Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  A convent of months, the Observancy.

  Pacchiarotto. XX

  Thus far is a fact: I reserve fancy

  For Fancy’s more proper employment:

  And now she waves wing with enjoyment,

  To tell ye how preached the Superior,

  When somewhat our painter’s exterior

  Was sweetened. He needed (no mincing

  The matter) much soaking and rinsing,

  Nay, rubbing with drugs odoriferous,

  Till, rid of his garments pestiferous,

  And, robed by the help of the Brotherhood

  In odds and ends, — this gown and t’ other hood, —

  His empty inside first well-garnished, —

  He delivered a tale round, unvarnished.

  Pacchiarotto. XXI

  ”Ah, Youth!” ran the Abbot’s admonishment,

  “Thine error scarce moves my astonishment.

  For — why shall I shrink from asserting? —

  Myself have had hopes of converting

  The foolish to wisdom, till, sober,

  My life found its May grow October.

  I talked and I wrote, but, one morning,

  Life’s Autumn bore fruit in this warning:

  ‘Let tongue rest, and quiet thy quill be!

  Earth is earth and not heaven, and ne’er will be.’

  Man’s work is to labor and leaven —

  As best he may — earth here with heaven;

  ‘Tis work for work’s sake that he’s needing:

  Let him work on and on as if speeding

  Work’s end, but not dream of succeeding!

  Because if success were intended,

  Why, heaven would begin ere earth ended.

  A Spare-Horse? Be rather a thill-horse,

  Or — what’s the plain truth — just a mill-horse!

  Earth’s a mill where we grind and wear mufflers:

  A whip awaits shirkers and shufflers

  Who slacken their pace, sick of lugging

  At what don’t advance for their tugging.

  Though round goes the mill, we must still post

  On and on as if moving the mill-post.

  So, grind away, mouth-wise and pen-wise,

  Do all that we can to make men wise!

  And if men prefer to be foolish,

  Ourselves have proved horse-like not mulish:

  Sent grist, a good sackful, to hopper,

  And worked as the Master thought proper.

  Tongue I wag, pen I ply, who am Abbot;

  Stick, thou, Son, to daub-brush and dab-pot!

  But, soft! I scratch hard on the scab hot?

  Though cured of thy plague, there may linger

  A pimple I fray with rough finger?

  So soon could my homily transmute

  Thy brass into gold? Why, the man’s mute!”

  Pacchiarotto. XXII

  ”Ay, Father, I’m mute with admiring

  How Nature’s indulgence untiring

  Still bids us turn deaf ear to Reason’s

  Best rhetoric — clutch at all seasons

  And hold fast to what’s proved untenable!

  Thy maxim is — Man’s not amenable

  To argument: whereof by consequence —

  Thine arguments reach me: a non-sequence!

  Yet blush not discouraged, O Father!

  I stand unconverted, the rather

  That nowise I need a conversion.

  No live man (I cap thy assertion)

  By argument ever could take hold

  Of me. ‘Twas the dead thing, the clay-cold,

  Which grinned ‘Art thou so in a hurry

  That out of warm light thou must scurry

  And join me down here in the dungeon

  Because, above, one’s Jack and one — John,

  One’s swift in the race, one — a hobbler,

  One’s a crowned king and one — a capped cobbler,

  Rich and poor, sage and fool, virtuous, vicious?

  Why complain? Art thou so unsuspicious

  That all’s for an hour of essaying

  Who’s fit and who’s unfit for playing

  His part in the after-construction

  — Heaven’s Piece whereof Earth’s the Induction?

  Things rarely go smooth at Rehearsal.

  Wait patient the change universal,

  And act, and let act, in existence!

  For, as thou art clapped hence or hissed hence,

  Thou host thy promotion or otherwise.

  And why must wise thou have thy brother wise

  Because in rehearsal thy cue be

  To shine by the side of a booby?

  No polishing garnet to ruby!

  All’s well that ends well — through Art’s magic.

  Some end, whether comic or tragic,

  The Artist has purposed, be certain!

  Explained at the fall of the curtain —

  In showing thy wisdom at odds with

  That folly: he tries men and gods with

  No problem for weak wits to solve meant,

  But one worth such Author’s evolvement.

  So, back nor disturb play’s production

  By giving thy brother instruction

  To throw up his fool’s-part allotted!

  Lest haply thyself prove besotted

  When stript, for thy pains, of that costume

  Of sage, which has bred the imposthume

  I prick to relieve thee of, — Vanity!’

  Pacchiarotto. XXIII

  ”So, Father, behold me in sanity!

  I’m back to the palette and mahlstick:

  And as for Man — let each and all stick

  To what was prescribed them at starting!

  Once planted as fools — no departing

  From folly one inch, sæculorum

  In sæcula! Pass me the jorum,

  And push me the platter — my stomach

  Retains, through its fasting, still some ache —

  And then, with your kind Benedicite.

  Good-by!”

  Pacchiarotto. XXIV

  I have told with simplicity

  My tale, dropped those harsh analytics,

  And tried to content you, my critics,

  Who greeted my early uprising!

  I knew you through all the disguising,

  Droll dogs, as I jumped up, cried, “Heyday!

  This Monday is — what else but May-day?

  And these in the drabs, blues, and yellows.

  Are surely the privileged fellows.

  So, saltbox and bones, tongs and bellows!”

  (I threw up the window) “Your pleasure?”

  Pacchiarotto. XXV

  Then he who directed the measure —

  An old friend — put leg forward nimbly,

  “We critics as sweeps out your chimbly!

  Much soot to remove from your flue, sir!

  Who spares coal in kitchen an’t you, sir!

  And neighbors complain it’s no joke, sir,

  — You ought to consume your own smoke, sir!”

  Pacchiarotto. XXVI

  Ah, rogues, but my housemaid suspects you —

  Is confident oft she detects you

  In bringing more filth into my house

  Than ever you found there! I’m pious,

  However: ‘twas God made you dingy

  And me — with no need to be stingy

  Of soap, when ‘tis sixpence the packet.

  So, dance away, boys, dust my jacket,

  Bang drum and blow fife — ay, and rattle

  Your brushes, for that’s half the battle!

  Don’t trample the grass, — hocus-pocus

  With grime my Spring snowdrop and crocus, —

  And, what with your rattling and tinkling,

  Who knows but you give me an inkling

  How music sounds, thanks to the jangle

  Of regular drum and triangle?

  Whereby, tap
-tap, chink-chink, ‘tis proven

  I break rule as bad as Beethoven.

  “That chord now — a groan or a grunt is ‘t?

  Schumann’s self was no worse contrapuntist.

  No ear! or if ear, so tough-gristled —

  He thought that he sung while he whistled!”

  Pacchiarotto. XXVII

  So, this time I whistle, not sing at all,

  My story, the largess I fling at all

  And every the rough there whose aubade

  Did its best to amuse me, — nor so bad!

  Take my thanks, pick up largess, and scamper

  Off free, ere your mirth gets a damper!

  You’ve Monday, your one day, your fun-day,

  While mine is a year that’s all Sunday.

  I’ve seen you, times — who knows how many? —

  Dance in here, strike up, play the zany,

  Make mouths at the Tenant, hoot warning

  You’ll find him decamped next May-morning;

  Then scuttle away, glad to ‘scape hence

  With — kicks? no, but laughter and ha’pence!

  Mine’s freehold, by grace of the grand Lord

  Who lets out the ground here, — my landlord:

  To him I pay quit-rent — devotion;

  Nor hence shall I budge, I’ve a notion,

  Nay, here shall my whistling and singing

  Set all his street’s echoes a-ringing

  Long after the last of your number

  Has ceased my front-court to encumber

  While, treading down rose and ranunculus,

  You Tommy-make-room-for-your-Uncle us!

  Troop, all of you — man or homunculus,

  Quick march! for Xanthippe, my house-maid,

  If once on your pates she a souse made

  With what, pan or pot, bowl or skoramis,

  First comes to her hand — things were more amiss!

  I would not for worlds be your place in —

  Recipient of slops from the basin!

  You, jack-in-the-Green, leaf-and-twiggishness

  Won’t save a dry thread on your priggishness!

  While as for Quilp-Hop-o’-my-thumb there,

  Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum there —

  He’ll think as the pickle he curses,

  I’ve discharged on his pate his own verses!

  “Dwarfs are saucy,” says Dickens: so, sauced in

  Your own sauce, . . .

  Pacchiarotto. XXVIII

  But, back to my Knight of the Pencil,

  Dismissed to his fresco and stencil!

  Whose story — begun with a chuckle,

  And throughout timed by raps of the knuckle, —

  To small enough purpose were studied

  If it ends with crown cracked or nose bloodied.

  Come, critics, — not shake hands, excuse me!

  But — say have you grudged to amuse me

  This once in the forty-and-over

  Long years since you trampled my clover

  And scared from my house-eaves each sparrow

  I never once harmed by that arrow

  Of song, karterotaton belos,

  (Which Pindar declares the true melos,)

  I was forging and filing and finishing,

  And no whit my labors diminishing

  Because, though high up in a chamber

  Where none of your kidney may clamber

  Your hullabaloo would approach me?

  Was it “grammar” wherein you would “coach” me —

  You, — pacing in even that paddock

  Of language allotted you ad hoc,

  With a clog at your fetlocks, — you — scorners

  Of me free of all its four corners?

  Was it “clearness of words which convey thought”?

  Ay, if words never needed enswathe aught

  But ignorance, impudence, envy

  And malice — what word-swathe would then vie

  With yours for a clearness crystalline?

  But had you to put in one small line

  Some thought big and bouncing — as noddle

  Of goose, born to cackle and waddle

  And bite at man’s heel as goose-wont is,

  Never felt plague its puny os frontis —

  You’d know, as you hissed, spat and sputtered,

  Clear cackle is easily uttered!

  Pacchiarotto. XXIX

  Lo, I’ve laughed out my laugh on this mirth-day!

  Beside, at week’s end, dawns my birthday,

  That hebdome, hieron emar —

  (More things in a day than you deem are!)

  — Tei gar Apollona chrusaora

  Egeinato Leto. So, gray or ray

  Betide me, six days hence, I’m vexed here

  By no sweep, that’s certain, till next year!

  “Vexed?” — roused from what else were insipid ease!

  Leave snoring abed to Pheidippides!

  We’ll up and work! won’t we, Euripides?

  LA SAISIAZ AND THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC

  I

  Good, to forgive;

  Best, to forget!

  Living, we fret;

  Dying, we live.

  Fretless and free,

  Soul, clap thy pinion!

  Earth have dominion,

  Body, o’er thee!

  II

  Wander at will,

  Day after day, —

  Wander away,

  Wandering still —

  Soul that canst soar!

  Body may slumber:

  Body shall cumber

  Soul-flight no more.

  III

  Waft of soul’s wing!

  What lies above?

  Sunshine and Love,

  Skyblue and Spring!

  Body hides — where?

  Ferns of all feather,

  Mosses and heather,

  Yours be the care!

  La Saisiaz

  A. E. S. September 14, 1877.

  Dared and done: at last I stand upon the summit, Dear and True!

  Singly dared and done; the climbing both of us were bound to do.

  Petty feat and yet prodigious: every side my glance was bent

  O’er the grandeur and the beauty lavished through the whole ascent.

  Ledge by ledge, out broke new marvels, now minute and now immense:

  Earth’s most exquisite disclosure, heaven’s own God in evidence!

  And no berry in its hiding, no blue space in its outspread,

  Pleaded to escape my footstep, challenged my emerging head,

  (As I climbed or paused from climbing, now o’erbranched by shrub and tree,

  Now built round by rock and boulder, now at just a turn set free, 10

  Stationed face to face with — Nature? rather with Infinitude)

  — No revealment of them all, as singly I my path pursued,

  But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought stung “Even so

  Both of us had loved and wondered just the same, five days ago!”

  Five short days, sufficient hardly to entice, from out its den

  Splintered in the slab, this pink perfection of the cyclamen;

  Scarce enough to heal and coat with amber gum the sloe-tree’s gash,

  Bronze the clustered wilding apple, redden ripe the mountain-ash:

  Yet of might to place between us — Oh the barrier! Yon Profound

  Shrinks beside it, proves a pin-point: barrier this, without a bound! 20

  Boundless though it be, I reach you: somehow seem to have you here

  — Who are there. Yes, there you dwell now, plain the four low walls appear;

  Those are vineyards they enclose from; and the little spire which points

  — That’s Collonge, henceforth your dwelling. All the same, howe’er disjoints

  Past from present, no less certain you are here, not there: have dared,

  Done the feat of mountain-climbing, — f
ive days since, we both prepared

  Daring, doing, arm in arm, if other help should haply fail.

  For you asked, as forth we sallied to see sunset from the vale,

  “Why not try for once the mountain, — take a foretaste, snatch by stealth

  Sight and sound, some unconsidered fragment of the hoarded wealth? 30

  Six weeks at its base, yet never once have we together won

  Sight or sound by honest climbing: let us two have dared and done

  Just so much of twilight journey as may prove to-morrow’s jaunt

  Not the only mode of wayfare — wheeled to reach the eagle’s haunt!”

  So, we turned from the low grass-path you were pleased to call “your own,”

  Set our faces to the rose-bloom o’er the summit’s front of stone

  Where Salève obtains, from Jura and the sunken sun she hides,

  Due return of blushing “Good Night,” rosy as a borne-off bride’s.

  For his masculine “Good Morrow” when, with sunrise still in hold,

  Gay he hails her, and, magnific, thrilled her black length burns to gold. 40

  Up and up we went, how careless — nay, how joyous! All was new,

  All was strange. “Call progress toilsome? that were just insulting you!

  How the trees must temper noontide! Ah, the thicket’s sudden break!

  What will be the morning glory, when at dusk thus gleams the lake?

  Light by light puts forth Geneva: what a land — and, of the land,

  Can there be a lovelier station than this spot where now we stand?

  Is it late, and wrong to linger? True, to-morrow makes amends.

  Toilsome progress? child’s play, call it — specially when one descends!

  There, the dread descent is over — hardly our adventure, though!

  Take the vale where late we left it, pace the grass-path, ‘mine,’ you know! 50

  Proud completion of achievement!” And we paced it, praising still

  That soft tread on velvet verdure as it wound through hill and hill;

  And at very end there met us, coming from Collonge, the pair

  — All our people of the Chalet — two, enough and none to spare.

  So, we made for home together, and we reached it as the stars

  One by one came lamping — chiefly that prepotency of Mars —

  And your last word was “I owe you this enjoyment!” — met with “Nay:

  With yourself it rests to have a month of morrows like to-day!”

  Then the meal, with talk and laughter, and the news of that rare nook

  Yet untroubled by the tourist, touched on by no travel-book, 60

  All the same — though latent — patent, hybrid birth of land and sea,