Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

Rather by grinning ‘Cheat, thy gold is brass!’

  Than granting ‘Perfect piece of purest ore!

  Still, is it less good mintage, this of mine?’

  Well, and these right and sound results of soul

  I’ the strong and healthy one wise man, — shall such

  Be vainly sought for, scornfully renounced

  I’ the multitude that make the entity —

  The people? — to what purpose, if no less,

  In power and purity of soul, below

  The reach of the unit than, by multiplied

  Might of the body, vulgarized the more,

  Above, in thick and threefold brutishness?

  See! you accept such one wise man, myself:

  Wiser or less wise, still I operate

  From my own stock of wisdom, nor exact

  Of other sort of natures you admire,

  That whoso rhymes a sonnet pays a tax,

  Who paints a landscape dips brush at his cost,

  Who scores a septett true for strings and wind

  Mulcted must be — else how should I impose

  Properly, attitudinize aright,

  Did such conflicting claims as these divert

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau from observing me?

  Therefore, what I find facile, you be sure,

  With effort or without it, you shall dare —

  You, I aspire to make my better self

  And truly the Great Nation. No more war

  For war’s sake, then! and, — seeing, wickedness

  Springs out of folly, no more foolish dread

  O’ the neighbor waxing too inordinate

  A rival, through his gain of wealth and ease!

  What? — keep me patient, Powers! — the people here,

  Earth presses to her heart, nor owns a pride

  Above her pride i’ the race all flame and air

  And aspiration to the boundless Great,

  The incommensurably Beautiful —

  Whose very falterings groundward come of flight

  Urged by a pinion all too passionate

  For heaven and what it holds of gloom and glow:

  Bravest of thinkers, bravest of the brave

  Doers, exalt in Science, rapturous

  In Art, the — more than all — magnetic race

  To fascinate their fellows, mould mankind

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau-fashion, — these, what? — these

  Will have to abdicate their primacy

  Should such a nation sell them steel untaxed,

  And such another take itself, on hire

  For the natural sennight, somebody for lord

  Unpatronized by me whose back was turned?

  Or such another yet would fain build bridge,

  Lay rail, drive tunnel, busy its poor self

  With its appropriate fancy: so there’s — flash —

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau up in arms at once!

  Genius has somewhat of the infantine:

  But of the childish, not a touch nor taint

  Except through self-will, which, being foolishness,

  Is certain, soon or late, of punishment

  Which Providence avert! — and that it may

  Avert what both of us would so deserve,

  No foolish dread o’ the neighbor, I enjoin!

  By consequence, no wicked war with him,

  While I rule!

  ”Does that mean — no war at all

  When just the wickedness I here proscribe

  Comes, haply, from the neighbor? Does my speech

  Precede the praying that you beat the sword

  To ploughshare, and the spear to pruning-hook,

  And sit down henceforth under your own vine

  And fig-tree through the sleepy summer month,

  Letting what hurly-burly please explode

  On the other side the mountain-frontier? No,

  Beloved! I foresee and I announce

  Necessity of warfare in one case,

  For one cause: one way, I bid broach the blood

  O’ the world. For truth and right, and only right

  And truth, — right, truth, on the absolute scale of God,

  No pettiness of man’ s admeasurement, —

  In such case only, and for such one cause,

  Fight your hearts out, whatever fate betide

  Hands energetic to the uttermost!

  Lie not! Endure no lie which needs your heart

  And hand to push it out of mankind’s path —

  No lie that lets the natural forces work

  Too long ere lay it plain and pulverized —

  Seeing man’s life lasts only twenty years!

  And such a lie, before both man and God,

  Proving, at this time present, Austria’s rule

  O’er Italy, — for Austria’s sake the first,

  Italy’s next, and our sake last of all,

  Come with me and deliver Italy!

  Smite hip and thigh until the oppressor leave

  Free from the Adriatic to the Alps

  The oppressed one! We were they who laid her low

  In the old bad day when Villany braved Truth

  And Right, and laughed ‘Henceforward, God deposed,

  Satan we set to rule for evermore

  I’ the world!’ — whereof to stop the consequence,

  And for atonement of false glory there

  Gaped at and gabbled over by the world,

  I purpose to get God enthroned again

  For what the world will gird at as sheer shame

  I’ the cost of blood and treasure. ‘All for naught —

  Not even, say, some patch of province, splice

  O’ the frontier? — some snug honorarium-fee

  Shut into glove and pocketed apace?’

  (Questions Sagacity) ‘in deference

  To the natural susceptibility

  Of folks at home, unwitting of that pitch

  You soar to, and misdoubting if Truth, Right

  And the other such augustnesses repay

  Expenditure in coin o’ the realm, — but prompt

  To recognize the cession of Savoy

  And Nice as marketable value!’ No,

  Sagacity, go preach to Metternich,

  And, sermon ended, stay where he resides!

  Hohenstiel-Schwangau, you and I must march

  The other road! war for the hate of war,

  Not love, this once!” So Italy was free.

  What else noteworthy and commendable

  I’ the man’s career? — that he was resolute —

  No trepidation, much less treachery

  On his part, should imperil from its poise

  The ball o’ the world, heaved up at such expense

  Of pains so far, and ready to rebound,

  Let but a finger maladroitly fall,

  Under pretence of making fast and sure

  The inch gained by late volubility,

  And run itself back to the ancient rest

  At foot o’ the mountain. Thus he ruled, gave proof

  The world had gained a point, progressive so,

  By choice, this time, as will and power concurred,

  O’ the fittest man to rule; not chance of birth,

  Or such-like dice-throw. Oft Sagacity

  Was at his ear: “Confirm this clear advance,

  Support this wise procedure! You, elect

  O’ the people, mean to justify their choice

  And out-king all the kingly imbeciles;

  But that’s just half the enterprise: remains

  You find them a successor like yourself,

  In head and heart and eye and hand and aim,

  Or all done’s undone; and whom hope to mould

  So like you as the pupil Nature sends,

  The son and heir’s completeness which you lack?

  Lack it no longer! Wed the pick o’ the world,

  Where’er you think you find it. Should she ber />
  A queen, — tell Hohenstielers-Schwangauese

  ‘So do the old enthroned decrepitudes

  Acknowledge, in the rotten hearts of them,

  Their knell is knolled, they hasten to make peace

  With the new order, recognize in me!

  Your right to constitute what king you will,

  Cringe therefore crown in hand and bride on arm,

  To both of us: we triumph, I suppose!’

  Is it the other sort of rank? bright eye,

  Soft smile, and so forth, all her queenly boast?

  Undaunted the exordium — ’I, the man

  O’ the people, with the people mate myself:

  So stand, so fall. Kings, keep your crowns and brides!

  Our progeny (if Providence agree)

  Shall live to tread the baubles underfoot

  And bid the scarecrows consort with their kin.

  For son, as for his sire, be the free wife

  In the free state!’”

  That is, Sagacity

  Would prop up one more lie, the most of all

  Pernicious fancy that the son and heir

  Receives the genius from the sire, himself

  Transmits as surely, — ask experience else!

  Which answers, — never was so plain a truth

  As that God drops his seed of heavenly flame

  Just where He wills on earth: sometimes where man

  Seems to tempt — such the accumulated store

  Of faculties one spark to fire the heap;

  Sometimes where, fire-ball-like, it falls upon

  The naked unpreparedness of rock,

  Burns, beaconing the nations through their night.

  Faculties, fuel for the flame? All helps

  Come, ought to come, or come not, crossed by chance,

  From culture and transmission. What’s your want

  I’ the son and heir? Sympathy, aptitude,

  Teachableness, the fuel for the flame?

  You’ll have them for your pains: but the flame’s self,

  The novel thought of God shall light the world?

  No, poet, though your offspring rhyme and chime

  I’ the cradle, — painter, no, for all your pet

  Draws his first eye, beats Salvatore’s boy, —

  And thrice no, statesman, should your progeny

  Tie bib and tucker with no tape but red,

  And make a foolscap kite of protocols!

  Critic and copyist and bureaucrat

  To heart’s content! The seed o’ the apple-tree

  Brings forth another tree which bears a crab:

  ‘Tis the great gardener grafts the excellence

  On wildings where he will.

  ”How plain I view,

  Across those misty years ‘twixt me and Rome” —

  (Such the man’s answer to Sagacity)

  “The little wayside temple, half-way down

  To a mild river that makes oxen white

  Miraculously, un-mouse-colors skin,

  Or so the Roman country people dream!

  I view that sweet small shrub-embedded shrine

  On the declivity, was sacred once

  To a transmuting Genius of the land,

  Could touch and turn its dunnest natures bright,

  — Since Italy means the Land of the Ox, we know.

  Well, how was it the due succession fell

  From priest to priest who ministered i’ the cool

  Calm fane o’ the Clitumnian god? The sire

  Brought forth a son and sacerdotal sprout

  Endowed instinctively with good and grace

  To suit the gliding gentleness below —

  Did he? Tradition tells another tale.

  Each priest obtained his predecessor’s staff,

  Robe, fillet and insignia, blamelessly,

  By springing out of ambush, soon or late,

  And slaying him: the initiative rite

  Simply was murder, save that murder took,

  I’ the case, another and religious name.

  So it was once, is now, shall ever be

  With genius and its priesthood in this world:

  The new power slays the old — but handsomely.

  There he lies, not diminished by an inch

  Of stature that he graced the altar with,

  Though somebody of other bulk and build

  Cries ‘What a goodly personage lies here

  Reddening the water where the bulrush roots!

  May I conduct the service in his place,

  Decently and in order, as did he,

  And, as he did not, keep a wary watch

  When meditating ‘neath yon willow shade!’

  Find out your best man, sure the son of him

  Will prove best man again, and, better still

  Somehow than best, the grandson-prodigy!

  You think the world would last another day

  Did we so make us masters of the trick

  Whereby the works go, we could pre-arrange

  Their play and reach perfection when we please?

  Depend on it, the change and the surprise

  Are part o’ the plan: ‘tis we wish steadiness;

  Nature prefers a motion by unrest,

  Advancement through this force which jostles that.

  And so, since much remains i’ the world to see,

  Here’s the world still, affording God the sight.”

  Thus did the man refute Sagacity

  Ever at this old whisper in his ear:

  “Here are you picked out, by a miracle,

  And placed conspicuously enough, folks say

  And you believe, by Providence outright

  Taking a new way — nor without success —

  To put the world upon its mettle: good!

  But Fortune alternates with Providence;

  Resource is soon exhausted. Never count

  On such a happy hit occurring twice!

  Try the old method next time!”

  ”Old enough,”

  (At whisper in his ear, the laugh outbroke)

  “And mode the most discredited of all,

  By just the men and women who make boast

  They are kings and queens thereby! Mere self-defence

  Should teach them, on one chapter of the law

  Must be no sort of trifling — chastity:

  They stand or fall, as their progenitors

  Were chaste or unchaste. Now, run eye around

  My crowned acquaintance, give each life its look

  And no more, — why, you’d think each life was led

  Purposely for example of what pains

  Who leads it took to cure the prejudice,

  And prove there’s nothing so unprovable

  As who is who, what son of what a sire,

  And, — inferentially — how faint the chance

  That the next generation needs to fear

  Another fool o’ the selfsame type as he

  Happily regnant now by right divine

  And luck o’ the pillow! No: select your lord

  By the direct employment of your brains

  As best you may, — bad as the blunder prove,

  A far worse evil stank beneath the sun

  When some legitimate blockhead managed so

  Matters that high time was to interfere,

  Though interference came from hell itself

  And not the blind mad miserable mob

  Happily ruled so long by pillow-luck

  And divine right, by lies in short, not truth.

  And meanwhile use the allotted minute . . . ”

  One, —

  Two, three, four, five — yes, five the pendule warns!

  Eh? Why, this wild work wanders past all bound

  And bearing! Exile, Leicester-square, the life

  I’ the old gay miserable time, rehearsed,

  Tried on again like cast clothes, still to serve

  Ata
pinch, perhaps? “Who’s who?” was aptly asked,

  Since certainly I am not I! since when?

  Where is the bud-mouthed arbitress? A nod

  Out-Homering Homer! Stay — there flits the clue

  I fain would find the end of! Yes, — ”Meanwhile,

  Use the allotted minute!” Well, you see,

  (Veracious and imaginary Thiers,

  Who map out thus the life I might have led,

  But did not, — all the worse for earth and me —

  Doff spectacles, wipe pen, shut book, decamp!)

  You see ‘tis easy in heroics! Plain

  Pedestrian speech shall help me perorate.

  Ah, if one had no need to use the tongue!

  How obvious and how easy ‘tis to talk

  Inside the soul, a ghostly dialogue —

  Instincts with guesses, — instinct, guess, again

  With dubious knowledge, half-experience: each

  And all the interlocutors alike

  Subordinating, — as decorum bids,

  Oh, never fear! but still decisively, —

  Claims from without that take too high a tone,

  — (“God wills this, man wants that, the dignity

  Prescribed a prince would wish the other thing”) —

  Putting them back to insignificance

  Beside one intimatest fact — myself

  Am first to be considered, since I live

  Twenty years longer and then end, perhaps!

  But, where one ceases to soliloquize,

  Somehow the motives, that did well enough

  I’ the darkness, when you bring them into light

  Are found, like those famed cave-fish, to lack eye

  And organ for the upper magnitudes.

  The other common creatures, of less fine

  Existence, that acknowledge earth and heaven,

  Have it their own way in the argument.

  Yes, forced to speak, one stoops to say — one’s aim

  Was — what it peradventure should have been:

  To renovate a people, mend or end

  That bane come of a blessing meant the world —

  Inordinate culture of the sense made quick

  By soul, — the lust o’ the flesh, lust of the eye,

  And pride of life, — and, consequent on these,

  The worship of that prince o’ the power o’ the air

  Who paints the cloud and fills the emptiness

  And bids his votaries, famishing for truth,

  Feed on a lie.

  Alack, one lies oneself

  Even in the stating that one’s end was truth,

  Truth only, if one states as much in words!

  Give me the inner chamber of the soul

  For obvious easy argument! ‘tis there

  One pits the silent truth against a lie —

  Truth which breaks shell a careless simple bird,

  Nor wants a gorget nor a beak filed fine,

  Steel spurs, and the whole armory o’ the tongue,