When He let blue heaven be shrouded o’er by vapours of the vault,
Gay earth drop her garlands shrivelled at the first infecting breath
Of the serpent pains which herald, swarming in, the dragon death?
What, no way but this that man may learn and lay to heart how rife
Life were with delights would only death allow their taste to life?
Must the rose sigh “Pluck — I perish!” must the eve weep “Gaze — I fade!”
— Every sweet warn “‘Ware my bitter!” every shine bid “Wait my shade”? 310
Can we love but on condition, that the thing we love must die?
Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy —
Multitudinously wretched that we, wretched too, may guess
What a preferable state were universal happiness?
Hardly do I so conceive the outcome of that power which went
To the making of the worm there in yon clod its tenement,
Any more than I distinguish aught of that which, wise and good,
Framed the leaf, its plain of pasture, dropped the dew, its fineless food.
Nay, were fancy fact, were earth and all it holds illusion mere,
Only a machine for teaching love and hate and hope and fear 320
To myself, the sole existence, single truth mid falsehood, — well!
If the harsh throes of the prelude die not off into the swell
Of that perfect piece they sting me to become a-strain for, — if
Roughness of the long rock-clamber lead not to the last of cliff,
First of level country where is sward my pilgrim-foot can prize, —
Plainlier! if this life’s conception new life fail to realize, —
Though earth burst and proved a bubble glassing hues of hell, one huge
Reflex of the devil’s doings — God’s work by no subterfuge —
(So death’s kindly touch informed me as it broke the glamour, gave
Soul and body both release from life’s long nightmare in the grave) 330
Still, — with no more Nature, no more Man as riddle to be read,
Only my own joys and sorrows now to reckon real instead, —
I must say — or choke in silence — ”Howsoever came my fate,
Sorrow did and joy did nowise, — life well weighed, — preponderate.”
By necessity ordained thus? I shall bear as best I can;
By a cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent? No, as I am man!
Such were God: and was it goodness that the good within my range
Or had evil in admixture or grew evil’s self by change?
Wisdom — that becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance
From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance? 340
Power? ‘tis just the main assumption reason most revolts at! power
Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour,
Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reaching aim,
So much passion, — no defect there, no excess, but still the same, —
As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright as brief
For yon worm, man’s fellow-creature, on yon happier world — its leaf!
No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute:
Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human attribute!
But, O world outspread beneath me! only for myself I speak,
Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers strong and weak, 350
Full and empty, wise and foolish, good and bad, in every age,
Every clime, I turn my eyes from, as in one or other stage
Of a torture writhe they, Job-like couched on dung and crazed with blains
— Wherefore? whereto? ask the whirlwind what the dread voice thence explains!
I shall “vindicate no way of God’s to man,” nor stand apart,
“Laugh, be candid,” while I watch it traversing the human heart!
Traversed heart must tell its story uncominented on: no less
Mine results in, “Only grant a second life, I acquiesce
In this present life as failure, count misfortune’s worst assaults
Triumph, not defeat, assured that loss so much the more exalts 360
Gain about to be. For at what moment did I so advance
Near to knowledge as when frustrate of escape from ignorance?
Did not beauty prove most precious when its opposite obtained
Rule, and truth seem more than ever potent because falsehood reigned?
While for love — Oh how but, losing love, does whoso loves succeed
By the death-pang to the birth-throe — learning what is love indeed?
Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled,
Brimming though it be with knowledge, life’s loss drop by drop distilled,
I shall boast it mine — the balsam, bless each kindly wrench that wrung
From life’s tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root whence pleasure sprung, 370
Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the berry, left all grace
Ashes in death’s stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place!”
Witness, Dear and True, how little I was ‘ware of — not your worth,
— That I knew, my heart assures me — but of what a shade on earth
Would the passage from my presence of the tall white figure throw
O’er the ways we walked together! Somewhat narrow, somewhat slow,
Used to seem the ways, the walking; narrow ways are well to tread
When there’s moss beneath the footstep, honeysuckle overhead:
Walking slow to beating bosom surest solace soonest gives,
Liberates the brain o’erloaded — best of all restoratives. 380
Nay, do I forget the open vast where soon or late converged
Ways though winding? — world-wide heaven-high sea where music slept or surged
As the angel had ascendant, and Beethoven’s Titan mace
Smote the immense to storm Mozart would by a finger’s lifting chase?
Yes, I knew — but not with knowledge such as thrills me while I view
Yonder precinct which henceforward holds and hides the Dear and True.
Grant me (once again) assurance we shall each meet each some day,
Walk — but with how bold a footstep! on a way — but what a way!
— Worst were best, defeat were triumph, utter loss were utmost gain.
Can it be, and must, and will it?
Silence! Out of fact’s domain, 390
Just surmise prepared to mutter hope, and also fear — dispute
Fact’s inexorable ruling, “Outside fact, surmise be mute!”
Well!
Ay, well and best, if fact’s self I may force the answer from!
‘T is surmise I stop the mouth of. Not above in yonder dome
All a rapture with its rose-glow, — not around, where pile and peak
Strainingly await the sun’s fall, — not beneath, where crickets creak,
Birds assemble for their bed-time, soft the tree-top swell subsides, —
No, nor yet within my deepest sentient self the knowledge hides.
Aspiration, reminiscence, plausibilities of trust
— Now the ready “Man were wronged else,” now the rash “and God unjust” — 400
None of these I need. Take thou, my soul, thy solitary stand,
Umpire to the champions Fancy, Reason, as on either hand
Amicable war they wage and play the foe in thy behoof!
Fancy thrust and Reason parry! Thine the prize who stand aloof.
Fancy.
I concede the thing refused: henceforth no certainty more plain
Than this mere surmise that after body dies soul lives again.
Two, the only facts acknowledged late, are now increased to three —
God is, and th
e soul is, and, as certain, after death shall be.
Put this third to use in life, the time for using fact!
Reason.
I do:
Find it promises advantage, coupled with the other two. 410
Life to come will be improvement on the life that’s now; destroy
Body’s thwartings, there’s no longer screen betwixt soul and soul’s joy.
Why should we expect new hindrance, novel tether? In this first
Life, I see the good of evil, why our world began at worst:
Since time means amelioration, tardily enough displayed,
Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retrograde.
We know more though we know little, we grow stronger though still weak,
Partly see though all too purblind, stammer though we cannot speak.
There is no such grudge in God as scared the ancient Greek, no fresh
Substitute of trap for dragnet, once a breakage in the mesh. 420
Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will be: ne’er emerged
Any new-created Python for man’s plague since earth was purged.
Failing proof, then, of invented trouble to replace the old,
O’er this life the next presents advantage much and manifold:
Which advantage — in the absence of a fourth and farther fact
Now conceivably surmised, of harm to follow from the act —
I pronounce for man’s obtaining at this moment. Why delay?
Is he happy? happiness will change: anticipate the day!
Is he sad? there’s ready refuge: of all sadness death’s prompt cure!
Is he both, in mingled measure? cease a burden to endure! 430
Pains with sorry compensations, pleasures stinted in the dole,
Power that sinks and pettiness that soars, all halved and nothing whole,
Idle hopes that lure man onward, forced back by as idle fears —
What a load he stumbles under through his glad sad seventy years,
When a touch sets right the turmoil, lifts his spirit where, flesh-freed,
Knowledge shall be rightly named so, all that seems be truth indeed!
Grant his forces no accession, nay, no faculty’s increase,
Only let what now exists continue, let him prove in peace
Power whereof the interrupted unperfected play enticed
Man through darkness, which to lighten any spark of hope sufficed, — 440
What shall then deter his dying out of darkness into light?
Death itself perchance, brief pain that’s pang, condensed and infinite?
But at worst, he needs must brave it one day, while, at best, he laughs —
Drops a drop within his chalice, sleep not death his science quaffs!
Any moment claims more courage when, by crossing cold and gloom,
Manfully man quits discomfort, makes for the provided room
Where the old friends want their fellow, where the new acquaintance wait,
Probably for talk assembled, possibly to sup in state!
I affirm and reaffirm it therefore: only make as plain
As that man now lives, that after dying man will live again, — 450
Make as plain the absence, also, of a law to contravene
Voluntary passage from this life to that by change of scene, —
And I bid him — at suspicion of first cloud athwart his sky,
Flower’s departure, frost’s arrival — never hesitate, but die!
Fancy.
Then I double my concession: grant, along with new life sure,
This same law found lacking now: ordain that, whether rich or poor
Present life is judged in aught man counts advantage — be it hope,
Be it fear that brightens, blackens most or least his horoscope, —
He, by absolute compulsion such as made him live at all,
Go on living to the fated end of life whate’er befall. 460
What though, as on earth he darkling grovels, man descry the sphere,
Next life’s — call it, heaven of freedom, close above and crystal-clear?
He shall find — say, hell to punish who in aught curtails the term,
Fain would act the butterfly before he has played out the worm.
God, soul, earth, heaven, hell, — five facts now: what is to desiderate?
Reason.
Nothing! Henceforth man’s existence bows to the monition “Wait!
Take the joys and bear the sorrows — neither with extreme concern!
Living here means nescience simply: ‘tis next life that helps to learn.
Shut those eyes, next life will open, — stop those ears, next life will teach
Hearing’s office, — close those lips, next life will give the power of speech! 470
Or, if action more amuse thee than the passive attitude,
Bravely bustle through thy being, busy thee for ill or good,
Reap this life’s success or failure! Soon shall things be unperplexed
And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravelled in the next.”
Fancy.
Not so fast! Still more concession! not alone do I declare
Life must needs be borne, — I also will that man become aware
Life has worth incalculable, every moment that he spends
So much gain or loss for that next life which on this life depends.
Good, done here, be there rewarded, — evil, worked here, there amerced!
Six facts now, and all established, plain to man the last as first. 480
Reason.
There was good and evil, then, defined to man by this decree?
Was — for at its promulgation both alike have ceased to be.
Prior to this last announcement, “Certainly as God exists,
As He made man’s soul, as soul is quenchless by the deathly mists,
Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature escape from time
To eternity’s provided purer air and brighter clime, —
Just so certainly depends it on the use to which man turns
Earth, the good or evil done there, whether after death he earns
Life eternal, — heaven, the phrase be, or eternal death, — say, hell.
As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill or doing well!” 490
— Prior to this last announcement, earth was man’s probation-place:
Liberty of doing evil gave his doing good a grace;
Once lay down the law, with Nature’s simple “Such effects succeed
Causes such, and heaven or hell depends upon man’s earthly deed
Just as surely as depends the straight or else the crooked line
On his making point meet point or with or else without incline,” —
Thenceforth neither good nor evil does man, doing what he must.
Lay but down that law as stringent “Wouldst thou live again, be just! “
As this other “Wouldst thou live now, regularly draw thy breath!
For, suspend the operation, straight law’s breach results in death — ” 500
And (provided always, man, addressed this mode, be sound and sane)
Prompt and absolute obedience, never doubt, will law obtain!
Tell not me “Look round us! nothing each side but acknowledged law,
Now styled God’s — now, Nature’s edict!” Where’s obedience without flaw
Paid to either? What’s the adage rife in man’s mouth? Why, “The best
I both see and praise, the worst I follow” — which, despite professed
Seeing, praising, all the same he follows, since he disbelieves
In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head receives.
There’s evading and persuading and much making law amends
Somehow, there’s the nice distinction ‘twixt fast foes and faulty friends, 510
— Any consequence except inevitable death when “Die,
Whoso breaks our law!” they publish, God and Nature equally.
Law that’s kept or broken — subject to man’s will and pleasure! Whence?
How comes law to bear eluding? Not because of impotence:
Certain laws exist already which to hear means to obey;
Therefore not without a purpose these man must, while those man may
Keep and, for the keeping, haply gain approval and reward.
Break through this last superstructure, all is empty air — no sward
Firm like my first fact to stand on, “ God there is, and soul there is,”
And soul’s earthly life-allotment: wherein, by hypothesis, 520
Soul is bound to pass probation, prove its powers, and exercise
Sense and thought on fact, and then, from fact educing fit surmise,
Ask itself, and of itself have solely answer, “Does the scope
Earth affords of fact to judge by warrant future fear or hope?”
Thus have we come back full circle: fancy’s footsteps one by one
Go their round conducting reason to the point where they begun,
Left where we were left so lately, Dear and True! When, half a week
Since, we walked and talked and thus I told you, how suffused a cheek
You had turned me had I sudden brought the blush into the smile
By some word like “Idly argued! you know better all the while!” 530
Now, from me — Oh not a blush, but, how much more, a joyous glow,
Laugh triumphant, would it strike did your “Yes, better I do know”
Break, my warrant for assurance! which assurance may not be
If, supplanting hope, assurance needs must change this life to me.
So, I hope — no more than hope, but hope — no less than hope, because
I can fathom, by no plumb-line sunk in life’s apparent laws,
How I may in any instance fix where change should meetly fall
Nor involve, by one revisal, abrogation of them all:
— Which again involves as utter change in life thus law-released,
Whence the good of goodness vanished when the ill of evil ceased. 540
Whereas, life and laws apparent reinstated, — all we know,
All we know not, — o’er our heaven again cloud closes, until, lo —
Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom, compelled
By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else beheld,
I behold in life, so — hope!
Sad summing-up of all to say!
Athanasius contra mundum, why should he hope more than they?
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 198
