Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  I’ the Present, — let us keep it! We shall toil

  So long before we gain — if gain God grant —

  A Future with one touch of difference

  I’ the heart of things, and not their outside face, —

  Let us not risk the whiff of my cigar

  For Fourier, Comte, and all that ends in smoke!

  This I see clearest probably of men

  With power to act and influence, now alive:

  Juster than they to the true state of things;

  In consequence, more tolerant that, side

  By side, shall co-exist and thrive alike

  In the age, the various sorts of happiness

  Moral, mark! — not material — moods o’ the mind

  Suited to man and man his opposite:

  Say, minor modes of movement — hence to there,

  Or thence to here, or simply round about

  So long as each toe spares its neighbor’s kibe,

  Nor spoils the major march and main advance.

  The love of peace, care for the family,

  Contentment with what’s bad but might be worse —

  Good movements these! and good, too, discontent,

  So long as that spurs good, which might be best,

  Into becoming better, anyhow:

  Good — pride of country, putting hearth and home

  I’ the back-ground, out of undue prominence:

  Good — yearning after change, strife, victory,

  And triumph. Each shall have its orbit marked,

  But no more, — none impede the other’s path

  In this wide world, — though each and all alike,

  Save for me, fain would spread itself through space

  And leave its fellow not an inch of way.

  I rule and regulate the course, excite,

  Restrain: because the whole machine should march

  Impelled by those diversely-moving parts,

  Each blind to aught beside its little bent.

  Out of the turnings round and round inside,

  Comes that straightforward world-advance, I want,

  And none of them supposes God wants too

  And gets through just their hindrance and my help.

  I think that to have held the balance straight

  For twenty years, say, weighing claim and claim,

  And giving each its due, no less no more,

  This was good service to humanity,

  Right usage of my power in head and heart,

  And reasonable piety beside.

  Keep those three points in mind while judging me!

  You stand, perhaps, for some one man, not men, —

  Represent this or the other interest,

  Nor mind the general welfare, so, impugn

  My practice and dispute my value: why?

  You man of faith, I did not tread the world

  Into a paste, and thereof make a smooth

  Uniform mound whereon to plant your flag,

  The lily-white, above the blood and brains!

  Nor yet did I, you man of faithlessness,

  So roll things to the level which you love,

  That you could stand at ease there and survey

  The universal Nothing undisgraced

  By pert obtrusion of some old church-spire

  I’ the distance! Neither friend would I content,

  Nor, as the world were simply meant for him,

  Thrust out his fellow and mend God’s mistake.

  Why, you two fools, — my dear friends all the same, —

  Is it some change o’ the world and nothing else

  Contents you? Should whatever was, not be?

  How thanklessly you view things! There’s the root

  Of the evil, source of the entire mistake:

  You see no worth i’ the world, nature and life,

  Unless we change what is to what may be,

  Which means, — may be, i’ the brain of one of you!

  “Reject what is?” — all capabilities —

  Nay, you may style them chances if you choose —

  All chances, then, of happiness that lie

  Open to anybody that is born,

  Tumbles into this life and out again, —

  All that may happen, good and evil too,

  I’ the space between, to each adventurer

  Upon this ‘sixty, Anno Domini:

  A life to live — and such a life! a world

  To learn, one’s lifetime in, — and such a world!

  How did the foolish ever pass for wise

  By calling life a burden, man a fly

  Or worm or what’s most insignificant?

  “O littleness of man!” deplores the bard;

  And then, for fear the Powers should punish him,

  “O grandeur of the visible universe

  Our human littleness contrasts withal!

  O sun, O moon, ye mountains and thou sea,

  Thou emblem of immensity, thou this,

  That, and the other, what impertinence

  In man to eat and drink and walk about

  And have his little notions of his own,

  The while some wave sheds foam upon the shore!”

  First of all, ‘tis a lie some three-times thick:

  The bard, — this sort of speech being poetry, —

  The bard puts mankind well outside himself

  And then begins instructing them: “This way

  I and my friend the sea conceive of you!

  What would you give to think such thoughts as ours

  Of you and the sea together?” Down they go

  On the humbled knees of them: at once they draw

  Distinction, recognize no mate of theirs

  In one, despite his mock humility,

  So plain a match for what he plays with. Next,

  The turn of the great ocean-playfellow,

  When the bard, leaving Bond Street very far

  From ear-shot, cares not to ventriloquize,

  But tells the sea its home-truths: “You, my match?

  You, all this terror and immensity

  And what not? Shall I tell you what you are?

  Just fit to hitch into a stanza, so

  Wake up and set in motion who’s asleep

  O’ the other side of you in England, else

  Unaware, as folk pace their Bond Street now,

  Somebody here despises them so much!

  Between us, — they are the ultimate! to them

  And their perception go these lordly thoughts:

  Since what were ocean — mane and tail, to boot —

  Mused I not here, how make thoughts thinkable?

  Start forth my stanza and astound the world!

  Back, billows, to your insignificance!

  Deep, you are done with!”

  Learn, my gifted friend,

  There are two things i’ the world, still wiser folk

  Accept — intelligence and sympathy.

  You pant about unutterable power

  I’ the ocean, all you feel but cannot speak?

  Why, that’s the plainest speech about it all.

  You did not feel what was not to be felt.

  Well, then, all else but what man feels is naught —

  The wash o’ the liquor that o’erbrims the cup

  Called man, and runs to waste adown his side,

  Perhaps to feed a cataract, — who cares?

  I’ll tell you: all the more I know mankind,

  The more I thank God, like my grandmother,

  For making me a little lower than

  The angels, honor-clothed and glory-crowned:

  This is the honor, — that no thing I know,

  Feel or conceive, but I can make my own

  Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart:

  This is the glory, — that in all conceived,

  Or felt or known, I recognize a mind

  Not mine but like mine, — for the double j
oy, —

  Making all things for me and me for Him.

  There’s folly for you at this time of day!

  So think it! and enjoy your ignorance

  Of what — no matter for the worthy’s name —

  Wisdom set working in a noble heart,

  When he, who was earth’s best geometer

  Up to that time of day, consigned his life

  With its results into one matchless book,

  The triumph of the human mind so far,

  All in geometry man yet could do:

  And then wrote on the dedication-page

  In place of name the universe applauds,

  “But, God, what a geometer art Thou!”

  I suppose Heaven is, through Eternity,

  The equalizing, ever and anon,

  In momentary rapture, great with small,

  Omniscience with intelligency, God

  With man, — the thunder-glow from pole to pole

  Abolishing, a blissful moment-space,

  Great cloud alike and small cloud, in one fire —

  As sure to ebb as sure again to flow

  When the new receptivity deserves

  The new completion. There’s the Heaven for me.

  And I say, therefore, to live out one’s life

  I’ the world here, with the chance, — whether by pain

  Or pleasure be the process, long or short

  The time, august or mean the circumstance

  To human eye, — of learning how set foot

  Decidedly on some one path to Heaven,

  Touch segment in the circle whence all lines

  Lead to the centre equally, red lines

  Or black lines, so they but produce themselves —

  This, I do say, — and here my sermon ends, —

  This makes it worth our while to tenderly

  Handle a state of things which mend we might,

  Mar we may, but which meanwhile helps so far.

  Therefore my end is — save society!

  “And that’s all?” twangs the never-failing taunt

  O’ the foe — ”No novelty, creativeness,

  Mark of the master that renews the age?”

  “Nay, all that?” rather will demur my judge

  I look to hear some day, nor friend nor foe —

  “Did you attain, then, to perceive that God

  Knew what He undertook when He made things?”

  Ay: that my task was to co-operate

  Rather than play the rival, chop and change

  The order whence comes all the good we know,

  With this, — good’s last expression to our sense, —

  That there’s a further good conceivable

  Beyond the utmost earth can realize:

  And, therefore, that to change the agency,

  The evil whereby good is brought about —

  Try to make good do good as evil does —

  Were just as if a chemist, wanting white,

  And knowing black ingredients bred the dye,

  Insisted these too should be white forsooth!

  Correct the evil, mitigate your best,

  Blend mild with harsh, and soften black to gray

  If gray may follow with no detriment

  To the eventual perfect purity!

  But as for hazarding the main result

  By hoping to anticipate one half

  In the intermediate process, — no, my friends!

  This bad world, I experience and approve;

  Your good world, — with no pity, courage, hope,

  Fear, sorrow, joy, — devotedness, in short,

  Which I account the ultimate of man,

  Of which there’s not one day nor hour but brings,

  In flower or fruit, some sample of success,

  Out of this same society I save —

  None of it for me! That I might have none,

  I rapped your tampering knuckles twenty years.

  Such was the task imposed me, such my end.

  Now for the means thereto. Ah, confidence —

  Keep we together or part company?

  This is the critical minute! “Such my end?”

  Certainly; how could it be otherwise?

  Can there be question which was the right task —

  To save or to destroy society?

  Why, even prove that, by some miracle,

  Destruction were the proper work to choose,

  And that a torch best remedies what’s wrong

  I’ the temple, whence the long procession wound

  Of powers and beauties, earth’s achievements all,

  The human strength that strove and overthrew, —

  The human love that, weak itself, crowned strength, —

  The instinct crying “God is whence I came!” —

  The reason laying down the law “And such

  His will i’ the world must be!” — the leap and shout

  Of genius “For I hold His very thoughts,

  The meaning of the mind of Him!” — nay, more,

  The ingenuities, each active force

  That turning in a circle on itself

  Looks neither up nor down but keeps the spot,

  Mere creature-like, and, for religion, works,

  Works only and works ever, makes and shapes

  And changes, still wrings more of good from less,

  Still stamps some bad out, where was worst before,

  So leaves the handiwork, the act and deed,

  Were it but house and land and wealth, to show

  Here was a creature perfect in the kind —

  Whether as bee, beaver, or behemoth,

  What’s the importance? he has done his work

  For work’s sake, worked well, earned a creature’s praise; —

  I say, concede that same fane, whence deploys

  Age after age, all this humanity,

  Diverse but ever dear, out of the dark

  Behind the altar into the broad day

  By the portal — enter, and, concede there mocks

  Each lover of free motion and much space

  A perplexed length of apse and aisle and nave, —

  Pillared roof and carved screen, and what care I? —

  Which irk the movement and impede the march, —

  Nay, possibly, bring flat upon his nose

  At some odd break-neck angle, by some freak

  Of old-world artistry, that personage

  Who, could he but have kept his skirts from grief

  And catching at the hooks and crooks about,

  Had stepped out on the daylight of our time

  Plainly the man of the age, — still, still, I bar

  Excessive conflagration in the case.

  “Shake the flame freely!” shout the multitude:

  The architect approves I stuck my torch

  Inside a good stout lantern, hung its light

  Above the hooks and crooks, and ended so.

  To save society was well: the means

  Whereby to save it, — there begins the doubt

  Permitted you, imperative on me;

  Were mine the best means? Did I work aright

  With powers appointed me? — since powers denied

  Concern me nothing.

  Well, my work reviewed

  Fairly, leaves more hope than discouragement.

  First, there’s the deed done: what I found, I leave, —

  What tottered, I kept stable: if it stand

  One month, without sustainment, still thank me

  The twenty years’ sustainer! Now, observe,

  Sustaining is no brilliant self-display

  Like knocking down or even setting up:

  Much bustle these necessitate; and still

  To vulgar eye, the mightier of the myth

  Is Hercules, who substitutes his own

  For Atlas’ shoulder and supports the globe

  A whole day, — not the passive and obscure
<
br />   Atlas who bore, ere Hercules was born,

  And is to go on bearing that same load

  When Hercules turns ash on Œta’s top.

  ‘T is the transition-stage, the tug and strain,

  That strike men: standing still is stupid-like.

  My pressure was too constant on the whole

  For any part’s eruption into space

  ‘Mid sparkles, crackling, and much praise of me.

  I saw that, in the ordinary life,

  Many of the little make a mass of men

  Important beyond greatness here and there;

  As certainly as, in life exceptional,

  When old things terminate and new commence,

  A solitary great man’s worth the world.

  God takes the business into His own hands

  At such time: who creates the novel flower

  Contrives to guard and give it breathing-room:

  I merely tend the corn-field, care for crop,

  And weed no acre thin to let emerge

  What prodigy may stifle there perchance,

  — No, though my eye have noted where he lurks.

  Oh those mute myriads that spoke loud to me —

  The eyes that craved to see the light, the mouths

  That sought the daily bread and nothing more,

  The hands that supplicated exercise,

  Men that had wives, and women that had babes,

  And all these making suit to only live!

  Was I to turn aside from husbandry,

  Leave hope of harvest for the corn, my care,

  To play at horticulture, rear some rose

  Or poppy into perfect leaf and bloom

  When, mid the furrows, up was pleased to sprout

  Some man, cause, system, special interest

  I ought to study, stop the world meanwhile?

  “But I am Liberty, Philanthropy,

  Enlightenment, or Patriotism, the power

  Whereby you are to stand or fall!” cries each:

  “Mine and mine only be the flag you flaunt!”

  And, when I venture to object “Meantime,

  What of yon myriads with no flag at all

  My crop which, who flaunts flag must tread across?”

  “Now, this it is to have a puny mind!”

  Admire my mental prodigies: “down — down —

  Ever at home o’ the level and the low,

  There bides he brooding! Could he look above,

  With less of the owl and more of the eagle eye,

  He’d see there’s no way helps the little cause

  Like the attainment of the great. Dare first

  The chief emprize; dispel yon cloud between

  The sun and us; nor fear that, though our heads

  Find earlier warmth and comfort from his ray,

  What lies about our feet, the multitude,

  Will fail of benefaction presently.

  Come now, let each of us awhile cry truce