Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Because there’s profit also in the sport.

  I gamed with men of equal age and craft:

  I steal here with a boy as green as grass

  Whom I have tightened hold on slow and sure

  This long while, just to bring about to-day

  When the boy beats me hollow, buries me

  In ruin who was sure to beggar him.

  O time indeed I should look up and laugh

  ‘Surely she closes on me!’ Here you stand!”

  And stand she does: while volubility,

  With him, keeps on the increase, for his tongue

  After long locking-up is loosed for once.

  “Certain the taunt is happy!” he resumes:

  “So, I it was allured you — only I

  — I, and none other — to this spectacle —

  Your triumph, my despair — you woman-fiend

  That front me! Well, I have my wish, then! See

  The low wide brow oppressed by sweeps of hair

  Darker and darker as they coil and swathe

  The crowned corpse-wanness whence the eyes burn black

  Not asleep now! not pin-points dwarfed beneath

  Either great bridging eyebrow — poor blank beads —

  Babies, I’ve pleased to pity in my time:

  How they protrude and glow immense with hate!

  The long triumphant nose attains — retains

  Just the perfection; and there’s scarlet-skein

  My ancient enemy, her lip and lip,

  Sense-free, sense-frighting lips clenched cold and bold

  Because of chin, that based resolve beneath!

  Then the columnar neck completes the whole

  Greek-sculpture-baffling body! Do I see?

  Can I observe? You wait next word to come?

  Well, wait and want! since no one blight I bid

  Consume one least perfection. Each and all,

  As they are rightly shocking now to me,

  So may they still continue! Value them?

  Ay, as the vendor knows the money-worth

  Of his Greek statue, fools aspire to buy,

  And he to see the back of! Let us laugh!

  You have absolved me from my sin at least!

  You stand stout, strong, in the rude health of hate,

  No touch of the tame timid nullity

  My cowardice, forsooth, has practised on!

  Ay, while you seemed to hint some fine fifth act

  Of tragedy should freeze blood, end the farce,

  I never doubted all was joke. I kept, 100

  May be, an eye alert on paragraphs,

  Newspaper-notice, — let no inquest slip,

  Accident, disappearance: sound and safe

  Were you, my victim, not of mind to die!

  So, my worst fancy that could spoil the smooth

  Of pillow, and arrest descent of sleep

  Was ‘Into what dim hole can she have dived,

  She and her wrongs, her woe that’s wearing flesh

  And blood away?’ Whereas, see, sorrow swells!

  Or, fattened, fulsome, have you fed on me,

  Sucked out my substance? How much gloss, I pray,

  O’erbloomed those hair-swathes when there crept from you

  To me that craze, else unaccountable,

  Which urged me to contest our county-seat

  With whom but my own brother’s nominee?

  Did that mouth’s pulp glow ruby from carmine

  While I misused my moment, pushed, — one word, —

  One hair’s breadth more of gesture, — idiot-like

  Past passion, floundered on to the grotesque,

  And lost the heiress in a grin? At least,

  You made no such mistake! You tickled fish,

  Landed your prize the true artistic way!

  How did the smug young curate rise to tune

  Of ‘Friend, a fatal fact divides us! Love

  Suits me no longer! I have suffered shame,

  Betrayal: past is past; the future — yours —

  Shall never be contaminate by mine!

  I might have spared me this confession, not

  — O, never by some hideousest of lies,

  Easy, impenetrable! No! but say,

  By just the quiet answer — ”I am cold.”

  Falsehood avaunt, each shadow of thee, hence!

  Had happier fortune willed ... but dreams are vain!

  Now, leave me — yes, for pity’s sake!’ Aha,

  Who fails to see the curate as his face

  Reddened and whitened, wanted handkerchief

  At wrinkling brow and twinkling eye, until

  Out burst the proper ‘Angel, whom the fiend

  Has thought to smirch, — thy whiteness, at one wipe

  Of holy cambric, shall disgrace the swan!

  Mine be the task’ ... and so forth! Fool? not he!

  Cunning in flavours, rather! What but sour

  Suspected makes the sweetness doubly sweet?

  And what stings love from faint to flamboyant

  But the fear-sprinkle? Even horror helps —

  ‘Love’s flame in me by such recited wrong

  Drenched, quenched, indeed? It burns the fiercelier thence!’

  Why, I have known men never love their wives

  Till somebody — myself, suppose — had ‘drenched

  And quenched love,’ so the blockheads whined: as if

  The fluid fire that lifts the torpid limb

  Were a wrong done to palsy. But I thrilled

  No palsied person: half my age, or less

  The curate was, I’ll wager: o’er young blood

  Your beauty triumphed! Eh, but — was it he?

  Then, it was he, I heard of! None beside!

  How frank you were about the audacious boy

  Who fell upon you like a thunderbolt —

  Passion and protestation! He it was

  Reserved in petto! Ay, and ‘rich’ beside

  ‘Rich’ — how supremely did disdain curl nose!

  All that I heard was — ’wedded to a priest;’

  Informants sunk youth, riches and the rest.

  And so my lawless love disparted loves,

  That loves might come together with a rush!

  Surely this last achievement sucked me dry:

  Indeed, that way my wits went! Mistress-queen,

  Be merciful and let your subject slink

  Into dark safety! He’s a beggar, see —

  Do not turn back his ship, Australia-bound,

  And bid her land him right amid some crowd

  Of creditors, assembled by your curse!

  Don’t cause the very rope to crack (you can!)

  Whereon he spends his last (friend’s) sixpence, just

  The moment when he hoped to hang himself!

  Be satisfied you beat him!”

  She replies —

  “Beat him! I do. To all that you confess

  Of abject failure, I extend belief.

  Your very face confirms it: God is just!

  Let my face — fix your eyes! — in turn confirm

  What I shall say. All-abject’s but half truth;

  Add to all-abject knave as perfect fool!

  So is it you probed human nature, so

  Prognosticated of me? Lay these words

  To heart then, or where God meant heart should lurk!

  That moment when you first revealed yourself,

  My simple impulse prompted — end forthwith

  The ruin of a life uprooted thus

  To surely perish! How should such a tree

  Henceforward baulk the wind of its worst sport,

  Fail to go falling deeper, falling down

  From sin to sin until some depth were reached

  Doomed to the weakest by the wickedest

  Of weak and wicked human kind? But when,

  That self-display made absolute, — behold

  A new revealmen
t! — round you pleased to veer,

  Propose me what should prompt annul the past,

  Make me ‘amends by marriage’ — in your phrase,

  Incorporate me henceforth, body and soul,

  With soul and body which mere brushing past 200

  Brought leprosy upon me — ’marry’ these!

  Why, then despair broke, re-assurance dawned,

  Clear-sighted was I that who hurled contempt

  As I — thank God! — at the contemptible,

  Was scarce an utter weakling. Rent away

  By treason from my rightful pride of place,

  I was not destined to the shame below.

  A cleft had caught me: I might perish there,

  But thence to be dislodged and whirled at last

  Where the black torrent sweeps the sewage — no!

  ‘Bare breast be on hard rock,’ laughed out my soul

  In gratitude, ‘howe’er rock’s grip may grind!

  The plain, rough, wretched holdfast shall suffice

  This wreck of me!’ The wind, — I broke in bloom

  At passage of, — which stripped me bole and branch,

  Twisted me up and tossed me here, — turns back

  And, playful ever, would replant the spoil?

  Be satisfied, not one least leaf that’s mine

  Shall henceforth help wind’s sport to exercise!

  Rather I give such remnant to the rock

  Which never dreamed a straw would settle there.

  Rock may not thank me, may not feel my breast,

  Even: enough that I feel, hard and cold,

  Its safety my salvation. Safe and saved,

  I lived, live. When the tempter shall persuade

  His prey to slip down, slide off, trust the wind, —

  Now that I know if God or Satan be

  Prince of the Power of the Air, — then, then, indeed,

  Let my life end and degradation too!”

  “Good!” he smiles, “true Lord Byron! ‘Tree and rock:’

  ‘Rock’ — there’s advancement! He’s at first a youth,

  Rich, worthless therefore; next he grows a priest:

  Youth, riches prove a notable resource,

  When to leave me for their possessor gluts

  Malice abundantly; and now, last change,

  The young rich parson represents a rock

  — Bloodstone, no doubt. He’s Evangelical?

  Your Ritualists prefer the Church for spouse!”

  She speaks.

  ”I have a story to relate.

  There was a parish-priest, my father knew,

  Elderly, poor: I used to pity him

  Before I learned what woes are pity-worth.

  Elderly was grown old now, scanty means

  Were straitening fast to poverty, beside

  The ailments which await in such a case.

  Limited every way, a perfect man

  Within the bounds built up and up since birth

  Breast-high about him till the outside world

  Was blank save overhead one blue bit of sky —

  Faith: he had faith in dogma, small or great,

  As in the fact that if he clave his skull

  He’d find a brain there: such a fact who proves

  No falsehood by experiment at price

  Of soul and body? The one rule of life

  Delivered him in childhood was ‘Obey!

  Labour!’ He had obeyed and laboured — tame,

  True to the mill-track blinked on from above.

  Some scholarship he may have gained in youth:

  Gone — dropt or flung behind. Some blossom-flake,

  Spring’s boon, descends on every vernal head,

  I used to think; but January joins

  December, as his year had known no May

  Trouble its snow-deposit, — cold and old!

  I heard it was his will to take a wife,

  A helpmate. Duty bade him tend and teach —

  How? with experience null, nor sympathy

  Abundant, — while himself worked dogma dead,

  Who would play ministrant to sickness, age,

  Womankind, childhood? These demand a wife.

  Supply the want, then! theirs the wife; for him —

  No coarsest sample of the proper sex

  But would have served his purpose equally

  With God’s own angel, — let but knowledge match

  Her coarseness: zeal does only half the work.

  I saw this — knew the purblind honest drudge

  Was wearing out his simple blameless life,

  And wanted help beneath a burthen — borne

  To treasure-house or dust-heap, what cared I?

  Partner he needed: I proposed myself,

  Nor much surprised him — duty was so clear!

  Gratitude? What for? Gain of Paradise —

  Escape, perhaps, from the dire penalty

  Of who hides talent in a napkin! No,

  His scruple was — should I be strong enough

  — In body? since of weakness in the mind,

  Weariness in the heart — no fear of these!

  He took me as these Arctic voyagers

  Take an aspirant to their toil and pain:

  Can he endure them? — that’s the point, and not

  — Will he? Who would not, rather! Whereupon,

  I pleaded far more earnestly for leave

  To give myself away, than you to gain

  What you called priceless till you gained the heart

  And soul and body! which, as beggars serve

  Extorted alms, you straightway spat upon.

  Not so my husband, — for I gained my suit,

  And had my value put at once to proof.

  Ask him! These four years I have died away

  In village-life. The village? Ugliness

  At best and filthiness at worst, inside. 300

  Outside, sterility — earth sown with salt

  Or what keeps even grass from growing fresh.

  The life? I teach the poor and learn, myself,

  That commonplace to such stupidity

  Is all-recondite. Being brutalized

  Their true need is brute-language, cheery grunts

  And kindly cluckings, no articulate

  Nonsense that’s elsewhere knowledge. Tend the sick,

  Sickened myself at pig-perversity,

  Cat-craft, dog-snarling, — may be, snapping ...”

  ”Brief:

  You eat that root of bitterness called Man

  — Raw: I prefer it cooked, with social sauce!

  So, he was not the rich youth after all!

  Well, I mistook. But somewhere needs must be

  The compensation. If not young nor rich ...”

  “You interrupt!”

  ”Because you’ve daubed enough

  Bistre for background. Play the artist now,

  Produce your figure well-relieved in front!

  The contrast — do not I anticipate?

  Though neither rich nor young — what then? ‘Tis all

  Forgotten, all this ignobility,

  In the dear home, the darling word, the smile,

  The something sweeter ...”

  ”Yes, you interrupt.

  I have my purpose and proceed. Who lives

  With beasts assumes beast-nature, look and voice,

  And, much more, thought, — for beasts think. Selfishness

  In us met selfishness in them, deserved

  Such answer as it gained. My husband, bent

  On saving his own soul by saving theirs, —

  They, bent on being saved if saving soul

  Included body’s getting bread and cheese

  Somehow in life and somehow after death, —

  Both parties were alike in the same boat,

  One danger, therefore one equality.

  Safety induces culture: culture seeks

  To institute, extend and m
ultiply

  The difference between safe man and man,

  Able to live alone now; progress means

  What but abandonment of fellowship?

  We were in common danger, still stuck close.

  No new books, — were the old ones mastered yet?

  No pictures and no music: these divert

  — What from? the staving danger off! You paint

  The waterspout above, you set to words

  The roaring of the tempest round you? Thanks!

  Amusement? Talk at end of the tired day

  Of the more tiresome morrow! I transcribed

  The page on page of sermon-scrawlings — stopped

  My intellectual eye to sense and sound —

  Vainly: the sound and sense would penetrate

  To brain and plague there in despite of me

  Maddened to know more moral good were done

  Had we two simply sallied forth and preached

  I’ the ‘Green’ they call their grimy, — I with twang

  Of long-disused guitar, — with cut and slash

  Of much misvalued horsewhip he, — to bid

  The peaceable come dance, the peace-breaker

  Pay in his person! Whereas — Heaven and Hell,

  Excite with that, restrain with this! — so dealt

  His drugs my husband; as he dosed himself,

  He drenched his cattle: and, for all my part

  Was just to dub the mortar, never fear

  But drugs, hand pestled at, have poisoned nose!

  Heaven he let pass, left wisely undescribed:

  As applicable therefore to the sleep

  I want, that knows no waking — as to what’s

  Conceived of as the proper prize to tempt

  Souls less world-weary: there, no fault to find!

  But Hell he made explicit. After death,

  Life: man created new, ingeniously

  Perfect for a vindictive purpose now

  That man, first fashioned in beneficence,

  Was proved a failure; intellect at length

  Replacing old obtuseness, memory

  Made mindful of delinquent’s bygone deeds

  Now that remorse was vain, which life-long lay

  Dormant when lesson might be laid to heart;

  New gift of observation up and down

  And round man’s self, new power to apprehend

  Each necessary consequence of act

  In man for well or ill — things obsolete —

  Just granted to supplant the idiocy

  Man’s only guide while act was yet to choose,

  And ill or well momentously its fruit;

  A faculty of immense suffering

  Conferred on mind and body, — mind, erewhile

  Unvisited by one compunctious dream

  During sin’s drunken slumber, startled up,

  Stung through and through by sin’s significance

  Now that the holy was abolished — just