Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  A poor existence, parting with a youth

  Like those who squander every energy

  Convertible to good, on painted toys,

  Breath-bubbles, gilded dust! And though I spurn

  All adventitious aims, from empty praise

  To love’s award, yet whoso deems such helps

  Important, and concerns himself for me,

  May know even these will follow with the rest —

  As in the steady rolling Mayne, asleep

  Yonder, is mixed its mass of schistous ore.

  My own affections laid to rest awhile,

  Will waken purified, subdued alone

  By all I have achieved. Till then — till then . . .

  Ah, the time-wiling loitering of a page

  Through bower and over lawn, till eve shall bring

  The stately lady’s presence whom he loves —

  The broken sleep of the fisher whose rough coat

  Enwraps the queenly pearl — these are faint types!

  See, see, they look on me: I triumph now!

  But one thing, Festus, Michal! I have told

  All I shall e’er disclose to mortal: say —

  Do you believe I shall accomplish this?

  Festus.

  I do believe!

  Michal.

  I ever did believe!

  Paracelsus.

  Those words shall never fade from out my brain!

  This earnest of the end shall never fade!

  Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal,

  Two points in the adventure of the diver,

  One — when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,

  One — when, a prince, he rises with his pearl?

  Festus, I plunge!

  Festus.

  We wait you when you rise!

  Part II. Paracelsus Attains

  Scene. —

  Constantinople; the house of a Greek Conjurer. 1521.

  Paracelsus.

  Paracelsus.

  Over the waters in the vaporous West

  The sun goes down as in a sphere of gold

  Behind the arm of the city, which between,

  With all that length of domes and minarets,

  Athwart the splendour, black and crooked runs

  Like a Turk verse along a scimitar.

  There lie, sullen memorial, and no more

  Possess my aching sight! ‘T is done at last.

  Strange — and the juggles of a sallow cheat

  Have won me to this act! ‘T is as yon cloud

  Should voyage unwrecked o’er many a mountain-top

  And break upon a molehill. I have dared

  Come to a pause with knowledge; scan for once

  The heights already reached, without regard

  To the extent above; fairly compute

  All I have clearly gained; for once excluding

  A brilliant future to supply and perfect

  All half-gains and conjectures and crude hopes:

  And all because a fortune-teller wills

  His credulous seekers should inscribe thus much

  Their previous life’s attainment, in his roll,

  Before his promised secret, as he vaunts,

  Make up the sum: and here amid the scrawled

  Uncouth recordings of the dupes of this

  Old arch-genethliac, lie my life’s results!

  A few blurred characters suffice to note

  A stranger wandered long through many lands

  And reaped the fruit he coveted in a few

  Discoveries, as appended here and there,

  The fragmentary produce of much toil,

  In a dim heap, fact and surmise together

  Confusedly massed as when acquired; he was

  Intent on gain to come too much to stay

  And scrutinize the little gained: the whole

  Slipt in the blank space ‘twixt an idiot’s gibber

  And a mad lover’s ditty — there it lies.

  And yet those blottings chronicle a life —

  A whole life, and my life! Nothing to do,

  No problem for the fancy, but a life

  Spent and decided, wasted past retrieve

  Or worthy beyond peer. Stay, what does this

  Remembrancer set down concerning “life”?

  “ ‘Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream,’

  “It is the echo of time; and he whose heart

  “Beat first beneath a human heart, whose speech

  “Was copied from a human tongue, can never

  “Recall when he was living yet knew not this.

  “Nevertheless long seasons pass o’er him

  “Till some one hour’s experience shows what nothing,

  “It seemed, could clearer show; and ever after,

  “An altered brow and eye and gait and speech

  “Attest that now he knows the adage true

  “ ‘Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream.’ “

  Ay, my brave chronicler, and this same hour

  As well as any: now, let my time be!

  Now! I can go no farther; well or ill,

  ‘T is done. I must desist and take my chance.

  I cannot keep on the stretch: ‘t is no back-shrinking —

  For let but some assurance beam, some close

  To my toil grow visible, and I proceed

  At any price, though closing it, I die.

  Else, here I pause. The old Greek’s prophecy

  Is like to turn out true: “I shall not quit

  “His chamber till I know what I desire!”

  Was it the light wind sang it o’er the sea?

  An end, a rest! strange how the notion, once

  Encountered, gathers strength by moments! Rest!

  Where has it kept so long? this throbbing brow

  To cease, this beating heart to cease, all cruel

  And gnawing thoughts to cease! To dare let down

  My strung, so high-strung brain, to dare unnerve

  My harassed o’ertasked frame, to know my place,

  My portion, my reward, even my failure,

  Assigned, made sure for ever! To lose myself

  Among the common creatures of the world,

  To draw some gain from having been a man,

  Neither to hope nor fear, to live at length!

  Even in failure, rest! But rest in truth

  And power and recompense . . . I hoped that once!

  What, sunk insensibly so deep? Has all

  Been undergone for this? This the request

  My labour qualified me to present

  With no fear of refusal? Had I gone

  Slightingly through my task, and so judged fit

  To moderate my hopes; nay, were it now

  My sole concern to exculpate myself,

  End things or mend them, — why, I could not choose

  A humbler mood to wait for the event!

  No, no, there needs not this; no, after all,

  At worst I have performed my share of the task

  The rest is God’s concern; mine, merely this,

  To know that I have obstinately held

  By my own work. The mortal whose brave foot

  Has trod, unscathed, the temple-court so far

  That he descries at length the shrine of shrines,

  Must let no sneering of the demons’ eyes,

  Whom he could pass unquailing, fasten now

  Upon him, fairly past their power; no, no —

  He must not stagger, faint, fall down at last,

  Having a charm to baffle them; behold,

  He bares his front: a mortal ventures thus

  Serene amid the echoes, beams and glooms!

  If he be priest henceforth, if he wake up

  The god of the place to ban and blast him there,

  Both well! What ‘s failure or success to me?

  I have subdued my life to the one purpose

  Whereto I o
rdained it; there alone I spy,

  No doubt, that way I may be satisfied.

  Yes, well have I subdued my life! beyond

  The obligation of my strictest vow,

  The contemplation of my wildest bond,

  Which gave my nature freely up, in truth,

  But in its actual state, consenting fully

  All passionate impulses its soil was formed

  To rear, should wither; but foreseeing not

  The tract, doomed to perpetual barrenness,

  Would seem one day, remembered as it was,

  Beside the parched sand-waste which now it is,

  Already strewn with faint blooms, viewless then.

  I ne’er engaged to root up loves so frail

  I felt them not; yet now, ‘t is very plain

  Some soft spots had their birth in me at first,

  If not love, say, like love: there was a time

  When yet this wolfish hunger after knowledge

  Set not remorselessly love’s claims aside.

  This heart was human once, or why recall

  Einsiedeln, now, and Würzburg which the Mayne

  Forsakes her course to fold as with an arm?

  And Festus — my poor Festus, with his praise

  And counsel and grave fears — where is he now

  With the sweet maiden, long ago his bride?

  I surely loved them — that last night, at least,

  When we . . . gone! gone! the better. I am saved

  The sad review of an ambitious youth

  Choked by vile lusts, unnoticed in their birth,

  But let grow up and wind around a will

  Till action was destroyed. No, I have gone

  Purging my path successively of aught

  Wearing the distant likeness of such lusts.

  I have made life consist of one idea:

  Ere that was master, up till that was born,

  I bear a memory of a pleasant life

  Whose small events I treasure; till one morn

  I ran o’er the seven little grassy fields,

  Startling the flocks of nameless birds, to tell

  Poor Festus, leaping all the while for joy,

  To leave all trouble for my future plans,

  Since I had just determined to become

  The greatest and most glorious man on earth.

  And since that morn all life has been forgotten;

  All is one day, one only step between

  The outset and the end: one tyrant all-

  Absorbing aim fills up the interspace,

  One vast unbroken chain of thought, kept up

  Through a career apparently adverse

  To its existence: life, death, light and shadow,

  The shows of the world, were bare receptacles

  Or indices of truth to be wrung thence,

  Not ministers of sorrow or delight:

  A wondrous natural robe in which she went.

  For some one truth would dimly beacon me

  From mountains rough with pines, and flit and wink

  O’er dazzling wastes of frozen snow, and tremble

  Into assured light in some branching mine

  Where ripens, swathed in fire, the liquid gold —

  And all the beauty, all the wonder fell

  On either side the truth, as its mere robe;

  I see the robe now — then I saw the form.

  So far, then, I have voyaged with success,

  So much is good, then, in this working sea

  Which parts me from that happy strip of land:

  But o’er that happy strip a sun shone, too!

  And fainter gleams it as the waves grow rough,

  And still more faint as the sea widens; last

  I sicken on a dead gulf streaked with light

  From its own putrefying depths alone.

  Then, God was pledged to take me by the hand;

  Now, any miserable juggle can bid

  My pride depart. All is alike at length:

  God may take pleasure in confounding pride

  By hiding secrets with the scorned and base —

  I am here, in short: so little have I paused

  Throughout! I never glanced behind to know

  If I had kept my primal light from wane,

  And thus insensibly am — what I am!

  Oh, bitter; very bitter!

  And more bitter,

  To fear a deeper curse, an inner ruin,

  Plague beneath plague, the last turning the first

  To light beside its darkness. Let me weep

  My youth and its brave hopes, all dead and gone,

  In tears which burn! Would I were sure to win

  Some startling secret in their stead, a tincture

  Of force to flush old age with youth, or breed

  Gold, or imprison moonbeams till they change

  To opal shafts! — only that, hurling it

  Indignant back, I might convince myself

  My aims remained supreme and pure as ever!

  Even now, why not desire, for mankind’s sake,

  That if I fail, some fault may be the cause,

  That, though I sink, another may succeed?

  O God, the despicable heart of us!

  Shut out this hideous mockery from my heart!

  ‘T was politic in you, Aureole, to reject

  Single rewards, and ask them in the lump;

  At all events, once launched, to hold straight on:

  For now ‘t is all or nothing. Mighty profit

  Your gains will bring if they stop short of such

  Full consummation! As a man, you had

  A certain share of strength; and that is gone

  Already in the getting these you boast.

  Do not they seem to laugh, as who should say —

  “Great master, we are here indeed, dragged forth

  “To light; this hast thou done: be glad! Now, seek

  “The strength to use which thou hast spent in getting!”

  And yet ‘t is much, surely ‘t is very much,

  Thus to have emptied youth of all its gifts,

  To feed a fire meant to hold out till morn

  Arrived with inexhaustible light; and lo,

  I have heaped up my last, and day dawns not!

  And I am left with grey hair, faded hands,

  And furrowed brow. Ha, have I, after all,

  Mistaken the wild nursling of my breast?

  Knowledge it seemed, and power, and recompense!

  Was she who glided through my room of nights,

  Who laid my head on her soft knees and smoothed

  The damp locks, — whose sly soothings just began

  When my sick spirit craved repose awhile —

  God! was I fighting sleep off for death’s sake?

  God! Thou art mind! Unto the master-mind

  Mind should be precious. Spare my mind alone!

  All else I will endure; if, as I stand

  Here, with my gains, thy thunder smite me down,

  I bow me; ‘t is thy will, thy righteous will;

  I o’erpass life’s restrictions, and I die;

  And if no trace of my career remain

  Save a thin corpse at pleasure of the wind

  In these bright chambers level with the air,

  See thou to it! But if my spirit fail,

  My once proud spirit forsake me at the last,

  Hast thou done well by me? So do not thou!

  Crush not my mind, dear God, though I be crushed!

  Hold me before the frequence of thy seraphs

  And say — ”I crushed him, lest he should disturb

  “My law. Men must not know their strength: behold

  “Weak and alone, how he had raised himself!”

  But if delusions trouble me, and thou,

  Not seldom felt with rapture in thy help

  Throughout my toils and wanderings, dost intend

  To work man’s welfare t
hrough my weak endeavour,

  To crown my mortal forehead with a beam

  From thine own blinding crown, to smile, and guide

  This puny hand and let the work so wrought

  Be styled my work, — hear me! I covet not

  An influx of new power, an angel’s soul:

  It were no marvel then — but I have reached

  Thus far, a man; let me conclude, a man!

  Give but one hour of my first energy,

  Of that invincible faith, but only one!

  That I may cover with an eagle-glance

  The truths I have, and spy some certain way

  To mould them, and completing them, possess!

  Yet God is good: I started sure of that,

  And why dispute it now? I ‘ll not believe

  But some undoubted warning long ere this

  Had reached me: a fire-labarum was not deemed

  Too much for the old founder of these walls.

  Then, if my life has not been natural,

  It has been monstrous: yet, till late, my course

  So ardently engrossed me, that delight,

  A pausing and reflecting joy, ‘t is plain,

  Could find no place in it. True, I am worn;

  But who clothes summer, who is life itself?

  God, that created all things, can renew!

  And then, though after-life to please me now

  Must have no likeness to the past, what hinders

  Reward from springing out of toil, as changed

  As bursts the flower from earth and root and stalk?

  What use were punishment, unless some sin

  Be first detected? let me know that first!

  No man could ever offend as I have done . . .

  [A voice from within.]

  I hear a voice, perchance I heard

  Long ago, but all too low,

  So that scarce a care it stirred

  If the voice were real or no:

  I heard it in my youth when first

  The waters of my life outburst:

  But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear

  That voice, still low, but fatal-clear —

  As if all poets, God ever meant

  Should save the world, and therefore lent

  Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused

  To do his work, or lightly used

  Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour,

  So, mourn cast off by him for ever, —

  As if these leaned in airy ring

  To take me; this the song they sing.

  “Lost, lost! yet come,

  With our wan troop make thy home.

  Come, come! for we

  Will not breathe, so much as breathe

  Reproach to thee,

  Knowing what thou sink’st beneath.

  So sank we in those old years,

  We who bid thee, come! thou last

  Who, living yet, hast life o’erpast.