Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  “All men are men: I would all minds were minds!

  Whereas ‘tis just the many’s mindless mass

  That most needs helping: labourers and hinds 600

  “We legislate for — not the cultured class

  Which law-makes for itself nor needs the whip

  And bridle, — proper help for mule and ass,

  “Did the brutes know! In vain our statesmanship

  Strives at contenting the rough multitude:

  Still the ox cries ‘ ‘Tis me thou shouldst equip

  “ ‘With equine trappings!’ or, in humbler mood,

  ‘Cribful of corn for me! and, as for work —

  Adequate rumination o’er my food!’

  “Better remain a Poet! Needs it irk 610

  Such an one if light, kindled in his sphere,

  Fail to transfuse the Mizraim cold and murk

  “Round about Goshen? Though light disappear,

  Shut inside, — temporary ignorance

  Got outside of, lo, light emerging clear

  “Shows each astonished starer the expanse

  Of heaven made bright with knowledge! That’s the way,

  The only way — I see it at a glance —

  “To legislate for earth! As poet . . . Stay!

  What is . . . I would that . . . were it . . . I had been . . . 620

  O sudden change, as if my arid clay

  “Burst into bloom! . . .” “A change indeed, I ween,

  And change the last!” sighed Tsaddik as he kissed

  The closing eyelids. “Just as those serene

  “Princes of Night apprised me! Our acquist

  Of life is spent, since corners only four

  Hath Aisch, and each in turn was made desist

  “In passage round the Pole (O Mishna’s lore —

  Little it profits here!) by strenuous tug

  Of friends who eked out thus to full fourscore 630

  “The Rabbi’s years. I see each shoulder shrug!

  What have we gained? Away the Bier may roll!

  To-morrow, when the Master’s grave is dug,

  “In with his body I may pitch the scroll

  I hoped to glorify with, text and gloss,

  My Science of Man’s Life: one blank’s the whole!

  “Love, war, song, statesmanship — no gain, all loss,

  The stars’ bestowment! We on our return

  To-morrow merely find — not gold but dross,

  “The body not the soul. Come, friends, we learn 640

  At least thus much by our experiment —

  That — that . . . well, find what, whom it may concern!”

  But next day through the city rumours went

  Of a new persecution; so, they fled

  All Israel, each man, — this time, — from his tent,

  Tsaddik among the foremost. When, the dread

  Subsiding, Israel ventured back again

  Some three months after, to the cave they sped

  Where lay the Sage, — a reverential train!

  Tsaddik first enters. “What is this I view? 650

  The Rabbi still alive? No stars remain

  “Of Aisch to stop within their courses. True,

  I mind me, certain gamesome boys must urge

  Their offerings on me: can it be — one threw

  “Life at him and it stuck? There needs the scourge

  To teach that urchin manners! Prithee, grant

  Forgiveness if we pretermit thy dirge

  “Just to explain no friend was ministrant,

  This time, of life to thee! Some jackanapes,

  I gather, has presumed to foist his scant 660

  “Scurvy unripe existence — wilding grapes

  Grass-green and sorrel-sour — on that grand wine,

  Mighty as mellow, which, so fancy shapes

  “May fitly image forth this life of thine

  Fed on the last low fattening lees — condensed

  Elixir, no milk-mildness of the vine!

  “Rightly with Tsaddik wert thou now incensed

  Had he been witting of the mischief wrought

  When, for elixir, verjuice he dispensed!”

  And slowly woke, — like Shushan’s flower besought 670

  By over-curious handling to unloose

  The curtained secrecy wherein she thought

  Her captive bee, mid store of sweets to choose,

  Would loll in gold, pavilioned lie unteased,

  Sucking on, sated never, — whose, O whose

  Might seem that countenance, uplift, all eased

  Of old distraction and bewilderment,

  Absurdly happy? “How ye have appeased

  “The strife within me, bred this whole content,

  This utter acquiescence in my past 680

  Present and future life, — by whom was lent

  “The power to work this miracle at last, —

  Exceeds my guess. Though — ignorance confirmed

  By knowledge sounds like paradox, I cast

  “Vainly about to tell you — fitlier termed —

  Of calm struck by encountering opposites,

  Each nullifying either! Henceforth wormed

  “From out my heart is every snake that bites

  The dove that else would brood there: doubt, which kills

  With hiss of ‘What if sorrows end delights?’ 690

  “Fear which stings ease with ‘Work the Master wills!’

  Experience which coils round and strangles quick

  Each hope with ‘Ask the Past if hoping skills

  “ ‘To work accomplishment, or proves a trick

  Wiling thee to endeavour! Strive, fool, stop

  Nowise, so live, so die — that’s law! why kick

  “ ‘Against the pricks?’ All out-wormed! Slumber, drop

  Thy films once more and veil the bliss within!

  Experience strangle hope? Hope waves a-top

  “Her wings triumphant! Come what will, I win, 700

  Whoever loses! Every dream’s assured

  Of soberest fulfilment. Where’s a sin

  “Except in doubting that the light, which lured

  The unwary into darkness, meant no wrong

  Had I but marched on bold, nor paused immured

  “By mists I should have pressed thro’, passed along

  My way henceforth rejoicing? Not the boy’s

  Passionate impulse he conceits so strong,

  “Which, at first touch, truth, bubble-like, destroys, —

  Not the man’s slow conviction ‘Vanity 710

  Of vanities — alike my griefs and joys!’

  “Ice! — thawed (look up) each bird, each insect by —

  (Look round) by all the plants that break in bloom,

  (Look down) by every dead friend’s memory

  “That smiles ‘Am I the dust within my tomb?’

  Not either, but both these — amalgam rare —

  Mix in a product, not from Nature’s womb,

  “But stuff which He the Operant — who shall dare

  Describe His operation? — strikes alive

  And thaumaturgic. I nor know nor care 720

  “How from this tohu-bohu — hopes which dive,

  And fears which soar — faith, ruined through and through

  By doubt, and doubt, faith treads to dust — revive

  “In some surprising sort, — as see, they do! —

  Not merely foes no longer but fast friends.

  What does it mean unless — O strange and new

  “Discovery! — this life proves a wine-press — blends

  Evil and good, both fruits of Paradise,

  Into a novel drink which — who intends

  “To quaff, must bear a brain for ecstasies 730

  Attempered, not this all-inadequate

  Organ which, quivering within me, dies

  “ — Nay, lives! — what, how, — too soon, or else too late —

  I
was — I am . . .” (“He babbleth!” Tsaddik mused)

  “O Thou Almighty who canst reinstate

  Truths in their primal clarity, confused

  By man’s perception, which is man’s and made

  To suit his service, — how, once disabused

  “Of reason which sees light half shine half shade,

  Because of flesh, the medium that adjusts 740

  Purity to his visuals, both an aid

  “And hindrance, — how to eyes earth’s air encrusts,

  When purged and perfect to receive truth’s beam

  Pouring itself on the new sense it trusts

  “With all its plenitude of power, — how seem

  The intricacies now, of shade and shine,

  Oppugnant natures — Right and Wrong, we deem

  “Irreconcilable? O eyes of mine,

  Freed now of imperfection, ye avail

  To see the whole sight, nor may uncombine 750

  “Henceforth what, erst divided, caused you quail —

  So huge the chasm between the false and true,

  The dream and the reality! All hail,

  “Day of my soul’s deliverance — day the new,

  The never-ending! What though every shape

  Whereon I wreaked my yearning to pursue

  “Even to success each semblance of escape

  From my own bounded self to some all-fair

  All-wise external fancy, proved a rape

  “Like that old giant’s, feigned of fools — on air, 760

  Not solid flesh? How otherwise? To love —

  That lesson was to learn not here — but there —

  “On earth, not here! ‘Tis there we learn, — there prove

  Our parts upon the stuff we needs must spoil,

  Striving at mastery, there bend above

  “The spoiled clay potsherds, many a year of toil

  Attests the potter tried his hand upon,

  Till sudden he arose, wiped free from soil

  “His hand, cried ‘So much for attempt — anon

  Performance! Taught to mould the living vase, 770

  What matter the cracked pitchers dead and gone?’

  “Could I impart and could thy mind embrace

  The secret, Tsaddik!” “Secret none to me!”

  Quoth Tsaddik, as the glory on the face

  Of Jochanan was quenched. “The truth I see

  Of what that excellence of Judah wrote,

  Doughty Halaphta. This a case must be

  “Wherein, though the last breath have passed the throat,

  So that ‘The man is dead’ we may pronounce,

  Yet is the Ruach — (thus do we denote 780

  “The imparted Spirit) — in no haste to bounce

  From its entrusted Body, — some three days

  Lingers ere it relinquish to the pounce

  “Of hawk-clawed Death his victim. Further says

  Halaphta, ‘Instances have been, and yet

  Again may be, when saints, whose earthly ways

  “ ‘Tend to perfection, very nearly get

  To heaven while still on earth: and, as a fine

  Interval shows where waters pure have met

  “ ‘Waves brackish, in a mixture, sweet with brine, 790

  That’s neither sea nor river but a taste

  Of both — so meet the earthly and divine

  “ ‘And each is either.’ Thus I hold him graced —

  Dying on earth, half inside and half out,

  Wholly in heaven, who knows? My mind embraced

  “Thy secret, Jochanan, how dare I doubt?

  Follow thy Ruach, let earth, all it can,

  Keep of the leavings!” Thus was brought about

  The sepulture of Rabbi Jochanan:

  Thou hast him, — sinner-saint, live-dead, boy-man, — 800

  Schiphaz, on Bendimir, in Farzistan!

  Note

  This story can have no better authority than that of the treatise, existing dispersedly in fragments of Rabbinical writing, ברים משך של רבים, from which I might have helped myself more liberally. Thus, instead of the simple reference to “Moses’ stick”, — but what if I make amends by attempting three illustrations, when some thirty might be composed on the same subject, equally justifying that pithy proverb קם כמשה ממשה עד משה לא.

  I

  Moses the Meek was thirty cubits high,

  The staff he strode with — thirty cubits long;

  And when he leapt, so muscular and strong

  Was Moses that his leaping neared the sky

  By thirty cubits more: we learn thereby

  He reached full ninety cubits — am I wrong? —

  When, in a fight slurred o’er by sacred song,

  With staff outstretched he took a leap to try

  The just dimensions of the giant Og.

  And yet he barely touched — this marvel lacked

  Posterity to crown earth’s catalogue

  Of marvels — barely touched — to be exact —

  The giant’s ankle-bone, remained a frog

  That fain would match an ox in stature: fact!

  II

  And this same fact has met with unbelief!

  How saith a certain traveller? “Young, I chanced

  To come upon an object — if thou canst,

  Guess me its name and nature! ‘Twas, in brief,

  White, hard, round, hollow, of such length, in chief,

  — And this is what especially enhanced

  My wonder — that it seemed, as i advanced,

  Never to end. Bind up within thy sheaf

  Of marvels, this — Posterity! I walked

  From end to end, — four hours walked I, who go

  A goodly pace, — and found — I have not baulked

  Thine expectation, Stranger? Ay or No?

  ‘Twas but Og’s thigh-bone, all the while. I stalked

  Alongside of: respect to Moses, though!

  III

  Og’s thigh-bone — if ye deem its measure strange,

  Myself can witness to much length of shank

  Even in birds. Upon a water’s bank

  Once halting, I was minded to exchange

  Noon heat for cool. Quoth I, “On many a grange

  I have seen storks perch — legs both long and lank:

  Yon stork’s must touch the bottom of this tank,

  Since on its top doth wet no plume derange

  Of the smooth breast. I’ll bathe there!” “Do not so!”

  Warned me a voice from heaven. “A man let drop

  His axe into that shallow rivulet —

  As thou accountest — seventy years ago:

  It fell and fell and still without a stop

  Keeps falling, nor has reached the bottom yet.”

  Never the Time and the Place

  Never the time and the place

  And the loved one all together!

  This path — how soft to pace!

  This May — what magic weather!

  Where is the loved one’s face?

  In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,

  But the house is narrow, the place is bleak

  Where, outside, rain and wind combine

  With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,

  With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,

  With a malice that marks each word, each sign!

  O enemy sly and serpentine,

  Uncoil thee from the waking man!

  Do I hold the Past

  Thus firm and fast

  Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?

  This path so soft to pace shall lead

  Thro’ the magic of May to herself indeed!

  Or narrow if needs the house must be,

  Outside are the storms and strangers: we —

  Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,

  — I and she!

  Pambo

  Suppose that we part (work done, come
s play)

  With a grave tale told in crambo

  — As our hearty sires were wont to say —

  Whereof the hero is Pambo?

  Do you happen to know who Pambo was?

  Nor I — but this much have heard of him:

  He entered one day a college-class,

  And asked — was it so absurd of him? —

  “May Pambo learn wisdom ere practise it?

  In wisdom I fain would ground me:

  Since wisdom is centred in Holy Writ,

  Some psalm to the purpose expound me!”

  “That psalm,” the Professor smiled, “shall be

  Untroubled by doubt which dirtieth

  Pellucid streams when an ass like thee

  Would drink there — the Nine-and-thirtieth.

  “Verse First: I said I will look to my ways

  That I with my tongue offend not.

  How now? Why stare? Art struck in amaze?

  Stop, stay! The smooth line hath an end knot!

  “He’s gone! — disgusted my text should prove

  Too easy to need explaining?

  Had he waited, the blockhead might find I move

  To matter that pays remaining!”

  Long years went by, when — “Ha, who’s this?

  Do I come on the restive scholar

  I had driven to Wisdom’s goal, I wis,

  But that he slipped the collar?

  “What? Arms crossed, brow bent, thought-immersed?

  A student indeed! Why scruple

  To own that the lesson proposed him first

  Scarce suited so apt a pupil?

  “Come back! From the beggarly elements

  To a more recondite issue

  We pass till we reach, at all events,

  Some point that may puzzle . . . Why ‘pish’ you?”

  From the ground looked piteous up the head;

  ”Daily and nightly, Master,

  Your pupil plods thro’ that text you read,

  Yet gets on never the faster.

  “At the self-same stand, — now old, then young!

  I will look to my ways — were doing

  As easy as saying! — that I with my tongue

  Offend not — and ‘scape pooh-poohing

  “From sage and simple, doctor and dunce?

  Ah, nowise! Still doubts so muddy

  The stream I would drink at once, — but once!

  That — thus I resume my study!”

  Brother, brother, I share the blame,

  Arcades sumus ambo!

  Darkling, I keep my sunrise-aim,

  Lack not the critic’s flambeau,

  And look to my ways, yet, much the same,

  Offend with my tongue — like Pambo!

  FERISHTAH’S FANCIES

  First appearing in 1884, Ferishtah’s Fancies is a long poem divided into twelve parts, though the parts are diverse in subject and often treated as separate poems. The poem is narrated by the Persian soothsayer Ferishtah, who tells several parables (fancies) to students that illustrate his opinions on a number of religious and moral subjects.