Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  But, now, — suppose I could allow your claims

  And quite change life to please you, — would it please?

  Would life comport with change and still be life?

  Ask, now, a doctor for a remedy:

  There’s his prescription. Bid him point you out

  Which of the five or six ingredients saves

  The sick man. “Such the efficacity?

  Then why not dare and do things in one dose

  Simple and pure, all virtue, no alloy

  Of the idle drop and powder?” What’s his word?

  The efficacity, neat, were neutralized:

  It wants dispersing and retarding, — nay

  Is put upon its mettle, plays its part

  Precisely through such hindrance everywhere,

  Finds some mysterious give and take i’ the case,

  Some gain by opposition, he foregoes

  Should he unfetter the medicament.

  So with this thought of yours that fain would work

  Free in the world: it wants just what it finds —

  The ignorance, stupidity, the hate,

  Envy and malice and uncharitableness

  That bar your passage, break the flow of you

  Down from those happy heights where many a cloud

  Combined to give you birth and bid you be

  The royalest of rivers: on you glide

  Silverly till you reach the summit-edge,

  Then over, on to all that ignorance,

  Stupidity, hate, envy, bluffs and blocks,

  Posted to fret you into foam and noise.

  What of it? Up you mount in minute mist,

  And bridge the chasm that crushed your quietude,

  A spirit-rainbow, earthborn jewelry

  Outsparkling the insipid firmament

  Blue above Terni and its orange-trees.

  Do not mistake me! You, too, have your rights!

  Hans must not burn Kant’s house above his head

  Because he cannot understand Kant’s book:

  And still less must Hans’ pastor burn Kant’s self

  Because Kant understands some books too well.

  But, justice seen to on this little point,

  Answer me, is it manly, is it sage

  To stop and struggle with arrangements here

  It took so many lives, so much of toil,

  To tinker up into efficiency?

  Can’t you contrive to operate at once, —

  Since time is short and art is long, — to show

  Your quality i’ the world, whate’er you boast,

  Without this fractious call on folks to crush

  The world together just to set you free,

  Admire the capers you will cut perchance,

  Nor mind the mischief to your neighbors?

  ”Age!

  Age and experience bring discouragement,”

  You taunt me: I maintain the opposite.

  Am I discouraged who, — perceiving health,

  Strength, beauty, as they tempt the eye of soul,

  Are uncombinable with flesh and blood, —

  Resolve to let my body live its best,

  And leave my soul what better yet may be

  Or not be, in this life or afterward?

  — In either fortune, wiser than who waits

  Till magic art procure a miracle.

  In virtue of my very confidence

  Mankind ought to outgrow its babyhood,

  I prescribe rocking, deprecate rough hands,

  While thus the cradle holds it past mistake.

  Indeed, my task’s the harder — equable

  Sustainment everywhere, all strain, no push —

  Whereby friends credit me with indolence,

  Apathy, hesitation. “Stand stock-still

  If able to move briskly? ‘All a-strain’ —

  So must we compliment your passiveness?

  Sound asleep, rather!”

  Just the judgment passed

  Upon a statue, luckless like myself,

  I saw at Rome once! ‘Twas some artist’s whim

  To cover all the accessories close

  I’ the group, and leave you only Laocoön

  With neither sons nor serpents to denote

  The purpose of his gesture. Then a crowd

  Was called to try the question, criticise

  Wherefore such energy of legs and arms,

  Nay, eyeballs, starting from the socket. One —

  I give him leave to write my history —

  Only one said “I think the gesture strives

  Against some obstacle we cannot see.”

  All the rest made their minds up. “‘Tis a yawn

  Of sheer fatigue subsiding to repose:

  The statue’s ‘Somnolency’ clear enough!”

  There, my arch stranger-friend, my audience both

  And arbitress, you have one half your wish,

  At least: you know the thing I tried to do!

  All, so far, to my praise and glory — all

  Told as befits the self-apologist, —

  Who ever promises a candid sweep

  And clearance of those errors miscalled crimes

  None knows more, none laments so much as he,

  And ever rises from confession, proved

  A god whose fault was — trying to be man.

  Just so, fair judge, — if I read smile aright —

  I condescend to figure in your eyes

  As biggest heart and best of Europe’s friends,

  And hence my failure. God will estimate

  Success one day; and, in the mean time — you!

  I dare say there’s some fancy of the sort

  Frolicking round this final puff I send

  To die up yonder in the ceiling-rose, —

  Some consolation-stakes, we losers win!

  A plague of the return to “I — I — I

  Did this, meant that, hoped, feared the other thing!”

  Autobiography, adieu! The rest

  Shall make amends, be pure blame, history

  And falsehood: not the ineffective truth,

  But Thiers-and-Victor-Hugo exercise.

  Hear what I never was, but might have been

  I’ the better world where goes tobacco-smoke!

  Here lie the dozen volumes of my life:

  (Did I say “lie”? the pregnant word will serve).

  Cut on to the concluding chapter, though!

  Because the little hours begin to strike.

  Hurry Thiers-Hugo to the labor’s end!

  Something like this the unwritten chapter reads.

  Exemplify the situation thus!

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau, being, no dispute,

  Absolute mistress, chose the Assembly, first,

  To serve her: chose this man, its President

  Afterward, to serve also, — specially

  To see that folk did service one and all.

  And now the proper term of years was out

  When the Head-servant must vacate his place,

  And nothing lay so patent to the world

  As that his fellow-servants one and all

  Were — mildly to make mention — knaves or fools,

  Each of them with his promise flourished full

  I’ the face of you by word and impudence,

  Or filtered slyly out by nod and wink

  And nudge upon your sympathetic rib —

  That not one minute more did knave or fool

  Mean to keep faith and serve as he had sworn

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau, once her Head away.

  Why should such swear except to get the chance,

  When time should ripen and confusion bloom,

  Of putting Hohenstielers-Schwangauese

  To the true use of human property —

  Restoring souls and bodies, this to Pope,

  And that to King, that other to his planned

  Perfection of a Share-and-share-
alike,

  That other still, to Empire absolute

  In shape of the Head-servant’s very self

  Transformed to Master whole and sole? each scheme

  Discussible, concede one circumstance —

  That each scheme’s parent were, beside himself,

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau, not her serving-man

  Sworn to do service in the way she chose

  Rather than his way: way superlative,

  Only, — by some infatuation, — his

  And his and his and every one’s but hers

  Who stuck to just the Assembly and the Head.

  I make no doubt the Head, too, had his dream

  Of doing sudden duty swift and sure

  On all that heap of untrustworthiness —

  Catching each vaunter of the villany

  He meant to perpetrate when time was ripe,

  Once the Head-servant fairly out of doors, —

  And, caging here a knave and there a fool,

  Cry “Mistress of your servants, these and me,

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau! I, their trusty Head,

  Pounce on a pretty scheme concocting here

  That’s stopped, extinguished by my vigilance.

  Your property is safe again: but mark!

  Safe in these hands, not yours, who lavish trust

  Too lightly. Leave my hands their charge awhile!

  I know your business better than yourself:

  Let me alone about it! Some fine day,

  Once we are rid of the embarrassment,

  You shall look up and see your longings crowned!”

  Such fancy might have tempted him be false,

  But this man chose truth and was wiser so.

  He recognized that for great minds i’ the world

  There is no trial like the appropriate one

  Of leaving little minds their liberty

  Of littleness to blunder on through life,

  Now, aiming at right ends by foolish means,

  Now, at absurd achievement through the aid

  Of good and wise endeavor — to acquiesce

  In folly’s life-long privilege, though with power

  To do the little minds the good they need,

  Despite themselves, by just abolishing

  Their right to play the part and fill the place

  I’ the scheme of things He schemed who made alike

  Great minds and little minds, saw use for each.

  Could the orb sweep those puny particles

  It just half-lights at distance, hardly leads

  I’ the leash — sweep out each speck of them from space

  They anticize in with their days and nights

  And whirlings round and dancings off, forsooth,

  And all that fruitless individual life

  One cannot lend a beam to but they spoil —

  Sweep them into itself and so, one star,

  Preponderate henceforth i’ the heritage

  Of heaven! No! in less senatorial phrase,

  The man endured to help, not save outright

  The multitude by substituting him

  For them, his knowledge, will and way, for God’s:

  Nor change the world, such as it is, and was

  And will be, for some other, suiting all

  Except the purpose of the maker. No!

  He saw that weakness, wickedness will be,

  And therefore should be: that the perfect man

  As we account perfection — at most pure

  O’ the special gold, whate’er the form it take,

  Head-work or heart-work, fined and thrice-refined

  I’ the crucible of life, whereto the powers

  Of the refiner, one and all, are flung

  To feed the flame, he saw that e’en the block

  Such perfect man holds out triumphant, breaks

  Into some poisonous ore, gold’s opposite,

  At the very purest, so compensating

  Man’s Adversary — what if we believe?

  For earlier stern exclusion of his stuff.

  See the sage, with the hunger for the truth,

  And see his system that’s all true, except

  The one weak place that’s stanchioned by a lie!

  The moralist who walks with head erect

  I’ the crystal clarity of air so long,

  Until a stumble, and the man’s one mire!

  Philanthropy undoes the social knot

  With axe-edge, makes love room ‘twixt head and trunk:

  Religion — but, enough, the thing’s too clear!

  Well, if these sparks break out i’ the greenest tree,

  Our topmost of performance, yours and mine,

  What will be done i’ the dry ineptitude

  Of ordinary mankind, bark and bole,

  All seems ashamed of but their mother-earth?

  Therefore throughout Head’s term of servitude

  He did the appointed service, and forbore

  Extraneous action that were duty else,

  Done by some other servant, idle now

  Or mischievous: no matter, each his own —

  Own task, and, in the end, own praise or blame!

  He suffered them strut, prate and brag their best,

  Squabble at odds on every point save one,

  And there shake hands, — agree to trifle time,

  Obstruct advance with, each, his cricket-cry

  “Wait till the Head be off the shoulders here!

  Then comes my King, my Pope, my Autocrat,

  My Socialist Republic to her own —

  To-wit, that property of only me,

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau who conceits herself

  Free, forsooth, and expects I keep her so!”

  — Nay, suffered when, perceiving with dismay

  Head’s silence paid no tribute to their noise,

  They turned on him. “Dumb menace in that mouth,

  Malice in that unstridulosity!

  He cannot but intend some stroke of state

  Shall signalize his passage into peace

  Out of the creaking, — hinder transference

  O’ the Hohenstielers-Schwangauese to king,

  Pope, autocrat, or socialist republic! That ‘s

  Exact the cause his lips unlocked would cry!

  Therefore be stirring: brave, beard, bully him!

  Dock, by the million, of its friendly joints,

  The electoral body short at once! who did,

  May do again, and undo us beside.

  Wrest from his hands the sword for self-defence,

  The right to parry any thrust in play

  We peradventure please to meditate!”

  And so forth; creak, creak, creak: and ne’er a line

  His locked mouth oped the wider, till at last

  O’ the long degraded and insulting day,

  Sudden the clock told it was judgment-time.

  Then he addressed himself to speak indeed

  To the fools, not knaves: they saw him walk straight down

  Each step of the eminence, as he first engaged,

  And stand at last o’ the level, — all he swore.

  “People, and not the people’s varletry,

  This is the task you set myself and these!

  Thus I performed my part of it, and thus

  They thwarted me throughout, here, here, and here:

  Study each instance! yours the loss, not mine.

  What they intend now is demonstrable

  As plainly: here’s such man, and here’s such mode

  Of making you some other than the thing

  You, wisely or unwisely, choose to be,

  And only set him up to keep you so.

  Do you approve this? Yours the loss, not mine.

  Do you condemn it? There’s a remedy.

  Take me — who know your mind, and mean your good,

  With clearer brain and stouter arm than they,

  Or you, or h
aply anybody else —

  And make me master for the moment! Choose

  What time, what power you trust me with: I too

  Will choose as frankly ere I trust myself

  With time and power: they must be adequate

  To the end and aim, since mine the loss, with yours,

  If means be wanting; once their worth approved,

  Grant them, and I shall forthwith operate —

  Ponder it well! — to the extremest stretch

  O’ the power you trust me: if with unsuccess,

  God wills it, and there’s nobody to blame.”

  Whereon the people answered with a shout

  “The trusty one! no tricksters any more!”

  How could they other? He was in his place.

  What followed? Just what he foresaw, what proved

  The soundness of both judgments, — his, o’ the knaves

  And fools, each trickster with his dupe, — and theirs,

  The people’s, in what head and arm could help.

  There was uprising, masks dropped, flags unfurled,

  Weapons outflourished in the wind, my faith!

  Heavily did he let his fist fall plumb

  On each perturber of the public peace,

  No matter whose the wagging head it broke —

  From bald-pate craft and greed and impudence

  Of night-hawk at first chance to prowl and prey

  For glory and a little gain beside,

  Passing for eagle in the dusk of the age, —

  To florid head-top, foamy patriotism

  And tribunitial daring, breast laid bare

  Thro’ confidence in rectitude, with hand

  On private pistol in the pocket: these

  And all the dupes of these, who lent themselves

  As dust and feather do, to help offence

  O’ the wind that whirls them at you, then subsides

  In safety somewhere, leaving filth afloat,

  Annoyance you may brush from eyes and beard, —

  These he stopped: bade the wind’s spite howl or whine

  Its worst outside the building, wind conceives

  Meant to be pulled together and become

  Its natural playground so. What foolishness

  Of dust or feather proved importunate

  And fell ‘twixt thumb and finger, found them gripe

  To detriment of bulk and buoyancy.

  Then followed silence and submission. Next,

  The inevitable comment came on work

  And work’s cost: he was censured as profuse

  Of human life and liberty: too swift

  And thorough his procedure, who had lagged

  At the outset, lost the opportunity

  Through timid scruples as to right and wrong.

  “There’s no such certain mark of a small mind”

  (So did Sagacity explain the fault)

  “As when it needs must square away and sink