Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  So are men made notwithstanding, such magnetic virtue darts

  From each head their fancy haloes to their unresisting hearts!

  Here I stand, methinks a stone’s throw from yon village I this morn

  Traversed for the sake of looking one last look at its forlorn 550

  Tenement’s ignoble fortune: through a crevice, plain its floor

  Piled with provender for cattle, while a dung-heap blocked the door.

  In that squalid Bossex, under that obscene red roof, arose,

  Like a fiery flying serpent from its egg, a soul — Rousseau’s.

  Turn thence! Is it Diodati joins the glimmer of the lake?

  There I plucked a leaf, one week since, — ivy, plucked for Byron’s sake.

  Famed unfortunates! And yet, because of that phosphoric fame

  Swathing blackness’ self with brightness till putridity looked flame,

  All the world was witched: and wherefore? what could lie beneath, allure

  Heart of man to let corruption serve man’s head as cynosure? 560

  Was the magic in the dictum “All that’s good is gone and past;

  Bad and worse still grows the present, and the worst of all comes last:

  Which believe — for I believe it?” So preached one his gospel-news;

  While melodious moaned the other, “Dying day with dolphin-hues!

  Storm, for loveliness and darkness like a woman’s eye! Ye mounts

  Where I climb to ‘scape my fellow, and thou sea wherein he counts

  Not one inch of vile dominion! What were your especial worth

  Failed ye to enforce the maxim ‘Of all objects found on earth

  Man is meanest, much too honoured when compared with — what by odds

  Beats him — any dog: so, let him go a-howling to his gods!’ 570

  Which believe — for I believe it!” such the comfort man received

  Sadly since perforce he must: for why? the famous bard believed!

  Fame! Then, give me fame, a moment! As I gather at a glance

  Human glory after glory vivifying yon expanse,

  Let me grasp them altogether, hold on high and brandish well

  Beacon-like above the rapt world ready, whether heaven or hell

  Send the dazzling summons downward, to submit itself the same,

  Take on trust the hope or else despair flashed full on face by — Fame!

  Thanks, thou pine-tree of Makistos, wide thy giant torch I wave!

  Know ye whence I plucked the pillar, late with sky for architrave? 580

  This the trunk, the central solid Knowledge, kindled core, began

  Tugging earth-deeps, trying heaven-heights, rooted yonder at Lausanne.

  This which flits and spits, the aspic, — sparkles in and out the boughs

  Now, and now condensed, the python, coiling round and round allows

  Scarce the bole its due effulgence, dulled by flake on flake of Wit —

  Laughter so bejewels Learning, — what but Ferney nourished it?

  Nay, nor fear — since eveiy resin feeds the flame — that I dispense

  With yon Bossex terebinth-tree’s all-explosive Eloquence:

  No, be sure! nor, any more than thy resplendency, Jean-Jacques,

  Dare I want thine, Diodati! What though monkeys and macaques 590

  Gibber “Byron”? Byron’s ivy rears a branch beyond the crew,

  Green for ever, no deciduous trash macaques and monkeys chew!

  As Rousseau, then, eloquent, as Byron prime in poet’s power, —

  Detonations, figurations, smiles — the rainbow, tears — the shower, —

  Lo, I lift the coruscating marvel — Fame! and, famed, declare

  — Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit’s self Voltaire . . .

  O the sorriest of conclusions to whatever man of sense

  Mid the millions stands the unit, takes no flare for evidence!

  Yet the millions have their portion, live their calm or troublous day,

  Find significance in fireworks: so, by help of mine, they may 600

  Confidently lay to heart and lock in head their life long — this:

  “He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o’er night’s forlorn abyss,

  Crowned by prose and verse; and wielding, with Wit’s bauble, Learning’s rod . . .

  Well? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God!”

  So the poor smile played, that evening: pallid smile long since extinct

  Here in London’s mid-November! Not so loosely thoughts were linked,

  Six weeks since as I, descending in the sunset from Salève,

  Found the chain, I seemed to forge there, flawless till it reached your grave, —

  Not so filmy was the texture, but I bore it in my breast

  Safe thus far. And since I found a something in me would not rest 610

  Till I, link by link, unravelled any tangle of the chain,

  — Here it lies, for much or little! I have lived all o’er again

  That last pregnant hour: I saved it, just as I could save a root

  Disinterred for re-interment when the time best helps to shoot.

  Life is stocked with germs of torpid life; but may I never wake

  Those of mine whose resurrection could not be without earthquake!

  Rest all such, unraised forever! Be this, sad yet sweet, the sole

  Memory evoked from slumber! Least part this: then what the whole?

  November 9, 1877.

  DRAMATIC IDYLLS

  CONTENTS

  Martin Relph

  Pheidippides

  Halbert and Hob

  Ivàn Ivànovitch

  Tray

  Ned Bratts

  Martin Relph

  My grandfather says he remembers he saw, when a youngster long ago,

  On a bright May day, a strange old man, with a beard as white as snow,

  Stand on the hill outside our town like a monument of woe,

  And, striking his bare bald head the while, sob out the reason — so!

  If I last as long as Methuselah I shall never forgive myself:

  But — God forgive me, that I pray, unhappy Martin Relph,

  As coward, coward I call him — him, yes, him! Away from me!

  Get you behind the man I am now, you man that I used to be!

  What can have sewed my mouth up, set me a-stare, all eyes, no tongue?

  People have urged, “You visit a scare too hard on a lad so young!

  You were taken aback, poor boy,” they urge, “no time to regain your wits:

  Besides it had maybe cost you life.” Ay, there is the cap which fits!

  So, cap me, the coward, — thus! No fear! A cuff on the brow does good:

  The feel of it hinders a worm inside which bores at the brain for food.

  See now, there certainly seems excuse: for a moment, I trust, dear friends,

  The fault was but folly, no fault of mine, or if mine, I have made amends!

  For, every day that is first of May, on the hill-top, here stand I,

  Martin Relph, and I strike my brow, and publish the reason why,

  When there gathers a crowd to mock the fool. No fool, friends, since the bite

  Of a worm inside is worse to bear: pray God I have baulked him quite!

  I’ll tell you. Certainly much excuse! It came of the way they cooped

  Us peasantry up in a ring just here, close huddling because tight-hooped

  By the red-coats round us villagers all: they meant we should see the sight

  And take the example, — see, not speak, for speech was the Captain’s right.

  “You clowns on the slope, beware!” cried he: “This woman about to die

  Gives by her fate fair warning to such acquaintance as play the spy.

  Henceforth who meddle with matters of state above them perhaps will learn

  That peasants should stick to their plough-tail, leave to the King the King
’s concern.

  “Here’s a quarrel that sets the land on fire, between King George and his foes:

  What call has a man of your kind — much less, a woman — to interpose?

  Yet you needs must be meddling, folks like you, not foes — so much the worse!

  The many and loyal should keep themselves unmixed with the few perverse.

  “Is the counsel hard to follow? I gave it you plainly a month ago,

  And where was the good? The rebels have learned just all that they need to know.

  Not a month since in we quietly marched: a week, and they had the news,

  From a list complete of our rank and file to a note of our caps and shoes.

  “All about all we did, and all we were doing and like to do!

  Only, I catch a letter by luck, and capture who wrote it, too.

  Some of you men look black enough, but the milk-white face demure

  Betokens the finger foul with ink: ‘t is a woman who writes, be sure!

  “Is it ‘Dearie, how much I miss your mouth!’ — good natural stuff, she pens?

  Some sprinkle of that, for a blind, of course: with talk about cocks and hens,

  How ‘robin has built on the apple-tree, and our creeper which came to grief

  Through the frost, we feared, is twining afresh round casement in famous leaf.’

  “But all for a blind! She soon glides frank into ‘Horrid the place is grown

  With Officers here and Privates there, no nook we may call our own:

  And Farmer Giles has a tribe to house, and lodging will be to seek

  For the second Company sure to come (‘t is whispered) on Monday week.’

  “And so to the end of the chapter! There! The murder, you see, was out:

  Easy to guess how the change of mind in the rebels was brought about!

  Safe in the trap would they now lie snug, had treachery made no sign;

  But treachery meets a just reward, no matter if fools malign!

  “That traitors had played us false, was proved — sent news which fell so pat:

  And the murder was out — this letter of love, the sender of this sent that!

  ‘T is an ugly job, though, all the same — a hateful, to have to deal

  With a case of the kind, when a woman’s in fault: we soldiers need nerves of steel!

  “So, I gave her a chance, dispatched post-haste a message to Vincent Parkes

  Whom she wrote to; easy to find he was, since one of the King’s own clerks,

  Ay, kept by the King’s own gold in the town close by where the rebels camp:

  A sort of a lawyer, just the man to betray our sort — the scamp!

  “ ‘If her writing is simple and honest and only the lover-like stuff it looks,

  And if you yourself are a loyalist, nor down in the rebels’ books,

  Come quick,’ said I, ‘and in person prove you are each of you clear of crime,

  Or martial law must take its course: this day next week’s the time!’

  “Next week is now: does he come? Not he! Clean gone, our clerk, in a trice!

  He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch: no need of a warning twice!

  His own neck free, but his partner’s fast in the noose still, here she stands

  To pay for her fault. ‘T is an ugly job: but soldiers obey commands.

  “And hearken wherefore I make a speech! Should any acquaintance share

  The folly that led to the fault that is now to be punished, let fools beware!

  Look black, if you please, but keep hands white: and, above all else, keep wives —

  Or sweethearts or what they may be — from ink! Not a word now, on your lives!”

  Black? but the Pit’s own pitch was white to the Captain’s face — the brute

  With the bloated cheeks and the bulgy nose and the blood-shot eyes to suit!

  He was muddled with wine, they say: more like, he was out of his wits with fear;

  He had but a handful of men, that’s true, — a riot might cost him dear.

  And all that time stood Rosamund Page, with pinioned arms and face

  Bandaged about, on the turf marked out for the party’s firing-place.

  I hope she was wholly with God: I hope ‘t was His angel stretched a hand

  To steady her so, like the shape of stone you see in our church-aisle stand.

  I hope there was no vain fancy pierced the bandage to vex her eyes,

  No face within which she missed without, no questions and no replies —

  “Why did you leave me to die?” — ”Because . . .” Oh, fiends, too soon you grin

  At merely a moment of hell, like that — such heaven as hell ended in!

  Let mine end too! He gave the word, up went the guns in a line.

  Those heaped on the hill were blind as dumb, — for, of all eyes, only mine

  Looked over the heads of the foremost rank. Some fell on their knees in prayer,

  Some sank to the earth, but all shut eyes, with a sole exception there.

  That was myself, who had stolen up last, had sidled behind the group:

  I am highest of all on the hill-top, there stand fixed while the others stoop

  From head to foot in a serpent’s twine am I tightened: I touch ground?

  No more than a gibbet’s rigid corpse which the fetters rust around!

  Can I speak, can I breathe, can I burst — aught else but see, see, only see?

  And see I do — for there comes in sight — a man, it sure must be! —

  Who staggeringly, stumblingly, rises, falls, rises, at random flings his weight

  On and on, anyhow onward — a man that’s mad he arrives too late!

  Else why does he wave a something white high-flourished above his head?

  Why does not he call, cry, — curse the fool! — why throw up his arms instead?

  O take this fist in your own face, fool! Why does not yourself shout “Stay!

  Here’s a man comes rushing, might and main, with something he’s mad to say”?

  And a minute, only a moment, to have hell-fire boil up in your brain,

  And ere you can judge things right, choose heaven, — time’s over, repentance vain!

  They level: a volley, a smoke and the clearing of smoke: I see no more

  Of the man smoke hid, nor his frantic arms, nor the something white he bore.

  But stretched on the field, some half-mile off, is an object. Surely dumb,

  Deaf, blind were we struck, that nobody heard, not one of us saw him come!

  Has he fainted through fright? One may well believe! What is it he holds so fast?

  Turn him over, examine the face! Heyday! What, Vincent Parkes at last?

  Dead! dead as she, by the self-same shot: one bullet has ended both,

  Her in the body and him in the soul. They laugh at our plighted troth.

  “Till death us do part?” Till death us do join past parting — that sounds like

  Betrothal indeed! O Vincent Parkes, what need has my fist to strike?

  I helped you: thus were you dead and wed: one bound, and your soul reached hers!

  There is clenched in your hand the thing, signed, sealed, the paper which plain avers

  She is innocent, innocent, plain as print, with the King’s Arms broad engraved:

  No one can hear, but if anyone high on the hill can see, she’s saved!

  And torn his garb and bloody his lips with heart-break — plain it grew

  How the week’s delay had been brought about: each guess at the end proved true.

  It was hard to get at the folks in power: such waste of time! and then

  Such pleading and praying, with, all the while, his lamb in the lions’ den!

  And at length when he wrung their pardon out, no end to the stupid forms —

  The license and leave: I make no doubt — what wonder if passion warms

  The pulse in a man if you play with his heart? — he was something hasty in speech;
/>
  Anyhow, none would quicken the work: he had to beseech, beseech!

  And the thing once signed, sealed, safe in his grasp, — what followed but fresh delays?

  For the floods were out, he was forced to take such a roundabout of ways!

  And ‘t was “Halt there!” at every turn of the road, since he had to cross the thick

  Of the red-coats: what did they care for him and his “Quick, for God’s sake, quick!”

  Horse? but he had one: had it how long? till the first knave smirked “You brag

  Yourself a friend of the King’s? then lend to a King’s friend here your nag!”

  Money to buy another? Why, piece by piece they plundered him still,

  With their “Wait you must, — no help: if aught can help you, a guinea will!”

  And a borough there was — I forget the name — whose Mayor must have the bench

  Of Justices ranged to clear a doubt: for “Vincent,” thinks he, sounds French!

  It well may have driven him daft, God knows! all man can certainly know

  Is — rushing and fallir-r and rising, at last he arrived in a horror — so!

  When a word, cry, gasp, would have rescued both! Ay, bite me! The worm begins

  At his work once more. Had cowardice proved — that only — my sin of sins!

  Friends, look you here! Suppose . . . suppose . . . But mad I am, needs must be!

  Judas the Damned would never have dared such a sin as I dream! For, see!

  Suppose I had sneakingly loved her myself, my wretched self, and dreamed

  In the heart of me “She were better dead than happy and his!” — while gleamed

  A light from hell as I spied the pair in a perfectest embrace,

  He the saviour and she the saved, — bliss born of the very murder-place!

  No! Say I was scared, friends! Call me fool and coward, but nothing worse!

  Jeer at the fool and gibe at the coward! ‘T was ever the coward’s curse

  That fear breeds fancies in such: such take their shadow for substance still,

  — A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes, — loved Vincent, if you will!

  And her why, I said “Good morrow” to her, “Good even,” and nothing more:

  The neighbourly way! She was just to me as fifty had been before.

  So, coward it is and coward shall be! There’s a friend, now! Thanks! A drink

  Of water I wanted: and now I can walk, get home by myself, I think.