s: "Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl:


s: "Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?"! he gracious began:


s: "How is it,--Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?


s: "Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast!


s: Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old?


s: Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me!


s: Go bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith


s: In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-God saith:


s: Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least,


s: --Fennel,--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode),


s: Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road;


s: Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge!


s: Tell it us straightway,--Athens the mother demands of her son!"


s: Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length


s: Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release


s: From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'


s: "I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind!


s: Whelm her away forever; and then,--no Athens to save,--


s: Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,--


s: Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall creep


s: Close to my knees,--recount how the God was awful yet kind,


s: Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!"


s: Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day:


s: Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine thro' clay,


s: Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!


s: So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute


s: Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed.


s: So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the noble strong man


s: So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute:


s: "Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.


s: My star that dartles the red and the blue!


s: Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:


s: Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.


s: She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,


s: The shutters are shut, no light may pass


s: And our paths in the world diverged so wide,


s: Each was naught to each, must I be told?


s: And creates the love to reward the love:


s: I claim you still, for my own love's sake!


s: Thro' worlds I shall traverse, not a few:


s: But the time will come, at last it will,


s: When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)


s: In the lower earth in the years long still,


s: Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,


s: And your mouth of your own geranium's red--


s: In the new life come in the old one's stead.


s: I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,


s: Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,


s: There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,


s: And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.


s: So hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep:


s: See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!


s: You will wake, and remember, and understand.


s: Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles


s: On the solitary pastures where our sheep


s: Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop


s: Was the site once of a city great and gay,


s: Of our country's very capital, its prince


s: Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far


s: Now,--the country does not even boast a tree,


s: To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills


s: Intersect and give a name to (else they run


s: Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires


s: O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall


s: Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,


s: And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass


s: Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads


s: Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,


s: Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe


s: Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame


s: And that glory and that shame alike, the gold


s: Now,--the single little turret that remains


s: While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks


s: Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time


s: And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced


s: And the monarch and his minions and his dames


s: And I know--while thus the quiet-coloured eve


s: To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece


s: And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray


s: That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair


s: In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul


s: But he looked upon the city, every side,


s: All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'


s: All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then,


s: When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,


s: On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace


s: Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech


s: In one year they sent a million fighters forth


s: And they built their gods a brazen pillar high


s: Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--


s: Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!


s: For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin!


s: With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!


s: Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,--


s: So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!


s: Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on--


s: Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!


s: I locked in the swarth little lady,--I swear,


s: From the head to the foot of her--well, quite as bare!


s: And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered


s: With--who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'erflowered?


s: I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed?


s: Walls, ceiling, and floor,--not a chance for a weed!


s: Wide opens the entrance: where's cold, now, where's gloom?


s: No May to sow seed here, no June to reveal it,


s: Behold you enshrined in these blooms of your bringing,


s: These fruits of your bearing--nay, birds of your winging!


s: And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe


s: Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:


s: Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath,


s: In lappets of tangle they laugh between.


s: Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims


s: The body,--the house no eye can probe,--


s: Who tripped behind; and she sang, perhaps:


s: So the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess


s: And song should away from heart to heart!


s: At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start--


s: That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free;


s: Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring


s: Of the rueful neighbours, and--forth to thee!


s: Do I view the world as a vale of tears?"


s: What I viewed there once, what I view again


s: That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,


s: O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue


s: To mine, it serves for the old June weather


s: And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether"


s: At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,


s: With the good wall's help,--their eyes might strain


s: By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether,"


s: And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,


s: And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!


s: All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.


s: All the face composed of flowers, we say.


s: All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet--


s: But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,


s: So, we leave the sweet face fondly there,


s: Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!


s: As,--why must one, for the love foregone


s: Earth,--the heaven, we looked above for, gone!


s: All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?


s: Shall we burn up, tread that face at once


s: Sparks from kindling all the place at once?


s: Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,--


s: Last, some old king locks it up, morose!


s: Smell, kiss, wear it--at last, throw away.


s: You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished,


s: I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered,


s: Cap and blouse--nay, a bit of beard too;


s: Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?"


s: Starved, feasted, despaired,--been happy


s: --Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)


s: Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon,


s: One of those same seven strings snapped.


s: Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped?


s: And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,


s: Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.


s: Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup


s: CHORUS.--Marching along, fifty score strong,


s: CHO.--Marching along, fifty score strong,


s: Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls


s: To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles!


s: Hold by the right, you double your might;


s: CHO.--March we along, fifty score strong,


s: Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!


s: King Charles, and who'll do him right now?


s: King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?


s: Give a rouse; here's, in hell's despite now,


s: CHO.--King Charles, and who'll do him right now?


s: Give a rouse: here's, in hell's despite now,


s: Brightens to blue from its silvery gray,


s: Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you'd say;


s: Many's the friend there, will listen and pray


s: "God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay--


s: CHO.--Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"


s: Flouts castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array:


s: Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay,


s: Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,


s: Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!


s: I've better counsellors; what counsel they?


s: CHO.-- Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"


s: Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away;


s: Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;


s: While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.


s: All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee:


s: All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem:


s: In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea:


s: Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe,--all were for me


s: If one could have that little head of hers


s: No shade encroaching on the matchless mould


s: Of those two lips, which should be opening soft


s: In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,


s: For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft


s: Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's


s: And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this.


s: Then her little neck, three fingers might surround,


s: How it should waver on the pale gold ground


s: Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!


s: I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts


s: Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:


s: But these are only massed there, I should think,


s: Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky


s: (That's the pale ground you'd see this sweet face by),


s: All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye


s: Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.


s: Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim.


s: But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,


s: Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,


s: Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.


s: Can work--God's puppets, best and worst,


s: How--can this arm establish her above me,


s: But "Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses,


s: Is she wronged?--To the rescue of her honour,


s: Is she poor?--What costs it to be styled a donor?


s: Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part.


s: But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her!


s: And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses,


s: Just for a handful of silver he left us,


s: Just for a riband to stick in his coat--


s: Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,


s: They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,


s: So much was theirs who so little allowed;


s: How all our copper had gone for his service!


s: Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud!


s: We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,


s: Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,


s: Made him our pattern to live and to die!


s: He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!


s: We shall march prospering--not through his presence;


s: Songs may inspirit us,--not from his lyre:


s: Deeds will be done,--while he boasts his quiescence,


s: Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:


s: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,


s: One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,


s: One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels,


s: One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!


s: Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!


s: There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,


s: Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight,


s: Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly,


s: Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,


s: Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!


s: "We shall soon lose a celebrated building."


s: The dead-house where you show your drowned:


s: Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked:


s: Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text,


s: So killed themselves: and now, enthroned


s: I thought, and think, their sin's atoned.


s: Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,--


s: The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;


s: Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.


s: Here's my case. Of old I used to love him.


s: Dream there was none like him, none above him,--


s: Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.


s: What of that? My turn must come some day.


s: "Some day" proving--no day! Here's the puzzle.


s: Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?


s: People's foolish mouths that give me pain!


s: "Letters?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing?


s: Ask the experts!--How they shake the head


s: O'er these characters, your friend's inditing--


s: "Actions? Where's your certain proof" (they bother)


s: He, he only, claims this, that, the other


s: Wish my friend would,--by a word, a wink,--


s: Bid me stop that foolish mouth,--you brute you!


s: Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me.


s: One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost,


s: No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me


s: Thanks for truth--tho' falsehood, gained--tho' lost.


s: All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier,


s: For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill


s: Thro' and thro' me as I thought, "The gladlier


s: Lives my friend because I love him still!"


s: Ah, but there's a menace some one utters!


s: "What and if your friend at home play tricks?


s: Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters?


s: Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks?


s: 'What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy?


s: Lay on you the blame that bricks--conceal?


s: Say '_At least I saw who did not see me,


s: Does see now, and presently shall feel_'?"


s: "Why, that makes your friend a monster!" say you;


s: Would you not have hailed him?" Hush, I pray you!


s: And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,


s: "Were the object less mean? would he stand


s: Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth:


s: No: I could not but smile thro' my chafe:


s: 'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain


s: Round his creep-hole, with never a break


s: Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast!


s: Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!


s: The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,


s: The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,


s: The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.


s: Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels--


s: But give me your sun from yonder skies!"


s: They had answered "And afterward, what else?"


s: Naught man could do, have I left undone:


s: For the best of the sight is, all allow,


s: And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,


s: In triumphs, people have dropped down dead,


s: Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;


s: Were praising God, the Pope's great way.


s: Might praise Him that great way, and die!"


s: Lived there, and played the craftsman well;


s: Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell


s: "Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped--


s: And a certain use in the world, no doubt,


s: Whence comes it save from fortune setting free


s: God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,


s: These shall I bid men--each in his degree


s: Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss


s: A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why."


s: Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat,


s: When the snows begin, and the blasts denote


s: The power of the night, the press of the storm,


s: Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,


s: For the journey is done and the summit attained,


s: Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,


s: I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more,


s: I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,


s: No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers


s: Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears


s: For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,


s: And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,


s: Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,


s: O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,


s: At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,


s: Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--


s: Low he lies who once so loved you whom you loved so,


s: Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!


s: With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?


s: Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel


s: One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,


s: Never dreamed, tho' right were worsted, wrong would triumph,


s: Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,


s: No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time


s: Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,


s: "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed,--fight on, fare ever


s: Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,


s: By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.


s: A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,


s: Draw yourself up from the light of the moon.


s: And let them pass, as they will too soon,


s: O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,


s: In a sea-side house to the farther South,


s: And one sharp tree--'tis a cypress--stands,


s: Bough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,


s: Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,


s: --She hopes they have not caught the felons.


s: Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side,


s: Bright creeping thro' the moss they love:


s: --How long it seems since Charles was lost!


s: Six days the soldiers crossed, and crossed


s: With little bells that cheer their task,


s: She picked my glove up while she stripped


s: Which, when 'twas told her, could not fail


s: In which she walked thus far, and stood,


s: And kneeling whisper, _Whence comes peace?_


s: Charles proved false, what shall now convince


s: In blood thro' these two hands. And next,


s: Charles, perjured traitor, for his part,


s: --Ah, there, what should I wish? For fast


s: That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,


s: Will't please you sit and look at her? I said


s: Strangers like you that pictured countenance,


s: The depth and passion of its earnest glance,


s: But to myself they turned (since none puts by


s: The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)


s: And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,


s: How such a glance came there; so, not the first


s: Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not


s: Her husband's presence only, called that spot


s: Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps


s: Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint


s: Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff


s: Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough


s: For calling up that spot of joy. She had


s: A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,


s: Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er


s: She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.


s: Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,


s: The dropping of the daylight in the West,


s: The bough of cherries some officious fool


s: Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule


s: She rode with round the terrace--all and each


s: Would draw from her alike the approving speech,


s: Or blush, at least. She thanked men,--good! but thanked


s: Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked


s: My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name


s: With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame


s: This sort of trifling? Even had you skill


s: In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will


s: Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this


s: Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,


s: Or there exceed the mark"--and if she let


s: Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,


s: --E'en then would be some stooping: and I choose


s: Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,


s: Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without


s: Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;


s: The Count your master's known munificence


s: Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed


s: At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go


s: Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,


s: Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?


s: Nephews--sons mine ... ah God, I know not! Well,


s: She, men would have to be your mother once,


s: And as she died so must we die ourselves,


s: And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.


s: In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,


s: Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask


s: "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.


s: Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;


s: And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought


s: With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:


s: --Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;


s: Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South


s: He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!


s: Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence


s: One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,


s: And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,


s: The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:


s: And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,


s: With those nine columns round me, two and two,


s: The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:


s: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe


s: As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse,


s: Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!


s: Draw close: that conflagration of my church


s: --What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!


s: My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig


s: The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,


s: Drop water gently till the surface sink,


s: And if ye find... Ah God, I know not, I!...


s: Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,


s: Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...


s: Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,


s: Like God the Father's globe on both his hands


s: For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!


s: Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:


s: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?


s: Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons? Black--


s: 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else


s: Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?


s: The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,


s: Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance


s: Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,


s: Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,


s: Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine


s: Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!


s: Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!


s: 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve


s: My bath must needs be left behind, alas!


s: One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,


s: There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world--


s: And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray


s: Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,


s: And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?


s: And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,


s: And see God made and eaten all day long,


s: And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste


s: Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!


s: For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,


s: Dying in state and by such slow degrees,


s: I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,


s: And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,


s: And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop


s: Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:


s: And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts


s: Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,


s: About the life before I lived this life,


s: And this life too, popes, cardinals, and priests,


s: Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,


s: Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,


s: And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,


s: And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,


s: All _lapis_, all, sons! Else I give the Pope


s: Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,


s: They glitter like your mother's for my soul.


s: Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,


s: Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase


s: With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,


s: That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,


s: "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!


s: To death--ye wish it--God, ye wish it! stone--


s: Gritstone, a-crumble! clammy squares which sweat


s: As if the corpse they keep were oozing through--


s: And no more _lapis_ to delight the world!


s: Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,


s: But in a row: and, going, turn your backs


s: And leave me in my church, the church for peace,


s: That I may watch, at leisure if he leers--


s: Old Gandolf--at me, from his onion-stone,


s: Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,


s: May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely,


s: As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy--


s: Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?


s: He is with her, and they know that I know


s: Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow


s: While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear


s: Empty church, to pray God in, for them!--I am here!


s: Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,


s: Better sit thus and observe thy strange things,


s: Than go where men wait me, and dance at the King's.


s: Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!


s: And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,


s: Sure to taste sweetly,--is that poison, too?


s: Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,


s: What a wild crowd of Invisible pleasures!


s: To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,


s: A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!


s: Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give


s: And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!


s: But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head


s: And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!


s: Quick--is it finished? The colour's too grim!


s: Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim?


s: Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,


s: And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!


s: What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me!


s: That's why she ensnared him: this never will free


s: The soul from those masculine eyes,--say "No!"


s: To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go.


s: For only last night, as they whispered, I brought


s: My own eyes to bear on her so that I thought


s: Could I keep them one half-minute fixed, she would fall


s: Shrivelled; she fell not: yet this does it all!


s: Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose;


s: It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close:


s: The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee!


s: If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?


s: You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!


s: But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings


s: Ere I know it--next moment I dance at the King's!


s: That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf


s: Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,


s: While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough


s: And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!


s: Hark I where my blossomed pear tree in the hedge


s: Leans to the field and scatters on the clover


s: Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge--


s: That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,


s: Lest you should think he never could recapture


s: And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,


s: All will be gay when noontide wakes anew


s: The buttercups, the little children's dower


s: --Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!


s: _(As distinguished by an Italian person of quality.)_


s: Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,


s: The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city square;


s: Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!


s: Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull


s: Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull,


s: Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!


s: --I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.


s: But the city, oh the city--the square with the houses! Why?


s: You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;


s: What of a villa? Tho' winter be over in March, by rights,


s: Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once;


s: In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns,


s: All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,


s: Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,


s: You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.


s: Oh, a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!


s: But altho' I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!


s: When they make up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?


s: Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,--


s: I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"


s: But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,


s: In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every nerve.


s: "Yours, for instance: you know physics, something of geology,


s: Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;


s: "As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,


s: "Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.


s: Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,


s: Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,


s: Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,


s: Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--


s: Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,


s: Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,


s: This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!


s: And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,


s: Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,


s: Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,


s: Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.


s: For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,


s: When a great illumination surprises a festal night--


s: Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine.


s: Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;


s: Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,


s: For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.


s: Nay more; for there wanted not who walked, in the glare and glow,


s: Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,


s: Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last:


s: All thro' my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,


s: All thro' my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,


s: All thro' music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,


s: Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:


s: It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,


s: Painter and poet are proud, in the artist-list enrolled:--


s: But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,


s: Existent behind all laws, that made them, and, lo, they are!


s: And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,


s: It is everywhere in the world--loud, soft, and all is said:


s: Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought,


s: And, there! Ye have heard and seen; consider and bow the head!


s: Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;


s: Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;


s: For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,


s: That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.


s: Never to be again! But many more of the kind


s: As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me?


s: To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind


s: Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name?


s: Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands!


s: What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same?


s: Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands?


s: What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;


s: On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.


s: All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;


s: Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power


s: Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist,


s: When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.


s: The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard.


s: The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,


s: Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;


s: Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by.


s: And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence


s: For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?


s: Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,


s: Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe:


s: But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear;


s: The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.


s: Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:


s: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.


s: Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,


s: Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,--yes,


s: And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,


s: Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep:


s: The last of life, for which the first was made:


s: Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"


s: Which lily leave and then as best recall!"


s: Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"


s: Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.


s: On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:


s: Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?


s: And not partake, effect and not receive!


s: Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!


s: Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!


s: Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:


s: A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.


s: Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?


s: How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?


s: Of power each side, perfection every turn:


s: Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn?"


s: I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:


s: Maker, remake, complete,--I trust what Thou shall do!"


s: Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:


s: Possessions of the brute,--gain most, as we did best!


s: I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!"


s: Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"


s: Life's struggle having so far reached its term:


s: From the developed brute; a God tho' in the germ.


s: Once more on my adventure brave and new:


s: What weapons to select, what armour to indue.


s: Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:


s: Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.


s: The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:


s: Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."


s: Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,


s: The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."


s: Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.


s: Toward making, than repose on aught found made:


s: Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid!


s: From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.


s: Announced to each his station in the Past!


s: Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!


s: Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;


s: They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?


s: Things done, that took the eye and had the price;


s: Found straight way to its mind, could value in a trice:


s: So passed in making up the main account:


s: Fancies that broke thro' language and escaped:


s: This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.


s: Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,--


s: "Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"


s: Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:


s: Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.


s: This Present, thou forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:


s: Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.


s: The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,


s: And since, not even while the whirl was worst,


s: Bound dizzily,--mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst.


s: What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!


s: Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!


s: Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,


s: Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,


s: That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,


s: Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,


s: Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;


s: All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;


s: Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:


s: Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,


s: This is our master, famous calm and dead,


s: Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,


s: He was a man born with thy face and throat,


s: Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note


s: Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!


s: Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!


s: No, that's the world's way; (keep the mountain-side,


s: He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride


s: Left play for work, and grappled with the world


s: Straight got by heart that book to its last page:


s: Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,


s: "Time to taste life," another would have said,


s: This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?


s: Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,


s: Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,


s: Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,


s: When he had gathered all books had to give!


s: Image the whole, then execute the parts--


s: Quite, ere you build, ere steel strikes fire from quartz,


s: (Here's the town-gate reached; there's the market-place


s: That before living he'd learn how to live--


s: Earn the means first--God surely will contrive


s: Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes!


s: He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!


s: Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:


s: Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:


s: "Now, master, take a little rest!"--not he!


s: Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)


s: Back to his studies, fresher than at first,


s: He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)


s: Was it not great? did not he throw on God


s: He would not discount life, as fools do here,


s: He ventured neck or nothing--heaven's success


s: "Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes!


s: That low man seeks a little thing to do,


s: This high man, with a great thing to pursue,


s: That, has the world here--should he need the next,


s: This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed


s: So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,


s: Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:


s: Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:


s: All ye highfliers of the feathered race,


s: Here's the top-peak; the multitude below


s: This man decided not to Live, but Know--


s: Here--here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,


s: Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,


s: Lofty designs must close in like effects:


s: Leave him--still loftier than the world suspects,


s: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.


s: You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?


s: I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear.


s: Treat his own subject after his own way,


s: Fix his own time, accept too his own price,


s: When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?


s: Oh, I'll content him,--but to-morrow, Love!


s: This evening more than usual: and it seems


s: As if--forgive now--should you let me sit


s: Here by the window, with your hand in mine,


s: To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!


s: And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.


s: Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve


s: For each of the five pictures we require:


s: My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!


s: --How could you ever prick those perfect ears,


s: Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet--


s: And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,


s: While she looks--no one's: very dear, no less.


s: You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,


s: There's what we painters call our harmony!


s: --You, at the point of your first pride in me


s: (That's gone, you know)--but I, at every point;


s: My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down


s: There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;


s: That length of convent-wall across the way


s: Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;


s: The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,


s: Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape,


s: A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.


s: How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;


s: So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!


s: This chamber for example--turn your head--


s: All that's behind us! You don't understand


s: But you can hear at least when people speak:


s: And that cartoon, the second from the door


s: --It is the thing, Love! so such things should be--


s: I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,


s: Who listened to the Legate's talk last week;


s: And just as much they used to say in France.


s: No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:


s: I do what many dream of, all their lives,


s: --Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,


s: And fail in doing. I could count twenty such


s: On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,


s: Who strive--you don't know how the others strive


s: To paint a little thing like that you smeared


s: Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,--


s: Yet do much less, so much less. Someone says,


s: (I know his name, no matter)--so much less!


s: Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.


s: There burns a truer light of God in them,


s: In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,


s: Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt


s: This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.


s: Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,


s: Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,


s: Enter and take their place there sure enough,


s: Tho' they come back and cannot tell the world.


s: My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.


s: The sudden blood of these men! at a word--


s: Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.


s: Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame


s: Or their praise either. Somebody remarks


s: Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,


s: His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,


s: Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?


s: Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?


s: Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,


s: Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-gray,


s: Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!


s: I know both what I want and what might gain,


s: Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.


s: Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth


s: ('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)


s: Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,


s: Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,


s: Above and thro' his art--for it gives way;


s: That arm is wrongly put--and there again--


s: A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,


s: Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,


s: He means right--that, a child may understand.


s: Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:


s: But all the play, the insight and the stretch--


s: Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?


s: Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,


s: But had you--oh, with the same perfect brow,


s: And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,


s: And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird


s: The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare--


s: Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!


s: Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged


s: "God and the glory! never care for gain.


s: The present by the future, what is that?


s: I might have done it for you. So it seems:


s: Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;


s: In this world, who can do a thing, will not;


s: And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:


s: Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power--


s: And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,


s: 'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,


s: Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.


s: I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,


s: For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.


s: The best is when they pass and look aside;


s: But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.


s: Well may they speak. That Francis, that first time,


s: In that humane great monarch's golden look,--


s: Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile.


s: One arm, about my shoulder, round my neck,


s: I painting proudly with his breath on me,


s: All his court round him, seeing with his eyes.


s: Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls


s: Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,--


s: And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,


s: This in the background, waiting on my work,


s: A good tune, was it not, my kingly days?


s: And had you not grown restless ... but I know--


s: 'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said;


s: Too live the life grew, golden and not gray:


s: And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt


s: Out of the grange whose four walls make his world,


s: You called me, and I came home to your heart,


s: The triumph was--to reach and stay there; since


s: I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?


s: Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,


s: The Roman's is the better when you pray,


s: But still the other's Virgin was his wife--"


s: Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows


s: For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,


s: To Rafael... I have known it all these years...


s: (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts


s: "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub


s: Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,


s: As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,


s: Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"


s: To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.


s: Give the chalk here--quick, thus the line should go!


s: Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!


s: Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,


s: Do you forget already words like those?)


s: If really there was such a chance so lost,--


s: Is, whether you're--not grateful--but more pleased.


s: Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!


s: This hour has been an hour! Another smile?


s: I should work better, do you comprehend?


s: I mean that I should earn more, give you more.


s: See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;


s: Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,


s: The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.


s: Come from the window, Love,--come in, at last,


s: We built to be so gay with. God is just.


s: King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights


s: When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,


s: The walls become illumined, brick from brick


s: Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce, bright gold,


s: That gold of his I did cement them with!


s: Let us but love each other. Must you go?


s: That Cousin here again? he waits outside?


s: Must see you--you, and not with me? Those loans?


s: More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?


s: Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?


s: While hand and eye and something of a heart


s: Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?


s: How I could paint, were I but back in France,


s: One picture, just one more--the Virgin's face,


s: Not yours this time! I want you at my side


s: Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.


s: Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.


s: Finish the portrait out of hand--there, there,


s: If he demurs; the whole should prove enough


s: To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,


s: What's better and what's all I care about,


s: The Cousin! what does he to please you more?


s: I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.


s: I regret little, I would change still less.


s: Since there my past life lies, why alter it?


s: I took his coin, was tempted and complied,


s: And built this house and sinned, and all is said


s: How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.


s: They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:


s: And not been paid profusely. Some good son


s: Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try!


s: No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,


s: You love me quite enough, it seems to-night.


s: This must suffice me here. What would one have?


s: In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance--


s: While I have mine! So--still they overcome


s: Because there's still Lucrezia,--as I choose.


s: Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.


s: "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself."


s: Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,


s: With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin,


s: And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,


s: And feels about his spine small eft-things course,


s: Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:


s: And while above his head a pompion-plant,


s: Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,


s: And now a flower drops with a bee inside,


s: And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,--


s: He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross


s: And recross till they weave a spider-web,


s: (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)


s: And talks, to his own self, howe'er he please,


s: Touching that other, whom his dam called God.


s: Could He but know! and time to vex is now,


s: In confidence, he drudges at their task,


s: And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,


s: Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]


s: 'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.


s: 'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,


s: But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;


s: Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:


s: Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,


s: And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.


s: 'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:


s: He hated that He cannot change His cold,


s: Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish


s: That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,


s: And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine


s: O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,


s: A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;


s: At the other kind of water, not her life,


s: (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun)


s: Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,


s: And in her old bounds buried her despair,


s: 'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,


s: Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.


s: Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;


s: Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,


s: That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown,


s: He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye


s: By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue


s: That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,


s: And says a plain word when she finds her prize,


s: But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves


s: That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks


s: About their hole--He made all these and more,


s: Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?


s: He could not, Himself, make a second self


s: To be His mate: as well have made Himself:


s: He would not make what He mislikes or slights,


s: An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains;


s: But did, in envy, listlessness, or sport,


s: Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be--


s: Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,


s: Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,


s: Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it!


s: Because, so brave, so better tho' they be,


s: It nothing skills if He begin to plague.


s: Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,


s: Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,


s: Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,--


s: Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,


s: Quick, quick, till maggots scamper thro' my brain;


s: Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme.


s: I yet could make a live bird out of clay:


s: Able to fly?--for there, see, he hath wings,


s: And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,


s: And there, a sting to do his foes offence,


s: There, and I will that he begin to live,


s: Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns


s: Of grigs high up that make the merry din,


s: Saucy thro' their veined wings, and mind me not.


s: In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,


s: And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh;


s: And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,


s: Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,


s: Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,--


s: Well, as the chance were, this might take or else


s: Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,


s: And give the mankin three sound legs for one,


s: Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,


s: And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.


s: Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,


s: Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,


s: 'Thinketh such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,


s: Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.


s: 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs


s: That march now from the mountain to the sea;


s: 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,


s: Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.


s: 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots


s: Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;


s: 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm.


s: And two worms he whose nippers end in red:


s: Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main,


s: Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,


s: But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!


s: Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,


s: And envieth that, so helped, such things do more


s: Than He who made them! What consoles but this?


s: That they, unless thro' Him, do naught at all,


s: And must submit: what other use in things?


s: 'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint


s: That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay


s: When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue;


s: Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay


s: Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt:


s: Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth


s: "I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,


s: With his great round mouth; he must blow thro' mine!"


s: Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.


s: But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?


s: That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,


s: Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.


s: There may be something quiet o'er His head,


s: Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,


s: Since both derive from weakness in some way.


s: I joy because the quails come; would not joy


s: Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:


s: This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.


s: 'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,


s: But never spends much thought nor care that way.


s: It may look up, work up,--the worse for those


s: Who, making Himself feared thro' what He does,


s: Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar


s: Next looks down here, and out of very spite


s: Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,


s: These good things to match those as hips do grapes.


s: 'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.


s: Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books


s: Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:


s: Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,


s: Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;


s: Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;


s: Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe


s: And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,


s: A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,


s: Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,


s: 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane


s: He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;


s: Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,


s: Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,


s: And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge


s: In a hole o' the rock, and calls him Caliban;


s: A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.


s: Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.


s: His dam held that the Quiet made all things


s: Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.


s: Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.


s: Had He meant other, while His hand was in,


s: Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,


s: Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,


s: Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint,


s: Like an orc's armour? Ay,--so spoil His sport!


s: 'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.


s: Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?


s: 'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast


s: Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose.


s: But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate


s: Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.


s: Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,


s: By no means for the love of what is worked.


s: 'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world


s: When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,


s: And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,


s: Than trying what to do with wit and strength.


s: 'Falls to make something; 'piled yon pile of turfs,


s: And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,


s: And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,


s: And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,


s: And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,


s: Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.


s: No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;


s: 'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.


s: 'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!


s: One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.


s: He hath a spite against me, that I know.


s: Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?


s: 'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm


s: With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises


s: Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,


s: Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,


s: And licked the whole labour flat; so much for spite!


s: 'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)


s: Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade:


s: Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!


s: And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.


s: Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does?


s: There is the sport: discover how or die!


s: All need not die, for of the things o' the isle


s: Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;


s: Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most


s: When ... when ... well, never try the same way twice!


s: Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.


s: You must not know His ways, and play Him off,


s: Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:


s: 'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears


s: But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,


s: And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:


s: For fright at my approach: the two ways please.


s: But what would move my choler more than this,


s: That either creature counted on its life


s: To-morrow, next day and all days to come,


s: Saying forsooth in the inmost of its heart,


s: So must he do henceforth and always." Ay?


s: 'Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means!


s: 'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.


s: 'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,


s: And we shall have to live in fear of Him


s: So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,


s: If He have done His best, make no new world


s: To please Him more, so leave off watching this,--


s: If He surprise not even the Quiet's self


s: Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it


s: As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,


s: And there is He, and nowhere help at all.


s: 'Believeth with the life the pain shall stop.


s: His dam held different, that after death


s: He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:


s: Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,


s: Giving just respite lest we die thro' pain,


s: Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end.


s: Meanwhile, the best way to escape His Ire


s: Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,


s: Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,


s: Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.


s: 'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball


s: On head and tail as if to save their lives:


s: 'Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.


s: Even so, 'would have him misconceive, suppose


s: This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,


s: Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,


s: Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,


s: And never speaks his mind save housed as now:


s: Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here,


s: O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"


s: 'Would to appease Him, cut a finger off,


s: Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,


s: Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,


s: Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:


s: While myself lit a fire, and made a song


s: And sung it, _"What I hate, be consecrate


s: To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate


s: For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?"_


s: Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,


s: Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,


s: That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch


s: Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.


s: Crickets stop hissing; not a bird--or, yes,


s: There scuds His raven, that hath told Him all!


s: It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind


s: Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,


s: And fast invading fires begin! White blaze--


s: A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there,


s: His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!


s: 'Maketh his teeth meet thro' his upper lip,


s: Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month


s: One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]


s: My first thought was, he lied in every word,


s: On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford


s: What else should he be set for, with his staff?


s: What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare


s: All travellers who might find him posted there,


s: And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh


s: Into that ominous tract which, all agree,


s: Nor hope rekindling at the end descried.


s: So much as gladness that some end might be.


s: For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,


s: What, with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope


s: With that obstreperous joy success would bring,--


s: My heart made, finding failure in its scope.


s: Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end


s: The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend,


s: And hears one bid the other go, draw breath


s: Freelier outside, ("since all is o'er," he saith,


s: "And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;")


s: While some discuss if near the other graves


s: Suits best for carrying the corpse away,


s: With care about the banners, scarves, and staves:


s: And still the man hears all, and only craves


s: He may not shame such tender love and stay.


s: Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,


s: Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ


s: The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed


s: Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best,


s: And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?


s: So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,


s: That hateful cripple, out of his highway


s: Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim


s: Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,


s: Than, pausing to throw backward a last view


s: O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round:


s: Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound,


s: I might go on; naught else remained to do.


s: Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:


s: For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove!


s: But cockle, spurge, according to their law


s: Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,


s: You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.


s: In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See


s: Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,


s: "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:


s: 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,


s: If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk


s: In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as° to balk


s: All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk


s: Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.


s: As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair


s: In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud


s: Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.


s: One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,


s: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!


s: Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,


s: With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,


s: And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;


s: Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;


s: I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.


s: As a man calls for wine before he fights,


s: I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,


s: Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art:


s: One taste of the old time sets all to rights.


s: Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold


s: That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!


s: Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.


s: Giles then, the soul of honour--there he stands


s: Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.


s: What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.


s: Good--but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands


s: Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands


s: Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!


s: Better this present than a past like that;


s: Back therefore to my darkening path again!


s: No sound, no sight so far as eye could strain.


s: Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.


s: No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;


s: This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath


s: For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath


s: Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;


s: Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit


s: The river which had done them all the wrong,


s: Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.


s: Which, while I forded,--good saints, how I feared


s: Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek


s: For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!


s: --It may have been a water-rat I speared,


s: But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.


s: Glad was I when I reached the other bank.


s: Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage


s: Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank


s: Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,


s: No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,


s: And more than that--a furlong on--why, there!


s: Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air


s: Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,


s: Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth


s: Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,


s: Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood


s: Changes, and off he goes!) within a rood--


s: Bog, clay, and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth.


s: Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,


s: Now patches where some leanness of the soil's


s: Broke into moss or substances like boils;


s: Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him


s: Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim


s: Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.


s: Naught in the distance but the evening, naught


s: To point my footstep further! At the thought,


s: That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.


s: 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place


s: All round to mountains--with such name to grace


s: Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.


s: How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you!


s: How to get from them was no clearer case.


s: Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick


s: Of mischief happened to me, Gods knows when--


s: In a bad dream, perhaps. Here ended, then,


s: Progress this way. When, in the very nick


s: Of giving up, one time more, came a click


s: As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den.


s: This was the place! those two hills on the right,


s: Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;


s: While, to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,


s: After a life spent training for the sight!


s: What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?


s: The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,


s: Built of brown stone, without a counterpart


s: In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf


s: Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf


s: He strikes on, only when the timbers start.


s: Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day


s: Came back again for that! before it left,


s: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay,


s: "Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!"


s: Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled


s: Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears,


s: How such a one was strong, and such was bold,


s: Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.


s: There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met


s: For one more picture! in a sheet of flame


s: Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,


s: And blew. "_Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came._"


s: Karshish, the picker up of learning's crumbs,


s: (This man's flesh he hath admirably made,


s: Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,


s: To coop up and keep down on earth a space


s: That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul)


s: Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,


s: Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks


s: Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain,


s: Back and rejoin its source before the term,--


s: I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone


s: Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:


s: I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.


s: Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,


s: Since this poor covert where I pass the night,


s: This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence


s: A man with plague-sores at the third degree


s: Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,


s: Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back;


s: Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.


s: Gather what most deserves, and give thee all--


s: Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,


s: Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry.


s: In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease


s: Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar--


s: But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.


s: Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully,


s: Suppose I write, what harms not, tho' he steal?


s: An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!


s: For, be it this town's barrenness--or else


s: The man had something in the look of him--


s: His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth.


s: The care and pains this somehow stole from me)


s: I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind.


s: Almost in sight--for, wilt thou have the truth?


s: Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.


s: Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!


s: Of trance prolonged unduly some three days


s: Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know,


s: The evil thing, out-breaking all at once,


s: Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,--


s: But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide,


s: Making a clear house of it too suddenly,


s: The first conceit that entered might inscribe


s: (First come, first served) that nothing subsequent


s: The just-returned and new-established soul


s: That henceforth she will read or these or none.


s: And first--the man's own firm conviction rests


s: That he was dead (in fact they buried him)


s: --That he was dead and then restored to life


s: --'Sayeth, the same bade "Rise," and he did rise,


s: "Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry.


s: Not so this figment!--not, that such a fume,


s: Instead of giving way to time and health,


s: Should eat itself into the life of life.


s: As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all!


s: For see, how he takes up the after-life,


s: Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,


s: As much, indeed, beyond the common health.


s: And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,


s: And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep!


s: Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?


s: This grown man eyes the world now like a child.


s: Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,


s: Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,


s: To bear my inquisition. While they spoke,


s: Now sharply, now with sorrow,--told the case,--


s: But folded his two hands and let them talk,


s: Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.


s: And that's a sample how his years must go.


s: Should find a treasure,--can he use the same


s: With straitened habits and with tastes starved small,


s: And take at once to his impoverished brain


s: That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand,


s: And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?


s: Is he not such an one as moves to mirth--


s: The golden mean, is lost on such an one:


s: The man's fantastic will is the man's law.


s: So here--we call the treasure knowledge, say,


s: Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,


s: Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven:


s: The man is witless of the size, the sum,


s: Discourse to him of prodigious armaments


s: And of the passing of a mule with gourds--


s: 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side,


s: Speak of some trifling fact,--he will gaze rapt


s: He caught prodigious import, whole results.


s: In ever the same stupor (note this point)


s: That we too see not with his opened eyes.


s: Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play,


s: Should his child sicken unto death,--why, look


s: For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,


s: While a word, gesture, glance from that same child


s: At play or in the school or laid asleep,


s: The reason why--"'tis but a word," object--


s: "A gesture"--he regards thee as our lord


s: Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young


s: All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.


s: Thou and the child have each a veil alike


s: Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both


s: Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match


s: Which runs across some vast distracting orb


s: Of glory on either side that meagre thread,


s: Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet--


s: The spiritual life around the earthly life:


s: The law of that is known to him as this,


s: His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.


s: Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,


s: Proclaiming what is right and wrong across,


s: And not along, this black thread thro' the blaze--


s: "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be."


s: And oft the man's soul springs into his face


s: His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise.


s: Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within


s: And studiously the humbler for that pride,


s: God's secret, while he holds the thread of life.


s: Is prone submission to the heavenly will--


s: 'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last


s: For that same death, which must restore his being


s: Divorced even now by premature full growth:


s: He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live


s: So long as God please, and just how God please.


s: (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.


s: Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach


s: The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be,


s: How can he give his neighbour the real ground,


s: Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old


s: I probed the sore as thy disciple should:


s: "How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness


s: Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march


s: To stamp out like a little spark thy town,


s: He merely looked with his large eyes on me,


s: Contrariwise, he loves both old and young,


s: And birds--how say I? flowers of the field--


s: In a master's workshop, loving what they make.


s: An indignation which is promptly curbed:


s: As when in certain travel I have feigned


s: And happed to hear the land's practitioners


s: Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance,


s: Its cause and cure--and I must hold my peace!


s: Thou wilt object--Why have I not ere this


s: Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene


s: Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source,


s: Conferring with the frankness that befits?


s: Accused--our learning's fate--of wizardry,


s: And creed prodigious as described to me.


s: His death, which happened when the earthquake fell


s: (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss


s: To his tried virtue, for miraculous help--


s: How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way!


s: But take one, tho' I loathe to give it thee,


s: In mere respect for any good man's fame.


s: Is stark mad; should we count on what he says?


s: 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.)


s: This man so cured regards the curer, then,


s: As--God forgive me! who but God Himself,


s: --'Sayeth that such an one was born, and lived,


s: Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,


s: Then died; with Lazarus by, for aught I know,


s: And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat,


s: And must have so avouched himself, in fact,


s: Who saith--but why all this of what he saith?


s: Why write of trivial matters, things of price


s: Thy pardon for this long and tedious case,


s: Which, now that I review it, needs must seem


s: And awe indeed this man has touched me with.


s: Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness


s: Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus:


s: I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills


s: Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came


s: A moon made like a face with certain spots


s: The man and I. I send thee what is writ.


s: Or steal, or give it thee with equal good.


s: For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine;


s: Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!


s: The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?


s: So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too--


s: So, through the thunder comes a human voice


s: Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!


s: Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!


s: Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,


s: But love I gave thee, with myself to love,


s: And thou must love me who have died for thee!"


s: The madman saith He said so; it is strange.


s: Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak.


s: Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent


s: Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,


s: Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.


s: For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days,


s: And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life.


s: "Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew


s: On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue


s: Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet,


s: And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped;


s: I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped;


s: But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied.


s: At the first I saw naught but the blackness; but soon I descried


s: A something more black than the blackness--the vast, the upright


s: Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight


s: Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all.


s: Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent roof, showed Saul.


s: He stood erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide


s: On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side;


s: And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs,


s: Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come


s: They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed


s: Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed;


s: And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star


s: Into eve and the blue far above us,--so, blue and so far!


s: There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse!


s: To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.


s: But I stopped here: for here in the darkness Saul groaned.


s: And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart;


s: All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart.


s: "Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste,


s: Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced.


s: Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock,


s: And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair.


s: And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold-dust divine,


s: That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.


s: How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ


s: All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy!


s: Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung


s: The low song of the nearly departed, and hear her faint tongue


s: Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one more attest,


s: And all gifts which the world offers singly, on one head combine!


s: Saul's fame in the light it was made for----as when, dare I say,


s: The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains thro' its array,


s: And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot--"Saul!" cried I, and stopped,


s: Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar


s: Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore,


s: At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean--a sun's slow decline


s: Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine


s: (For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urge


s: And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by?


s: Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep


s: Fed in silence--above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep;


s: And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie


s: Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!


s: I began--"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring


s: From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute:


s: Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine!


s: Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill


s: But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last.


s: As the lion, when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height,


s: So with man--so his power and his beauty forever take flight.


s: In great characters cut by the scribe,--Such was Saul, so he did;


s: Carry on and complete an adventure,--my shield and my sword


s: And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep!


s: For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron, upheaves


s: While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and, ever more strong,


s: Made a proffer of good to console him--he slowly resumed.


s: His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed


s: His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes


s: So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile


s: Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile,


s: And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware


s: That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees


s: If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow


s: Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine--


s: I yearned--"Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss,


s: I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this;


s: I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence.


s: "I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke;


s: I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain


s: And pronounced on the rest of his handwork--returned him again


s: His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw,


s: Reported, as man may of God's work--all's love, yet all's law.


s: Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked


s: To perceive him has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked.


s: Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.


s: I but open my eyes,--and perfection, no more and no less,


s: In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God


s: (With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)


s: The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all complete,


s: As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to His feet.


s: Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known,


s: I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own,


s: There's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink,


s: I am fain to keep still in abeyance (I laugh as I think),


s: Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst


s: E'en the Giver in one gift.--Behold, I could love if I durst!


s: But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake


s: Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man,


s: And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?


s: Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,


s: Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole?


s: And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest),


s: Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now,--and bid him awake


s: From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set


s: Clear and safe in new light and new life,--a new harmony yet


s: To be run and continued, and ended--who knows?--or endure!


s: The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make sure;


s: By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss,


s: And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggles in this.


s: "I believe it! 'Tis Thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive;


s: In the first is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe.


s: To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare


s: Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair?


s: To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would--knowing which,


s: I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak thro' me now!


s: And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down


s: One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,


s: Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!


s: Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!


s: A Face like my face that receives thee: a Man like to me,


s: Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand


s: I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.


s: There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right,


s: Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware:


s: I repressed, I got thro' them as hardly, as stragglingly there,


s: As a runner beset by the populace famished for news--


s: Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not,


s: All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,


s: Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.


s: Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth--


s: Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth;


s: In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills;


s: E'en the serpent that slid away silent--he felt the new law.


s: The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers;


s: With their obstinate, all but hushed voices--"E'en so, it is so!"


s: Take them, Love, the book and me together;


s: Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.


s: These, the world might view--but one, the volume.


s: Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory,


s: Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving--


s: Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's,


s: Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?


s: Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael,


s: Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre--


s: Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!"


s: Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.


s: Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for,


s: Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment,


s: Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle,


s: Let the wretch go festering through Florence)--


s: (Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)


s: "Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet."


s: Says the poet--"Then I stopped my painting."


s: Would we not?--than read a fresh Inferno.


s: While he softened o'er his outlined angel,


s: In they broke, those "people of importance":


s: What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture?


s: This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not


s: (Ah, the prize!) to find his love a language


s: Fit and fair and simple and sufficient--


s: Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.


s: None but would forego his proper dowry,--


s: Does he paint? he fain would write a poem,


s: Does he write? he fain would paint a picture,--


s: Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.


s: Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement!


s: Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute,


s: While he smites, how can he but remember,


s: When they stood and mocked--"Shall smiting help us?"


s: When they drank and sneered--"A stroke is easy!"


s: When they wiped their mouths and went their journey,


s: Throwing him for thanks--"But drought was pleasant."


s: Thus old memories mar the actual triumph;


s: Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat;


s: O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate,


s: Carelessness or consciousness--the gesture.


s: For he bears an ancient wrong about him,


s: Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces,


s: Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude--


s: "How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?"


s: Guesses what is like to prove the sequel--


s: Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!


s: Never dares the man put off the prophet.


s: Did he love one face from out the thousands,


s: Meant to save his own life in the desert;


s: (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened)


s: Hoard and life together for his mistress.


s: Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues.


s: Make you music that should all-express me;


s: This of verse alone, one life allows me;


s: Verse and nothing else have I to give you;


s: Other heights in other lives, God willing;


s: All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love.


s: Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.


s: Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,


s: Lines I write the first time and the last time.


s: He who works in fresco steals a hair-brush,


s: Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,


s: Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,


s: Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets,


s: He who blows through bronze may breathe through silver,


s: He who writes, may write for once as I do.


s: Enter each and all, and use their service,


s: Speak from every mouth,--the speech, a poem.


s: Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,


s: Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving:


s: I am mine and yours--the rest be all men's,


s: Pray you, look on these my men and women,


s: Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!


s: Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.


s: Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!


s: Here in London, yonder late in Florence,


s: Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.


s: Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.


s: Perfect till the nightingales applauded.


s: Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,


s: Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs,


s: Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,


s: What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?


s: Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,


s: Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman,--


s: When she turns round, comes again in heaven,


s: Proves she like some portent of an iceberg


s: Swimming full upon the ship it founders,


s: Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?


s: Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire,


s: Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?


s: Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.


s: Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work,


s: When they ate and drank and saw God also!


s: What were seen? None knows, none ever will know.


s: Only this is sure--the sight were other,


s: Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,


s: God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures


s: Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,


s: This I say of me, but think of you, Love!


s: Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder,


s: Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you!


s: There, in turn I stand with them and praise you--


s: Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.


s: But the best is when I glide from out them,


s: Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,


s: Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,


s: Where I hush and bless myself with silence.


s: Wrote one song--and in my brain I sing it,


s: Drew one angel--borne, see, on my bosom!


s: The poem is based on an old myth found in many forms, all turning


s: of the Middle Ages_, Grimm's _Deutsche Sagen_, and the


s: LINE 1. =Hamelin=. A town in Hanover, Prussia.


s: head of the Moslem state, and defender of the faith. _Century


s: The poem tells in detail an actual incident, and was written as a


s: Note the abruptness and vigor of the style. Where does it seem


s: Note the rapidity of narration and the galloping movement of the


s: verse; the time of starting, and the anxious attention to the


s: _time_ as the journey proceeds. How are we given a sense of the


s: effort and distress of the horses? How do we see Roland gradually


s: (Published in the _Cornhill Magazine_, 1871. Browning gave the


s: The story is from Herodotus, told there in the third person. See


s: defeated by the Athenians in the famous battle of Marathon, under


s: Leaf_. Note the elements of pastoral peace and gentleness in the


s: The poem celebrates the transforming and life-giving power of


s: his story once, when the poem opens. Note also the parallelism of


s: Study the development of the idea in the same manner as in


s: _Misconceptions_ and _Natural Magic_. Note the felicity of


s: Then beauty is its own excuse for being."


s: The source of the story is an epigram given in Mackail's _Select


s: Werther_, said to be drawn from the heroine of one of Goethe's


s: _Short History of the English People_, Chapter VIII, and


s: Macaulay's _History of England_, Chapter I. For an account of the


s: This poem is a companion piece to _Home Thoughts, from Abroad_.


s: admiral, Nelson, over the French fleet in 1805.


s: Note here the somewhat exaggerated art of the poem in the


s: alliterations and in the multiple comparisons.


s: The drama of _Pippa Passes_ is a succession of scenes, each


s: representing some crisis of human life, into which breaks, with


s: Leader_ is no true portrait of Wordsworth, though he became


s: poet-laureate. _The Lost Leader_ is a purely ideal conception,


s: ="Instans Tyrannus"=, the threatening tyrant. The phrase is from


s: Horace's _Odes_, Book III., iii., as is probably the idea of the


s: poem. Gladstone translates the passage:--


s: There is novelty of conception in giving the situation from the


s: Written shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning.


s: Tennyson's _Crossing the Bar_. What difference in spirit between


s: Sharp's _Life of Browning_ has the following passage: "Shortly


s: Image the scene in the first stanza. Why are the poppies known by


s: Ferrara still preserves the mediæval traditions and appearance in


s: quotes an answer from the poet himself: "'Yes, I meant that the


s: commands were that she should be put to death.' And then, after a


s: _The Flight of the Duchess_ should be read as a development and


s: feature in Renaissance art and literature.


s: Where is the speaker? What scene is in his imagination? Trace the


s: garnishment of Latin and Italian speech.


s: =St. Jerome= (340-420.) One of the fathers of the Roman, church.


s: He prepared the Latin translation of the Bible known as the


s: _Reader's Handbook_, or _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ for


s: =Toccata=. See an unabridged dictionary.


s: "For some we loved, the loveliest and the best


s: That from his vintage rolling Time hath prest,


s: Have drunk their cup a round or two before,


s: and the future; even the dead are back again in his presence. His


s: expression of the will, an act of higher creative power.


s: ART VOGLER is famous, not only for its confident optimism, but as


s: Abraham Ben Meir Ben Ezra, into whose mouth Browning puts the


s: reflections in this poem, was born in Toledo, Spain, in 1090, and


s: frequent in Oriental literature. See Isaiah lxiv. 8, and Jeremiah


s: What cares agitate youth? Why is it better so? Wherein does man


s: achieved? What advantage has old age? What are its pleasures? Its


s: so? How does Browning defend him? What imagery in the poem seems


s: especially effective? Are you reminded of anything in "Rabbi Ben


s: residence of French kings, and still famous for its Renaissance


s: architecture and for the landscapes around it.


s: Construct the scene and action of the poem. How does the coloring


s: What problems of life are here presented? Which is principal: the


s: Setebos was the god of Caliban's mother, the witch Sycorax, on


s: Read Shakespeare's _The Tempest_. Observe especially all that is


s: Tylor's _Primitive Culture_ and _Early History of Mankind_


s: give interesting accounts of the religions of savages.


s: of the poem? Can you cite anything in the history of religions to


s: admitting into his letter the story of Lazarus.


s: How is the general style of the verse-letter maintained? What is


s: _One Word More_ was appended to Browning's volume _Men and


s: _Divina Commedia_, consisting of the _Inferno_, _Purgatorio_,


s: and _Paradiso_, is his most famous work. His romantic passion


s: seems to be of Browning's invention.--COOKE.


s: To HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, of Boston, we are indebted for


s: the use of the following poems: From the copyrighted works of


s: Longfellow--"The Arrow and the Song," "A Fragment of Hiawatha's


s: To CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS we are indebted for the use of the


s: following poems: From the copyrighted works of Eugene


s: poems--"Little Orphant Annie." From the poems of Sidney


s: We are further indebted to CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, as well as


s: to MR. GEORGE W. CABLE, for "The New Arrival," taken from