Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Yet how has grown that love? Even in a long

  And patient cherishing of the self-same spirit

  It now would quell; as though a mother hoped

  To stay the lusty manhood of the child

  Once weak upon her knees. I was not born

  Informed and fearless from the first, but shrank

  From aught which marked me out apart from men:

  I would have lived their life, and died their death,

  Lost in their ranks, eluding destiny:

  But you first guided me through doubt and fear,

  Taught me to know mankind and know myself;

  And now that I am strong and full of hope,

  That, from my soul, I can reject all aims

  Save those your earnest words made plain to me,

  Now that I touch the brink of my design,

  When I would have a triumph in their eyes,

  A glad cheer in their voices — Michal weeps,

  And Festus ponders gravely!

  Festus.

  When you deign

  To hear my purpose . . .

  Paracelsus.

  Hear it? I can say

  Beforehand all this evening’s conference!

  ‘T is this way, Michal, that he uses: first,

  Or he declares, or I, the leading points

  Of our best scheme of life, what is man’s end

  And what God’s will; no two faiths e’er agreed

  As his with mine. Next, each of us allows

  Faith should be acted on as best we may;

  Accordingly, I venture to submit

  My plan, in lack of better, for pursuing

  The path which God’s will seems to authorize.

  Well, he discerns much good in it, avows

  This motive worthy, that hope plausible,

  A danger here to be avoided, there

  An oversight to be repaired: in fine

  Our two minds go together — all the good

  Approved by him, I gladly recognize,

  All he counts bad, I thankfully discard,

  And nought forbids my looking up at last

  For some stray comfort in his cautious brow.

  When, lo! I learn that, spite of all, there lurks

  Some innate and inexplicable germ

  Of failure in my scheme; so that at last

  It all amounts to this — the sovereign proof

  That we devote ourselves to God, is seen

  In living just as though no God there were;

  A life which, prompted by the sad and blind

  Folly of man, Festus abhors the most;

  But which these tenets sanctify at once,

  Though to less subtle wits it seems the same,

  Consider it how they may.

  Michal.

  Is it so, Festus

  He speaks so calmly and kindly: is it so?

  Paracelsus.

  Reject those glorious visions of God’s love

  And man’s design; laugh loud that God should send

  Vast longings to direct us; say how soon

  Power satiates these, or lust, or gold; I know

  The world’s cry well, and how to answer it.

  But this ambiguous warfare . . .

  Festus.

  . . . Wearies so

  That you will grant no last leave to your friend

  To urge it? — for his sake, not yours? I wish

  To send my soul in good hopes after you;

  Never to sorrow that uncertain words

  Erringly apprehended, a new creed

  Ill understood, begot rash trust in you,

  Had share in your undoing.

  Paracelsus.

  Choose your side,

  Hold or renounce: but meanwhile blame me not

  Because I dare to act on your own views,

  Nor shrink when they point onward, nor espy

  A peril where they most ensure success.

  Festus.

  Prove that to me — but that! Prove you abide

  Within their warrant, nor presumptuous boast

  God’s labour laid on you; prove, all you covet

  A mortal may expect; and, most of all,

  Prove the strange course you now affect, will lead

  To its attainment — and I bid you speed,

  Nay, count the minutes till you venture forth!

  You smile; but I had gathered from slow thought —

  Much musing on the fortunes of my friend —

  Matter I deemed could not be urged in vain;

  But it all leaves me at my need: in shreds

  And fragments I must venture what remains.

  Michal.

  Ask at once, Festus, wherefore he should scorn . . .

  Festus.

  Stay, Michal: Aureole, I speak guardedly

  And gravely, knowing well, whate’er your error,

  This is no ill-considered choice of yours,

  No sudden fancy of an ardent boy.

  Not from your own confiding words alone

  Am I aware your passionate heart long since

  Gave birth to, nourished and at length matures

  This scheme. I will not speak of Einsiedeln,

  Where I was born your elder by some years

  Only to watch you fully from the first:

  In all beside, our mutual tasks were fixed

  Even then — ’t was mine to have you in my view

  As you had your own soul and those intents

  Which filled it when, to crown your dearest wish,

  With a tumultuous heart, you left with me

  Our childhood’s home to join the favoured few

  Whom, here, Trithemius condescends to teach

  A portion of his lore: and not one youth

  Of those so favoured, whom you now despise,

  Came earnest as you came, resolved, like you,

  To grasp all, and retain all, and deserve

  By patient toil a wide renown like his.

  Now, this new ardour which supplants the old

  I watched, too; ‘t was significant and strange,

  In one matched to his soul’s content at length

  With rivals in the search for wisdom’s prize,

  To see the sudden pause, the total change;

  From contest, the transition to repose —

  From pressing onward as his fellows pressed,

  To a blank idleness, yet most unlike

  The dull stagnation of a soul, content,

  Once foiled, to leave betimes a thriveless quest.

  That careless bearing, free from all pretence

  Even of contempt for what it ceased to seek —

  Smiling humility, praising much, yet waiving

  What it professed to praise — though not so well

  Maintained but that rare outbreaks, fierce and brief,

  Revealed the hidden scorn, as quickly curbed.

  That ostentatious show of past defeat,

  That ready acquiescence in contempt,

  I deemed no other than the letting go

  His shivered sword, of one about to spring

  Upon his foe’s throat; but it was not thus:

  Not that way looked your brooding purpose then.

  For after-signs disclosed, what you confirmed,

  That you prepared to task to the uttermost

  Your strength, in furtherance of a certain aim

  Which — while it bore the name your rivals gave

  Their own most puny efforts — was so vast

  In scope that it included their best flights,

  Combined them, and desired to gain one prize

  In place of many, — the secret of the world,

  Of man, and man’s true purpose, path and fate.

  — That you, not nursing as a mere vague dream

  This purpose, with the sages of the past,

  Have struck upon a way to this, if all

  You trust be true, which following, heart and s
oul,

  You, if a man may, dare aspire to know:

  And that this aim shall differ from a host

  Of aims alike in character and kind,

  Mostly in this, — that in itself alone

  Shall its reward be, not an alien end

  Blending therewith; no hope nor fear nor joy

  Nor woe, to elsewhere move you, but this pure

  Devotion to sustain you or betray:

  Thus you aspire.

  Paracelsus.

  You shall not state it thus:

  I should not differ from the dreamy crew

  You speak of. I profess no other share

  In the selection of my lot, than this

  My ready answer to the will of God

  Who summons me to be his organ. All

  Whose innate strength supports them shall succeed

  No better than the sages.

  Festus.

  Such the aim, then,

  God sets before you; and ‘t is doubtless need

  That he appoint no less the way of praise

  Than the desire to praise; for, though I hold

  With you, the setting forth such praise to be

  The natural end and service of a man,

  And hold such praise is best attained when man

  Attains the general welfare of his kind —

  Yet this, the end, is not the instrument.

  Presume not to serve God apart from such

  Appointed channel as he wills shall gather

  Imperfect tributes, for that sole obedience

  Valued perchance! He seeks not that his altars

  Blaze, careless how, so that they do but blaze.

  Suppose this, then; that God selected you

  To know (heed well your answers, for my faith

  Shall meet implicitly what they affirm)

  I cannot think you dare annex to such

  Selection aught beyond a steadfast will,

  An intense hope; nor let your gifts create

  Scorn or neglect of ordinary means

  Conducive to success, make destiny

  Dispense with man’s endeavour. Now, dare you search

  Your inmost heart, and candidly avow

  Whether you have not rather wild desire

  For this distinction than security

  Of its existence? whether you discern

  The path to the fulfilment of your purpose

  Clear as that purpose — and again, that purpose

  Clear as your yearning to be singled out

  For its pursuer. Dare you answer this?

  Paracelsus.

  [after a pause]

  No, I have nought to fear! Who will may know

  The secret’st workings of my soul. What though

  It be so? — if indeed the strong desire

  Eclipse the aim in me? — if splendour break

  Upon the outset of my path alone,

  And duskest shade succeed? What fairer seal

  Shall I require to my authentic mission

  Than this fierce energy? — this instinct striving

  Because its nature is to strive? — enticed

  By the security of no broad course,

  Without success forever in its eyes!

  How know I else such glorious fate my own,

  But in the restless irresistible force

  That works within me? Is it for human will

  To institute such impulses? — still less,

  To disregard their promptings! What should I

  Do, kept among you all; your loves, your cares,

  Your life — all to be mine? Be sure that God

  Ne’er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart!

  Ask the geier-eagle why she stoops at once

  Into the vast and unexplored abyss,

  What full-grown power informs her from the first,

  Why she not marvels, strenuously beating

  The silent boundless regions of the sky!

  Be sure they sleep not whom God needs! Nor fear

  Their holding light his charge, when every hour

  That finds that charge delayed, is a new death.

  This for the faith in which I trust; and hence

  I can abjure so well the idle arts

  These pedants strive to learn and teach; Black Arts,

  Great Works, the Secret and Sublime, forsooth —

  Let others prize: too intimate a tie

  Connects me with our God! A sullen fiend

  To do my bidding, fallen and hateful sprites

  To help me — what are these, at best, beside

  God helping, God directing everywhere,

  So that the earth shall yield her secrets up,

  And every object there be charged to strike,

  Teach, gratify her master God appoints?

  And I am young, my Festus, happy and free!

  I can devote myself; I have a life

  To give; I, singled out for this, the One!

  Think, think! the wide East, where all Wisdom sprung;

  The bright South, where she dwelt; the hopeful North,

  All are passed o’er — it lights on me! ‘T is time

  New hopes should animate the world, new light

  Should dawn from new revealings to a race

  Weighed down so long, forgotten so long; thus shall

  The heaven reserved for us at last receive

  Creatures whom no unwonted splendours blind,

  But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze.

  Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage,

  Not seldom glorified their life below.

  Festus.

  My words have their old fate and make faint stand

  Against your glowing periods. Call this, truth —

  Why not pursue it in a fast retreat,

  Some one of Learning’s many palaces,

  After approved example? — seeking there

  Calm converse with the great dead, soul to soul,

  Who laid up treasure with the like intent

  — So lift yourself into their airy place,

  And fill out full their unfulfilled careers,

  Unravelling the knots their baffled skill

  Pronounced inextricable, true! — but left

  Far less confused. A fresh eye, a fresh hand,

  Might do much at their vigour’s waning-point;

  Succeeding with new-breathed new-hearted force,

  As at old games the runner snatched the torch

  From runner still: this way success might be.

  But you have coupled with your enterprise,

  An arbitrary self-repugnant scheme

  Of seeking it in strange and untried paths.

  What books are in the desert? Writes the sea

  The secret of her yearning in vast caves

  Where yours will fall the first of human feet?

  Has wisdom sat there and recorded aught

  You press to read? Why turn aside from her

  To visit, where her vesture never glanced,

  Now — solitudes consigned to barrenness

  By God’s decree, which who shall dare impugn?

  Now — ruins where she paused but would not stay,

  Old ravaged cities that, renouncing her,

  She called an endless curse on, so it came:

  Or worst of all, now — men you visit, men,

  Ignoblest troops who never heard her voice

  Or hate it, men without one gift from Rome

  Or Athens, — these shall Aureole’s teachers be!

  Rejecting past example, practice, precept,

  Aidless ‘mid these he thinks to stand alone:

  Thick like a glory round the Stagirite

  Your rivals throng, the sages: here stand you!

  Whatever you may protest, knowledge is not

  Paramount in your love; or for her sake

  You would collect all help from every source —

  Rival, assistant, frien
d, foe, all would merge

  In the broad class of those who showed her haunts,

  And those who showed them not.

  Paracelsus.

  What shall I say?

  Festus, from childhood I have been possessed

  By a fire — by a true fire, or faint or fierce,

  As from without some master, so it seemed,

  Repressed or urged its current: this but ill

  Expresses what would I convey: but rather

  I will believe an angel ruled me thus,

  Than that my soul’s own workings, own high nature,

  So became manifest. I knew not then

  What whispered in the evening, and spoke out

  At midnight. If some mortal, born too soon,

  Were laid away in some great trance — the ages

  Coming and going all the while — till dawned

  His true time’s advent; and could then record

  The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed, —

  Then I might tell more of the breath so light

  Upon my eyelids, and the fingers light

  Among my hair. Youth is confused; yet never

  So dull was I but, when that spirit passed,

  I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns

  A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep.

  And having this within me and about me

  While Einsiedeln, its mountains, lakes and woods

  Confined me — what oppressive joy was mine

  When life grew plain, and I first viewed the thronged,

  The everlasting concourse of mankind!

  Believe that ere I joined them, ere I knew

  The purpose of the pageant, or the place

  Consigned me in its ranks — while, just awake,

  Wonder was freshest and delight most pure —

  ‘T was then that least supportable appeared

  A station with the brightest of the crowd,

  A portion with the proudest of them all.

  And from the tumult in my breast, this only

  Could I collect, that I must thenceforth die

  Or elevate myself far, far above

  The gorgeous spectacle. I seemed to long

  At once to trample on, yet save mankind,

  To make some unexampled sacrifice

  In their behalf, to wring some wondrous good

  From heaven or earth for them, to perish, winning

  Eternal weal in the act: as who should dare

  Pluck out the angry thunder from its cloud,

  That, all its gathered flame discharged on him,

  No storm might threaten summer’s azure sleep:

  Yet never to be mixed with men so much

  As to have part even in my own work, share

  In my own largess. Once the feat achieved,

  I would withdraw from their officious praise,

  Would gently put aside their profuse thanks.

  Like some knight traversing a wilderness,

  Who, on his way, may chance to free a tribe