Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Permissibly masks pleasure — you abstain

  From outstretch of the finger-tip that saves

  A drowning fly. Who proffers help of hand

  To weak Andromeda exposed on strand

  At mercy of the monster? Were all true,

  Help were not wanting: ‘But ‘t is false,’ cry you,

  ‘Mere fancy-work of paint and brush!’ No less,

  Were mine the skill, the magic, to impress

  Beholders with a confidence they saw

  Life, — veritable flesh and blood in awe

  Of just as true a sea-beast, — would they stare

  Simply as now, or cry out, curse and swear,

  Or call the gods to help, or catch up stick

  And stone, according as their hearts were quick

  Or sluggish? Well, some old artificer

  Could do as much, — at least, so books aver, —

  Able to make-believe, while I, poor wight,

  Make-fancy, nothing more. Though wrong were right,

  Could we but know — still wrong must needs seem wrong

  To do right’s service, prove men weak or strong,

  Choosers of evil or of good. ‘No such

  Illusion possible!’ Ah, friends, you touch

  Just here my solid standing-place amid

  The wash and welter, whence all doubts are bid

  Back to the ledge they break against in foam,

  Futility: my soul, and my soul’s home

  This body, — how each operates on each,

  And how things outside, fact or feigning, teach

  What good is and what evil, — just the same,

  Be feigning or be fact the teacher, — blame

  Diffidence nowise if, from this I judge

  My point of vantage, not an inch I budge.

  All — for myself — seems ordered wise and well

  Inside it, — what reigns outside, who can tell?

  Contrariwise, who needs be told ‘The space

  Which yields thee knowledge, — do its bounds embrace

  Well-willing and wise-working, each at height?

  Enough: beyond thee lies the infinite —

  Back to thy circumscription!’

  “Back indeed!

  Ending where I began — thus: retrocede,

  Who will, — what comes first, take first, I advise!

  Acquaint you with the body ere your eyes

  Look upward: this Andromeda of mine —

  Gaze on the beauty, Art hangs out for sign

  There’s finer entertainment underneath.

  Learn how they ministrate to life and death —

  Those incommensurably marvellous

  Contrivances which furnish forth the house

  Where soul has sway! Though Master keep aloof,

  Signs of His presence multiply from roof

  To basement of the building. Look around,

  Learn thoroughly, — no fear that you confound

  Master with messuage! He’s away, no doubt,

  But what if, all at once, you come upon

  A startling proof — not that the Master gone

  Was present lately — but that something — whence

  Light comes — has pushed Him into residence?

  Was such the symbol’s meaning, — old, uncouth —

  That circle of the serpent, tail in mouth?

  Only by looking low, ere looking high,

  Comes penetration of the mystery.”

  XI.

  Thanks! After sermonizing, psalmody!

  Now praise with pencil, Painter! Fools attaint

  Your fame, forsooth, because its power inclines

  To livelier colours, more attractive lines

  Than suit some orthodox sad sickly saint

  — Grey male emaciation, haply streaked

  Carmine by scourgings — or they want, far worse —

  Some self-scathed woman, framed to bless not curse

  Nature that loved the form whereon hate wreaked

  The wrongs you see. No, rather paint some full

  Benignancy, the first and foremost boon

  Of youth, health, strength, — show beauty’s May, ere June

  Undo the bud’s blush, leave a rose to cull

  — No poppy, neither! yet less perfect-pure,

  Divinely-precious with life’s dew besprent.

  Show saintliness that’s simply innocent

  Of guessing sinnership exists to cure

  All in good time! In time let age advance

  And teach that knowledge helps — not ignorance —

  The healing of the nations. Let my spark

  Quicken your tinder! Burn with — Joan of Arc!

  Not at the end, nor midway when there grew

  The brave delusions, when rare fancies flew

  Before the eyes, and in the ears of her

  Strange voices woke imperiously astir:

  No, — paint the peasant girl all peasant-like,

  Spirit and flesh — the hour about to strike

  When this should be transfigured, that inflamed,

  By heart’s admonishing “Thy country shamed,

  Thy king shut out of all his realm except

  One sorry corner!” and to life forth leapt

  The indubitable lightning “Can there be

  Country and king’s salvation — all through me?”

  Memorize that burst’s moment, Francis! Tush —

  None of the nonsense-writing! Fitlier brush

  Shall clear off fancy’s film-work and let show

  Not what the foolish feign but the wise know —

  Ask Sainte-Beuve else! — or better, Quicherat,

  The downright-digger into truth that’s — Bah,

  Bettered by fiction? Well, of fact thus much

  Concerns you, that “of prudishness no touch

  From first to last defaced the maid; anon,

  Camp-use compelling” — what says D’Alençon

  Her fast friend? — ”though I saw while she undressed

  How fair she was — especially her breast —

  Never had I a wild thought!” — as indeed

  I nowise doubt. Much less would she take heed —

  When eve came, and the lake, the hills around

  Were all one solitude and silence, — found

  Barriered impenetrably safe about, —

  Take heed of interloping eyes shut out,

  But quietly permit the air imbibe

  Her naked beauty till . . . but hear the scribe!

  Now as she fain would bathe, one even-tide,

  God’s maid, this Joan, from the pool’s edge she spied

  The fair blue bird clowns call the Fisher-king:

  And “ ‘Las,” sighed she, “my Liege is such a thing

  As thou, lord but of one poor lonely place

  Out of his whole wide France: were mine the grace

  To set my Dauphin free as thou, blue bird!”

  Properly Martin-fisher — that’s the word,

  Not yours nor mine: folk said the rustic oath

  In common use with her was — ”By my troth”?

  No, — ”By my Martin”! Paint this! Only, turn

  Her face away — that face about to burn

  Into an angel’s when the time is ripe!

  That task’s beyond you. Finished, Francis? Wipe

  Pencil, scrape palette, and retire content!

  “ Omnia non omnibus “ — no harm is meant!

  WITH GERARD DE LAIRESSE.

  I.

  Ah , but — because you were struck blind, could bless

  Your sense no longer with the actual view

  Of man and woman, those fair forms you drew

  In happier days so duteously and true, —

  Must I account my Gerard de Lairesse

  All sorrow-smitten? He was hindered too

  — Was this no hardship? — from producing, plain

  To us who still hav
e eyes, the pageantry

  Which passed and passed before his busy brain

  And, captured on his canvas, showed our sky

  Traversed by flying shapes, earth stocked with brood

  Of monsters, — centaurs bestial, satyrs lewd, —

  Not without much Olympian glory, shapes

  Of god and goddess in their gay escapes

  From the severe serene: or haply paced

  The antique ways, god-counselled, nymph-embraced,

  Some early human kingly personage.

  Such wonders of the teeming poet’s-age

  Were still to be: nay, these indeed began —

  Are not the pictures extant? — till the ban

  Of blindness struck both palette from his thumb

  And pencil from his finger.

  II.

  Blind — not dumb,

  Else, Gerard, were my inmost bowels stirred

  With pity beyond pity: no, the word

  Was left upon your unmolested lips:

  Your mouth unsealed, despite of eyes’ eclipse,

  Talked all brain’s yearning into birth. I lack

  Somehow the heart to wish your practice back

  Which boasted hand’s achievement in a score

  Of veritable pictures, less or more,

  Still to be seen: myself have seen them, — moved

  To pay due homage to the man I loved

  Because of that prodigious book he wrote

  On Artistry’s Ideal, by taking note,

  Making acquaintance with his artist-work.

  So my youth’s piety obtained success

  Of all-too dubious sort: for, though it irk

  To tell the issue, few or none would guess

  From extant lines and colours, De Lairesse,

  Your faculty, although each deftly-grouped

  And aptly-ordered figure-piece was judged

  Worthy a prince’s purchase in its day.

  Bearded experience bears not to be duped

  Like boyish fancy: ‘t was a boy that budged

  No foot’s breadth from your visioned steps away

  The while that memorable “Walk” he trudged

  In your companionship, — the Book must say

  Where, when and whither, — ”Walk,” come what come may,

  No measurer of steps on this our globe

  Shall ever match for marvels. Faustus’ robe,

  And Fortunatus’ cap were gifts of price:

  But — oh, your piece of sober sound advice

  That artists should descry abundant worth

  In trivial commonplace, nor groan at dearth

  If fortune bade the painter’s craft be plied

  In vulgar town and country! Why despond

  Because hemmed round by Dutch canals? Beyond

  The ugly actual, lo, on every side

  Imagination’s limitless domain

  Displayed a wealth of wondrous sounds and sights

  Ripe to be realized by poet’s brain

  Acting on painter’s brush! “Ye doubt? Poor wights,

  What if I set example, go before,

  While you come after, and we both explore

  Holland turned Dreamland, taking care to note

  Objects whereto my pupils may devote

  Attention with advantage?”

  III.

  So commenced

  That “Walk” amid true wonders — none to you,

  But huge to us ignobly common-sensed,

  Purblind, while plain could proper optics view

  In that old sepulchre by lightning split,

  Whereof the lid bore carven, — any dolt

  Imagines why, — Jove’s very thunderbolt:

  You who could straight perceive, by glance at it,

  This tomb must needs be Phaeton’s! In a trice,

  Confirming that conjecture, close on hand,

  Behold, half out, half in the ploughed-up sand,

  A chariot-wheel explained its bolt-device:

  What other than the Chariot of the Sun

  Ever let drop the like? Consult the tome —

  I bid inglorious tarriers-at-home —

  For greater still surprise the while that “Walk”

  Went on and on, to end as it begun,

  Choke-full of chances, changes, every one

  No whit less wondrous. What was there to baulk

  Us, who had eyes, from seeing? You with none

  Missed not a marvel: wherefore? Let us talk.

  IV.

  Say am I right? Your sealed sense moved your mind,

  Free from obstruction, to compassionate

  Art’s power left powerless, and supply the blind

  With fancies worth all facts denied by fate.

  Mind could invent things, and to — take away,

  At pleasure, leave out trifles mean and base

  Which vex the sight that cannot say them nay

  But, where mind plays the master, have no place.

  And bent on banishing was mind, be sure,

  All except beauty from its mustered tribe

  Of objects apparitional which lure

  Painter to show and poet to describe —

  That imagery of the antique song

  Truer than truth’s self. Fancy’s rainbow-birth

  Conceived mid clouds in Greece, could glance along

  Your passage o’er Dutch veritable earth,

  As with ourselves, who see, familiar throng

  About our pacings men and women worth

  Nowise a glance — so poets apprehend —

  Since nought avails portraying them in verse:

  While painters turn upon the heel, intend

  To spare their work the critic’s ready curse

  Due to the daily and undignified.

  V.

  I who myself contentedly abide

  Awake, nor want the wings of dream, — who tramp

  Earth’s common surface, rough, smooth, dry or damp,

  — I understand alternatives, no less

  — Conceive your soul’s leap, Gerard de Lairesse!

  How were it could I mingle false with true,

  Boast, with the sights I see, your vision too?

  Advantage would it prove or detriment

  If I saw double? Could I gaze intent

  On Dryope plucking the blossoms red,

  As you, whereat her lote-tree writhed and bled,

  Yet lose no gain, no hard fast wide-awake

  Having and holding nature for the sake

  Of nature only — nymph and lote-tree thus

  Gained by the loss of fruit not fabulous,

  Apple of English homesteads, where I see

  Nor seek more than crisp buds a struggling bee

  Uncrumples, caught by sweet he clambers through?

  Truly, a moot point: make it plain to me,

  Who, bee-like, sate sense with the simply true,

  Nor seek to heighten that sufficiency

  By help of feignings proper to the page —

  Earth’s surface-blank whereon the elder age

  Put colour, poetizing — poured rich life

  On what were else a dead ground — nothingness —

  Until the solitary world grew rife

  With Joves and Junos, nymphs and satyrs. Yes,

  The reason was, fancy composed the strife

  ‘Twixt sense and soul: for sense, my De Lairesse,

  Cannot content itself with outward things,

  Mere beauty: soul must needs know whence there springs —

  How, when and why — what sense but loves, nor lists

  To know at all.

  VI.

  Not one of man’s acquists

  Ought he resignedly to lose, methinks:

  So, point me out which was it of the links

  Snapt first, from out the chain which used to bind

  Our earth to heaven, and yet for you, since blind,

  Subsisted still efficient and
intact?

  Oh, we can fancy too! but somehow fact

  Has got to — say, not so much push aside

  Fancy, as to declare its place supplied

  By fact unseen but no less fact the same,

  Which mind bids sense accept. Is mind to blame,

  Or sense, — does that usurp, this abdicate?

  First of all, as you “walked” — were it too late

  For us to walk, if so we willed? Confess

  We have the sober feet still, De Lairesse!

  Why not the freakish brain too, that must needs

  Supplement nature — not see flowers and weeds

  Simply as such, but link with each and all

  The ultimate perfection — what we call

  Rightly enough the human shape divine?

  The rose? No rose unless it disentwine

  From Venus’ wreath the while she bends to kiss

  Her deathly love?

  VII.

  Plain retrogression, this!

  No, no: we poets go not back at all:

  What you did we could do — from great to small

  Sinking assuredly: if this world last

  One moment longer when Man finds its Past

  Exceed its Present — blame the Protoplast!

  If we no longer see as you of old,

  ‘T is we see deeper. Progress for the bold!

  You saw the body, ‘t is the soul we see.

  Try now! Bear witness while you walk with me,

  I see as you: if we loose arms, stop pace,

  ‘T is that you stand still, I conclude the race

  Without your company. Come, walk once more

  The “Walk”: if I to-day as you of yore

  See just like you the blind — then sight shall cry

  — The whole long day quite gone through — victory!

  VIII.

  Thunders on thunders, doubling and redoubling

  Doom o’er the mountain, while a sharp white fire

  Now shone, now sheared its rusty herbage, troubling

  Hardly the fir-boles, now discharged its ire

  Full where some pine-tree’s solitary spire

  Crashed down, defiant to the last: till — lo,

  The motive of the malice! — all a-glow,

  Circled with flame there yawned a sudden rift

  I’ the rock-face, and I saw a form erect

  Front and defy the outrage, while — as checked,

  Chidden, beside him dauntless in the drift —

  Cowered a heaped creature, wing and wing outspread

  In deprecation o’er the crouching head

  Still hungry for the feast foregone awhile.

  O thou, of scorn’s unconquerable smile,

  Was it when this — Jove’s feathered fury — slipped

  Gore-glutted from the heart’s core whence he ripped —

  This eagle-hound — neither reproach nor prayer —

  Baffled, in one more fierce attempt to tear