying to square the circle! — at any rate,

  Solving abstruser problems than this first

  “How find the nearest way ‘twixt point and point.”

  Deal but with moral mathematics so —

  Master one merest moment’s work of mine,

  Even this practising with pen and ink, —

  Demonstrate why I rather plied the quill

  Than left the space a blank, — you gain a fact,

  And God knows what a fact’s worth! So proceed

  By inference from just this moral fact

  — I don’t say, to that plaguy quadrature

  “What the whole man meant, whom you wish you knew,”

  But, what meant certain things he did of old,

  Which puzzled Europe, — why, you’ll find them plain,

  This way, not otherwise: I guarantee,

  Understand one, you comprehend the rest.

  Rays from all round converge to any point:

  Study the point then ere you track the rays!

  The size o’ the circle’s nothing; subdivide

  Earth, and earth’s smallest grain of mustard-seed,

  You count as many parts, small matching large,

  If you can use the mind’s eye: otherwise,

  Material optics, being gross at best,

  Prefer the large and leave our mind the small —

  And pray how many folk have minds can see?

  Certainly you — and somebody in Thrace

  Whose name escapes me at the moment. You —

  Lend me your mind then! Analyze with me

  This instance of the line ‘twixt blot and blot

  I rather chose to draw than leave a blank,

  Things else being equal. You are taught thereby

  That ‘tis my nature, when I am at ease,

  Rather than idle out my life too long,

  To want to do a thing — to put a thought,

  Wether a great thought or a little one,

  Into an act, as nearly as may be.

  Make what is absolutely new — I can’t,

  Mar what is made already well enough —

  I won’t: but turn to best account the thing

  That’s half-made — that I can. Two blots, you saw

  I knew how to extend into a line