Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Gottlieb. His discovery of the truth will be frightful.

  Fourth Student. That’s the joke. But you should have joined us at the beginning: there’s no doubt he loves the girl — loves a model he might hire by the hour!

  Gottlieb. See here! ‘He has been accustomed,’ he writes, ‘to have Canova’s women about him, in stone, and the world’s women beside him, in flesh; these being as much below, as those, above — his soul’s aspiration; but now he is to have the real.’ There you laugh again! I say, you wipe off the very dew of his youth.

  First Student. Schramm! (Take the pipe out of his mouth, somebody). Will Jules lose the bloom of his youth?

  Schramm. Nothing worth keeping is ever lost in this world: look at a blossom — it drops presently, having done its service and lasted its time; but fruits succeed, and where would be the blossom’s place could it continue? As well affirm that your eye is no longer in your body, because its earliest favourite, whatever it may have first loved to look on, is dead and done with — as that any affection is lost to the soul when its first object, whatever happened first to satisfy it, is superseded in due course. Keep but ever looking, whether with the body’s eye or the mind’s, and you will soon find something to look on! Has a man done wondering at women? — There follow men, dead and alive, to wonder at. Has he done wondering at men? — There’s God to wonder at: and the faculty of wonder may be, at the same time, old and tired enough with respect to its first object and yet young and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns its novel one. Thus . . .

  First Student. Put Schramm’s pipe into his mouth again! There, you see! Well, this Jules . . . a wretched fribble — oh, I watched his disporting at Possagno, the other day! Canova’s gallery — you know: there he marches first resolvedly past great works by the dozen without vouchsafing an eye: all at once he stops full at the Psiche-fanciulla — cannot pass that old acquaintance without a nod of encouragement — ’In your new place, beauty? Then behave yourself as well here as at Munich — I see you:’ Next he posts himself deliberately before the unfinished Pietà for half an hour without moving, till up he starts of a sudden, and thrusts his very nose into — I say, into — the group; by which gesture you are informed that precisely the sole point he had not fully mastered in Canova’s practice was a certain method of using the drill in the articulation of the knee-joint — and that, likewise, has he mastered at length! Good bye, therefore, to poor Canova — whose gallery no longer needs detain his successor Jules, the predestinated novel thinker in marble!

  Fifth Student. Tell him about the women: go on to the women!

  First Student. Why, on that matter he could never be supercilious enough. How should we be other (he said) than the poor devils you see, with those debasing habits we cherish? He was not to wallow in that mire, at least: he would wait, and love only at the proper time, and meanwhile put up with the Psiche-fanciulla. Now I happened to hear of a young Greek — real Greek girl at Malamocco; a true Islander, do you see, with Alciphron’s ‘hair like sea-moss’ — Schramm knows! — white and quiet as an apparition, and fourteen years old at farthest, — a daughter of Natalia, so she swears — that hag Natalia, who helps us to models at three lire an hour, We selected this girl for the heroine of our jest. So, first, Jules received a scented letter — somebody had seen his Tydeus at the academy, and my picture was nothing to it — a profound admirer bade him persevere — would make himself known to him ere long — (Paolina, my little friend of the Fenice, transcribes divinely). And in due time, the mysterious correspondent gave certain hints of her peculiar charms — the pale cheeks, the black hair — whatever, in short, had struck us in our Malamocco model: we retained her name, too — Phene, which is by interpretation, sea-eagle. Now, think of Jules finding himself distinguished from the herd of us by such a creature! In his very first answer he proposed marrying his monitress; and fancy us over these letters, two, three times a day, to receive and dispatch! I concocted the main of it: relations were in the way — secrecy must be observed — in fine, would he wed her on trust, and only speak to her when they were indissolubly united? St — st — Here they come!

  Sixth Student. Both of them! Heaven’s love, speak softly! speak within yourselves!

  Fifth Student. Look at the bridegroom! Half his hair in storm, and half in calm, — patted down over the left temple, like a frothy cup one blows on to cool it! and the same old blouse that he murders the marble in!

  Second Student. Not a rich vest like yours, Hannibal Scratchy! — rich, that your face may the better set it off.

  Sixth Student. And the bride! Yes, sure enough, our Phene! Should you have known her in her clothes? How magnificently pale!

  Gottlieb. She does not also take it for earnest, I hope?

  First Student. Oh, Natalia’s concern, that is! We settle with Natalia.

  Sixth Student. She does not speak — has evidently let out no word. The only thing is, will she equally remember the rest of her lesson, and repeat correctly all those verses which are to break the secret’ to Jules?

  Gottlieb. How he gazes on her! Pity — pity!

  First Student. They go in — now, silence! You three, — not nearer the window, mind, than that promegranate — just where the little girl, who a few minutes ago passed us singing, is seated!

  II — NOON.

  Over Orcana. The House of JULES, who crosses its threshold with PHENE: she is silent, on which JULES begins —

  Do not die, Phenel I am yours now, you

  Are mine now; let fate reach me how she likes,

  If you’ll not die — so, never die! Sit here —

  My work-room’s single seat. I overlean

  This length of hair and lustrous front; they turn

  Like an entire flower upward: eyes — lips — last

  Your chin — no, last your throat turns — ’tis their scent

  Pulls down my face upon you! Nay, look ever

  This one way till I change, grow you — I could

  Change into you, Beloved!

  You by me,

  And I by you; this is your hand in mine,

  And side by side we sit: all’s true. Thank God!

  I have spoken: speak, you!

  O, my life to come!

  My Tydeus must be carved, that’s there in clay;

  Yet how be carved, with you about the chamber?

  Where must I place you? When I think that once

  This room-full of rough block-work seemed my heaven

  Without you! Shall I ever work again,

  Get fairly into my old ways again,

  Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait,

  My hand transfers its lineaments to stone?

  Will my mere fancies live near you, my truth —

  The live truth, passing and repassing me,

  Sitting beside me?

  Now speak!

  Only, first,

  See, all your letters! Was’t not well contrived?

  Their hiding-place is Psyche’s robe; she keeps

  Your letters next her skin: which drops out foremost?

  Ah, — this that swam down like a first moonbeam

  Into my world!

  Again those eyes complete

  Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow,

  Of all my room holds; to return and rest

  On me, with pity, yet some wonder too —

  As if God bade some spirit plague a world,

  And this were the one moment of surprise

  And sorrow while she took her station, pausing

  O’er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy!

  What gaze you at? Those? Books, I told you of;

  Let your first word to me rejoice them, too:

  This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red

  Bistre and azure by Bessarion’s scribe —

  Read this line . . . no, shame — Homer’s be the Greek

  First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl!

  My Odyssey in coarse black vivid t
ype

  With faded yellow blossoms ‘twist page and page,

  To mark great places with due gratitude;

  ‘He said, and on Antinous directed

  A bitter shaft’ . . . a flower blots out the rest!

  Again upon your search? My statues, then!

  — Ah, do not mind that — better that will look

  When cast in bronze — an Almaign Kaiser, that,

  Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip.

  This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized?

  I thought you would have seen that here you sit

  As I imagined you, — Hippolyta,

  Naked upon her bright Numidian horse!

  Recall you this, then? ‘Carve in bold relief’ —

  So you commanded — ’carve, against I come,

  A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was,

  Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free,

  Who rises ‘neath the lifted myrtle-branch:

  “Praise those who slew Hipparchus,” cry the guests,

  “While o’er thy head the singer’s myrtle waves

  As erst above our champions’: stand up, all!”‘

  See, I have laboured to express your thought!

  Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms,

  (Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides,

  Only consenting at the branch’s end

  They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole face,

  The Praiser’s, in the centre — who with eyes

  Sightless, so bend they back to light inside

  His brain where visionary forms throng up,

  Sings, minding not that palpitating arch

  Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine

  From the drenched leaves o’erhead, nor crowns cast off,

  Violet and parsley crowns to trample on —

  Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve,

  Devoutly their unconquerable hymn!

  But you must say a ‘well’ to that — say, ‘well!’

  Because you gaze — am I fantastic, sweet?

  Gaze like my very life’s-stuff, marble — marbly

  Even to the silence! why, before I found

  The real flesh Phene, I inured myself

  To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff

  For better nature’s birth by means of art.

  With me, each substance tended to one form

  Of beauty — to the human archetype —

  On every side occurred suggestive germs

  Of that — the tree, the flower — or take the fruit, —

  Some rosy shape, continuing the peach,

  Curved beewise o’er its bough; as rosy limbs,

  Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just

  From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang.

  But of the stuffs one can be master of,

  How I divined their capabilities!

  From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk

  That yields your outline to the air’s embrace,

  Half-softened by a halo’s pearly gloom;

  Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure

  To cut its one confided thought clean out

  Of all the world. But marble! neath my tools

  More pliable than jelly — as it were

  Some clear primordial creature dug from depths

  In the earth’s heart, where itself breeds itself,

  And whence all baser substance may be worked;

  Refine it off to air, you may, — condense it

  Down to the diamond; — is not metal there,

  When o’er the sudden specks my chisel trips?

  — Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach,

  Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep?

  Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised

  By the swift implement sent home at once,

  Flushes and glowings radiate and hover

  About its track?

  Phene? what — why is this?

  That whitening cheek, those still-dilating eyes!

  Ah, you will die — I knew that you would die!

  PHENE begins, on his having long remained silent.

  Now the end’s coming; to be sure, it must

  Have ended sometime! Tush, why need I speak

  Their foolish speech? I cannot bring to mind

  One half of it, besides; and do not care

  For old Natalia now, nor any of them

  Oh, you — what are you? — if I do not try

  To say the words Natalia made me learn,

  To please your friends, — it is to keep myself

  Where your voice lifted me, by letting it

  Proceed: but can it? Even you, perhaps,

  Cannot take up, now you have once let fall,

  The music’s life, and me along with that —

  No, or you would! We’ll stay, then, as we are:

  Above the world.

  You creature with the eyes!

  If I could look for ever up to them,

  As now you let me, — I believe, all sin,

  All memory of wrong done or suffering borne,

  Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth

  Whence all that’s low comes, and there touch and stay

  — Never to overtake the rest of me,

  All that, unspotted, reaches up to you,

  Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself,

  Not so the shame and suffering; but they sink,

  Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so,

  Above the world!

  But you sink, for your eyes

  Are altering — altered! Stay — ’I love you, love you’ . . .

  I could prevent it if I understood:

  More of your words to me: was’t in the tone

  Or the words, your power?

  Or stay — I will repeat

  Their speech, if that contents you! Only, change

  No more, and I shall find it presently

  — Far back here, in the brain yourself filled

  Natalia threatened me that harm would follow

  Unless I spoke their lesson to the end,

  But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you

  Your friends, — Natalia said they were your friends

  And meant you well, — because, I doubted it,

  Observing (what was very strange to see)

  On every face, so different in all else,

  The same smile girls like us are used to bear,

  But never men, men cannot stoop so low;

  Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile,

  That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit

  Which seems to take possession of this world

  And make of God their tame confederate,

  Purveyor to their appetites . . . you know!

  But no — Natalia said they were your friends,

  And they assented while they smiled the more,

  And all came round me, — that thin Englishman

  With light, lank hair seemed leader of the rest;

  He held a paper — ’What we want,’ said he,

  Ending some explanation to his friends —

  ‘Is something slow, involved and mystical,

  To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste

  And lure him on, so that, at innermost

  Where he seeks sweetness’ soul, he may find — this!

  — As in the apple’s core, the noisome fly:

  For insects on the rind are seen at once,

  And brushed aside as soon, but this is found

  Only when on the lips or loathing tongue:

  And so he read what I have got by heart —

  I’ll speak it, — ’Do not die, love! I am yours’ . . .

  Stop — is not that, or like that, part of words

  Yourself began by speaking? Strange to lose

  What cost such pains to learn! Is this more right?
>
  I am a painter who cannot paint;

  In my life, a devil rather than saint,

  In my brain, as poor a creature too:

  No end to al! I cannot do!

  Yet do one thing at least I can —

  Love a man, or hate a man

  Supremely: thus my lore began.

  Through the Valley of Love I went,

  In its lovingest spot to abide,

  And just on the verge where I pitched my tent,

  I found Hate dwelling beside.

  (Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant,

  Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride!)

  And further, I traversed Hate’s grove,

  In its hatefullest nook to dwell;

  But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love

  Where the deepest shadow fell.

  (The meaning — those black bride’s-eye: above,

  Not the painter’s lip should tell!)

  ‘And here,’ said he, ‘Jules probably will ask,

  You have black eyes, love, — you are, sure enough,

  My peerless bride, — so, do you tell, indeed,

  What needs some explanation — what means this?’

  — And I am to go on, without a word —

  So, I grew wiser in Love and Hate,

  From simple, that I was of late.

  For once, when I loved, I would enlace

  Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form and face

  Of her I loved, in one embrace —

  As if by mere love I could love immensely!

  And when I hated, I would plunge

  My sword, and wipe with the first lunge

  My foe’s whole life out, like a spunge —

  As if by mere hate I could hate intensely!

  But now I am wiser, know better the fashion

  How passion seeks aid from its opposite passion,

  And if I see cause to love more, or hate more

  Than ever man loved, ever hated, before —

  And seek in the Valley of Love,

  The spot, or the spot in Hate’s Grove,

  Where my soul may the sureliest reach

  The essence, nought less, of each,

  The Hate of all Hates, or the Love

  Of all Loves, in its Valley or Grove, —

  I find them the very warders

  Each of the other’s borders.

  I love most, when Love is disguised

  In Hate; and when Hate is surprised

  In Love, then I hate most: ask

  How Love smiles through hate’s iron casque,

  Hate grins through Love’s rose-braided mask, —

  And how, having hated thee,