Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

Even as I gazed, to smooth — only get close enough!

  — What was all this except the lesson of a life?

  CIX.

  And — consequent upon the learning how from strife

  Grew peace — from evil, good — came knowledge that, to get

  Acquaintance with the way o’ the world, we must nor fret

  Nor fume, on altitudes of self-sufficiency,

  But bid a frank farewell to what — we think — should be,

  And, with as good a grace, welcome what is — we find.

  CX.

  Is — for the hour, observe! Since something to my mind

  Suggested soon the fancy, nay, certitude that change,

  Never suspending touch, continued to derange

  What architecture, we, walled up within the cirque

  O’ the world, consider fixed as fate, not fairy-work.

  For those were temples, sure, which tremblingly grew blank

  From bright, then broke afresh in triumph, — ah, but sank

  As soon, for liquid change through artery and vein

  O’ the very marble wound its way! And first a stain

  Would startle and offend amid the glory; next,

  Spot swift succeeded spot, but found me less perplexed

  By portents; then as ‘t were a sleepiness soft stole

  Over the stately fane, and shadow sucked the whole

  Façade into itself, made uniformly earth

  What was a piece of heaven; till, lo, a second birth,

  And the veil broke away because of something new

  Inside, that pushed to gain an outlet, paused in view

  At last, and proved a growth of stone or brick or wood

  Which, alien to the aim o’ the Builder, somehow stood

  The test, could satisfy, if not the early race

  For whom he built, at least our present populace,

  Who must not bear the blame for what, blamed, proves mishap

  Of the Artist: his work gone, another fills the gap,

  Serves the prime purpose so. Undoubtedly there spreads

  Building around, above, which makes men lift their heads

  To look at, or look through, or look — for aught I care —

  Over: if only up, it is, not down, they stare,

  “Commercing with the skies,” and not the pavement in the Square.

  CXI.

  But are they only temples that subdivide, collapse,

  And tower again, transformed? Academies, perhaps!

  Domes where dwells Learning, seats of Science, bower and hall

  Which house Philosophy — do these, too, rise and fall,

  Based though foundations be on steadfast mother-earth,

  With no chimeric claim to supermundane birth,

  No boast that, dropped from cloud, they did not grow from ground?

  Why, these fare worst of all! these vanish and are found

  Nowhere, by who tasks eye some twice within his term

  Of threescore years and ten, for tidings what each germ

  Has burgeoned out into, whereof the promise stunned

  His ear with such acclaim, — praise-payment to refund

  The praisers, never doubt, some twice before they die

  Whose days are long i’ the land.

  CXII.

  Alack, Philosophy!

  Despite the chop and change, diminished or increased,

  Patched-up and plastered-o’er, Religion stands at least

  I’ the temple-type. But thou? Here gape I, all agog

  These thirty years, to learn how tadpole turns to frog;

  And thrice at least have gazed with mild astonishment,

  As, skyward up and up, some fire-new fabric sent

  Its challenge to mankind that, clustered underneath

  To hear the word, they straight believe, ay, in the teeth

  O’ the Past, clap hands and hail triumphant Truth’s outbreak —

  Tadpole-frog-theory propounded past mistake!

  In vain! A something ails the edifice, it bends,

  It bows, it buries . . . Haste! cry “Heads below” to friends —

  But have no fear they find, when smother shall subside,

  Some substitution perk with unabated pride

  I’ the predecessor’s place!

  CXIII.

  No, — the one voice which failed

  Never, the preachment’s coign of vantage nothing ailed, —

  That had the luck to lodge i’ the house not made with hands!

  And all it preached was this: “Truth builds upon the sands,

  Though stationed on a rock: and so her work decays,

  And so she builds afresh, with like result. Nought stays

  But just the fact that Truth not only is, but fain

  Would have men know she needs must be, by each so plain

  Attempt to visibly inhabit where they dwell.”

  Her works are work, while she is she; that work does well

  Which lasts mankind their life-time through, and lets believe

  One generation more, that, though sand run through sieve,

  Yet earth now reached is rock, and what we moderns find

  Erected here is Truth, who, ‘stablished to her mind

  I’ the fulness of the days, will never change in show

  More than in substance erst: men thought they knew; we know!

  CXIV.

  Do you, my generation? Well, let the blocks prove mist

  I’ the main enclosure, — church and college, if they list,

  Be something for a time, and everything anon,

  And anything awhile, as fit is off or on,

  Till they grow nothing, soon to re-appear no less

  As something, — shape re-shaped, till out of shapelessness

  Come shape again as sure! no doubt, or round or square

  Or polygon its front, some building will be there,

  Do duty in that nook o’ the wall o’ the world where once

  The Architect saw fit precisely to ensconce

  College or church, and bid such bulwark guard the line

  O’ the barrier round about, humanity’s confine.

  CXV.

  Leave watching change at work i’ the greater scale, on these

  The main supports, and turn to their interstices

  Filled up by fabrics too, less costly and less rare,

  Yet of importance, yet essential to the Fair

  They help to circumscribe, instruct and regulate!

  See, where each booth-front boasts, in letters small or great,

  Its specialty, proclaims its privilege to stop

  A breach, beside the best!

  CXVI.

  Here History keeps shop,

  Tells how past deeds were done, so and not otherwise:

  “Man! hold truth evermore! forget the early lies!”

  There sits Morality, demure behind her stall,

  Dealing out life and death: “This is the thing to call

  Right, and this other, wrong; thus think, thus do, thus say,

  Thus joy, thus suffer! — not to-day as yesterday —

  Yesterday’s doctrine dead, this only shall endure!

  Obey its voice and live!” — enjoins the dame demure.

  While Art gives flag to breeze, bids drum beat, trumpet blow,

  Inviting eye and ear to yonder raree-show.

  Up goes the canvas, hauled to height of pole. I think,

  We know the way — long lost, late learned — to paint! A wink

  Of eye, and lo, the pose! the statue on its plinth!

  How could we moderns miss the heart o’ the labyrinth

  Perversely all these years, permit the Greek seclude

  His secret till to-day? And here’s another feud

  Now happily composed: inspect this quartett-score!

  Got long past melody, no word has Music more

  To say to mortal man! But is the bard to be

  Behindhand
? Here’s his book, and now perhaps you see

  At length what poetry can do!

  CXVII.

  Why, that’s stability

  Itself, that change on change we sorrowfully saw

  Creep o’er the prouder piles! We acquiesced in law

  When the fine gold grew dim i’ the temple, when the brass

  Which pillared that so brave abode where Knowledge was,

  Bowed and resigned the trust; but, bear all this caprice,

  Harlequinade where swift to birth succeeds decease

  Of hue at every turn o’ the tinsel-flag which flames

  While Art holds booth in Fair? Such glories chased by shames

  Like these, distract beyond the solemn and august

  Procedure to decay, evanishment in dust,

  Of those marmoreal domes, — above vicissitude,

  We used to hope!

  CXVIII.

  “So, all is change, in fine,” pursued

  The preachment to a pause. When — ”All is permanence!”

  Returned a voice. Within? without? No matter whence

  The explanation came: for, understand, I ought

  To simply say — ”I saw,” each thing I say “I thought.”

  Since ever as, unrolled, the strange scene-picture grew

  Before me, sight flashed first, though mental comment too

  Would follow in a trice, come hobblingly to halt.

  CXIX.

  So, what did I see next but, — much as when the vault

  I’ the west, — wherein we watch the vapoury manifold

  Transfiguration, — tired turns blaze to black, — behold,

  Peak reconciled to base, dark ending feud with bright,

  The multiform subsides, becomes the definite.

  Contrasting life and strife, where battle they i’ the blank

  Severity of peace in death, for which we thank

  One wind that comes to quell the concourse, drive at last

  Things to a shape which suits the close of things, and cast

  Palpably o’er vexed earth heaven’s mantle of repose?

  CXX.

  Just so, in Venice’ Square, that things were at the close

  Was signalled to my sense; for I perceived arrest

  O’ the change all round about. As if some impulse pressed

  Each gently into each, what was distinctness, late,

  Grew vague, and, line from line no longer separate,

  No matter what its style, edifice . . . shall I say,

  Died into edifice? I find no simpler way

  Of saying how, without or dash or shock or trace

  Of violence, I found unity in the place

  Of temple, tower, — nay, hall and house and hut, — one blank

  Severity of peace in death; to which they sank

  Resigned enough, till . . . ah, conjecture, I beseech,

  What special blank did they agree to, all and each?

  What common shape was that wherein they mutely merged

  Likes and dislikes of form, so plain before?

  CXXI.

  I urged

  Your step this way, prolonged our path of enterprise

  To where we stand at last, in order that your eyes

  Might see the very thing, and save my tongue describe

  The Druid monument which fronts you. Could I bribe

  Nature to come in aid, illustrate what I mean,

  What wants there she should lend to solemnize the scene?

  CXXII.

  How does it strike you, this construction gaunt and grey —

  Sole object, these piled stones, that gleam unground-away

  By twilight’s hungry jaw, which champs fine all beside

  I’ the solitary waste we grope through? Oh, no guide

  Need we to grope our way and reach the monstrous door

  Of granite! Take my word, the deeper you explore

  That caverned passage, filled with fancies to the brim,

  The less will you approve the adventure! such a grim

  Bar-sinister soon blocks abrupt your path, and ends

  All with a cold dread shape, — shape whereon Learning spends

  Labour, and leaves the text obscurer for the gloss,

  While Ignorance reads right — recoiling from that Cross!

  Whence came the mass and mass, strange quality of stone

  Unquarried anywhere i’ the region round? Unknown!

  Just as unknown, how such enormity could be

  Conveyed by land, or else transported over sea,

  And laid in order, so, precisely each on each,

  As you and I would build a grotto where the beach

  Sheds shell — to last an hour: this building lasts from age

  To age the same. But why?

  CXXIII.

  Ask Learning! I engage

  You get a prosy wherefore, shall help you to advance

  In knowledge just as much as helps you Ignorance

  Surmising, in the mouth of peasant-lad or lass,

  “I heard my father say he understood it was

  A building, people built as soon as earth was made

  Almost, because they might forget (they were afraid)

  Earth did not make itself, but came of Somebody.

  They laboured that their work might last, and show thereby

  He stays, while we and earth, and all things come and go.

  Come whence? Go whither? That, when come and gone, we know

  Perhaps, but not while earth and all things need our best

  Attention: we must wait and die to know the rest.

  Ask, if that’s true, what use in setting up the pile?

  To make one fear and hope: remind us, all the while

  We come and go, outside there’s Somebody that stays;

  A circumstance which ought to make us mind our ways,

  Because, — whatever end we answer by this life, —

  Next time, best chance must be for who, with toil and strife,

  Manages now to live most like what he was meant

  Become: since who succeeds so far, ‘t is evident,

  Stands foremost on the file; who fails, has less to hope

  From new promotion. That’s the rule — with even a rope

  Of mushrooms, like this rope I dangle! those that grew

  Greatest and roundest, all in life they had to do,

  Gain a reward, a grace they never dreamed, I think;

  Since, outside white as milk and inside black as ink,

  They go to the Great House to make a dainty dish

  For Don and Donna; while this basket-load, I wish

  Well off my arm, it breaks, — no starveling of the heap

  But had his share of dew, his proper length of sleep

  I’ the sunshine: yet, of all, the outcome is — this queer

  Cribbed quantity of dwarfs which burthen basket here

  Till I reach home; ‘t is there that, having run their rigs,

  They end their earthly race, are flung as food for pigs.

  Any more use I see? Well, you must know, there lies

  Something, the Curé says, that points to mysteries

  Above our grasp: a huge stone pillar, once upright,

  Now laid at length, half-lost — discreetly shunning sight

  I’ the bush and briar, because of stories in the air —

  Hints what it signified, and why was stationed there,

  Once on a time. In vain the Curé tasked his lungs —

  Showed, in a preachment, how, at bottom of the rungs

  O’ the ladder, Jacob saw, where heavenly angels stept

  Up and down, lay a stone which served him, while he slept,

  For pillow; when he woke, he set the same upright

  As pillar, and a-top poured oil: things requisite

  To instruct posterity, there mounts from floor to roof,

  A staircase, earth to heaven; and also put in proof,

  When
we have scaled the sky, we well may let alone

  What raised us from the ground, and, — paying to the stone

  Proper respect, of course, — take staff and go our way,

  Leaving the Pagan night for Christian break of day.

  ‘For,’ preached he, ‘what they dreamed, these Pagans wide-awake

  ‘We Christians may behold. How strange, then, were mistake

  ‘Did anybody style the stone, — because of drop

  ‘Remaining there from oil which Jacob poured a-top, —

  ‘Itself the Gate of Heaven, itself the end, and not

  ‘The means thereto!’ Thus preached the Curé, and no jot

  The more persuaded people but that, what once a thing

  Meant and had right to mean, it still must mean. So cling

  Folk somehow to the prime authoritative speech,

  And so distrust report, it seems as they could reach

  Far better the arch-word, whereon their fate depends,

  Through rude charactery, than all the grace it lends,

  That lettering of your scribes! who flourish pen apace

  And ornament the text, they say — we say, efface.

  Hence, when the earth began its life afresh in May,

  And fruit-trees bloomed, and waves would wanton, and the bay

  Ruffle its wealth of weed, and stranger-birds arrive,

  And beasts take each a mate, — folk, too, found sensitive,

  Surmised the old grey stone upright there, through such tracts

  Of solitariness and silence, kept the facts

  Entrusted it, could deal out doctrine, did it please:

  No fresh and frothy draught, but liquor on the lees,

  Strong, savage and sincere: first bleedings from a vine

  Whereof the product now do Curés so refine

  To insipidity, that, when heart sinks, we strive

  And strike from the old stone the old restorative.

  ‘Which is?’ — why, go and ask our grandames how they used

  To dance around it, till the Curé disabused

  Their ignorance, and bade the parish in a band

  Lay flat the obtrusive thing that cumbered so the land!

  And there, accordingly, in bush and briar it — ’bides

  ‘Its time to rise again!’ (so somebody derides,

  That’s pert from Paris) ‘since, yon spire, you keep erect

  ‘Yonder, and pray beneath, is nothing, I suspect,

  ‘But just the symbol’s self, expressed in slate for rock,

  ‘Art’s smooth for Nature’s rough, new chip from the old block!’

  There, sir, my say is said! Thanks, and Saint Gille increase

  The wealth bestowed so well!” — wherewith he pockets piece,

  Doffs cap, and takes the road. I leave in Learning’s clutch