Stop tears, or I’ll indite
All weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!’
So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur,
Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur?
And happily hanged were they, – why lengthen out my tale? –
Where Bunyan’s Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.
Clive
I and Clive were friends – and why not? Friends! I think you laugh, my lad.
Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives – egad,
England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak –
‘Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades –’ with a tongue thrust in your cheek!
Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world’s eyes, Clive was man,
I was, am and ever shall be – mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan
Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen’s estimate for fame;
While the man Clive – he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game,
Conquered and annexed and Englished!
Never mind! As o’er my punch
[10] (You away) I sit of evenings, – silence, save for biscuit-crunch,
Black, unbroken, – thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old years,
Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long-past life appears
Like an outspread map of country plodded through, each mile and rood,
Once, and well remembered still: I’m startled in my solitude
Ever and anon by – what’s the sudden mocking light that breaks
On me as I slap the table till no rummer-glass but shakes
While I ask – aloud, I do believe, God help me! – ‘Was it thus?
Can it be that so I faltered, stopped when just one step for us –’
[20] (Us, – you were not born, I grant, but surely some day born would be)
‘– One bold step had gained a province’ (figurative talk, you see)
‘Got no end of wealth and honour, – yet I stood stock still no less?’
– ‘For I was not Clive,’ you comment: but it needs no Clive to guess
Wealth were handy, honour ticklish, did no writing on the wall
Warn me ‘Trespasser, ’ware man-traps!’ Him who braves that notice – call
Hero! none of such heroics suit myself who read plain words,
Doff my hat, and leap no barrier. Scripture says the land’s the Lord’s:
Louts then – what avail the thousand, noisy in a smock-frocked ring,
All-agog to have me trespass, clear the fence, be Clive their king?
[30] Higher warrant must you show me ere I set one foot before
T’other in that dark direction, though I stand for evermore
Poor as Job and meek as Moses. Evermore? No! By-and-by
Job grows rich and Moses valiant, Clive turns out less wise than I.
Don’t object ‘Why call him friend, then?’ Power is power, my boy, and still
Marks a man, – God’s gift magnific, exercised for good or ill.
You’ve your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread what was a tiger’s skin:
Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in!
True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass;
Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage – ah, the brute he was!
[40] Why, that Clive, – that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving clerk, in fine, –
He sustained a siege in Arcot … But the world knows! Pass the wine.
Where did I break off at? How bring Clive in? Oh, you mentioned ‘fear’!
Just so: and, said I, that minds me of a story you shall hear.
We were friends then, Clive and I: so, when the clouds, about the orb
Late supreme, encroaching slowly, surely, threatened to absorb
Ray by ray its noontide brilliance, – friendship might, with steadier eye
Drawing near, bear what had burned else, now no blaze – all majesty.
Too much bee’s-wing floats my figure? Well, suppose a castle’s new:
None presume to climb its ramparts, none find foothold sure for shoe
’Twixt those squares and squares of granite plating the impervious pile
[50] As his scale-mail’s warty iron cuirasses a crocodile.
Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without
Scrambling up by crack and crevice, every cockney prates about
Towers – the heap he kicks now! turrets – just the measure of his cane!
Will that do? Observe moreover – (same similitude again) –
Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade:
’Tis when foes are foiled and fighting’s finished that vile rains invade,
Grass o’ergrows, o’ergrows till night-birds congregating find no holes
Fit to build in like the topmost sockets made for banner-poles.
So Clive crumbled slow in London – crashed at last.
A week before,
[60] Dining with him, – after trying churchyard-chat of days of yore, –
Both of us stopped, tired as tombstones, head-piece, foot-piece, when they lean
Each to other, drowsed in fog-smoke, o’er a coffined Past between.
As I saw his head sink heavy, guessed the soul’s extinguishment
By the glazing eyeball, noticed how the furtive fingers went
Where a drug-box skulked behind the honest liquor, – ‘One more throw
Try for Clive!’ thought I: ‘Let’s venture some good rattling question!’ So –
‘Come, Clive, tell us’ – out I blurted – ‘what to tell in turn, years hence,
When my boy – suppose I have one – asks me on what evidence
[70] I maintain my friend of Plassy proved a warrior every whit
Worth your Alexanders, Caesars, Marlboroughs and – what said Pitt? –
Frederick the Fierce himself! “Clive told me once” – I want to say –
“Which feat out of all those famous doings bore the bell away
– In his own calm estimation, mark you, not the mob’s rough guess –
Which stood foremost as evincing what Clive called courageousness!”
Come! what moment of the minute, what speck-centre in the wide
Circle of the action saw your mortal fairly deified?
(Let alone that filthy sleep-stuff, swallow bold this wholesome Port!)
If a friend has leave to question, – when were you most brave, in short?’
[80] Up he arched his brows o’ the instant – formidably Clive again.
‘When was I most brave? I’d answer, were the instance half as plain
As another instance that’s a brain-lodged crystal – curse it! – here
Freezing when my memory touches – ugh! – the time I felt most fear.
Ugh! I cannot say for certain if I showed fear – anyhow,
Fear I felt, and, very likely, shuddered, since I shiver now.’
‘Fear!’ smiled I. ‘Well, that’s the rarer: that’s a specimen to seek,
Ticket up in one’s museum, Mind-Freaks, Lord Clive’s Fear, Unique!’
Down his brows dropped. On the table painfully he pored as though
Tracing, in the stains and streaks there, thoughts encrusted long ago.
When he spoke ’twas like a lawyer reading word by word some will,
[90] Some blind jungle of a statement, – beating on and on until
Out there leaps fierce life to fight with.
‘This fell in my factor-days.
Desk-drudge, slaving at Saint David’s, one must game, or drink, or craze.
I chose gaming: and, – because your high-flown gamesters hardly take
Umbrage at a factor’s elbow if the factor pays his stake, –
I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice,
Captain This and Major That, men high of colour, loud of voice,
Yet indulgent, condescending to the modest juvenile
Who not merely risked but lost his hard-earned guineas with a smile.
‘Down I sat to cards, one evening, – had for my antagonist
[100] Somebody whose name’s a secret – you’ll know why – so, if you list,
Call him Cock o’ the Walk, my scarlet son of Mars from head to heel!
Play commenced: and, whether Cocky fancied that a clerk must feel
Quite sufficient honour came of bending over one green baize,
I the scribe with him the warrior, – guessed no penman dared to raise
Shadow of objection should the honour stay but playing end
More or less abruptly, – whether disinclined he grew to spend
Practice strictly scientific on a booby born to stare
At – not ask of – lace-and-ruffles if the hand they hide plays fair, –
[110] Anyhow, I marked a movement when he bade me “Cut!”
‘I rose.
“Such the new manoeuvre, Captain? I’m a novice: knowledge grows.
What, you force a card, you cheat, Sir?”
‘Never did a thunder-clap
Cause emotion, startle Thyrsis locked with Chloe in his lap,
As my word and gesture (down I flung my cards to join the pack)
Fired the man of arms, whose visage, simply red before, turned black.
‘When he found his voice, he stammered “That expression once again!”
‘“Well, you forced a card and cheated!”
‘“Possibly a factor’s brain,
Busied with his all-important balance of accounts, may deem
Weighing words superfluous trouble: cheat to clerkly ears may seem
[120] Just the joke for friends to venture: but we are not friends, you see!
When a gentleman is joked with, – if he’s good at repartee,
He rejoins, as do I – Sirrah, on your knees, withdraw in full!
Beg my pardon, or be sure a kindly bullet through your skull
Lets in light and teaches manners to what brain it finds! Choose quick –
Have your life snuffed out or, kneeling, pray me trim yon candle-wick!”
‘“Well, you cheated!”
‘Then outbroke a howl from all the friends around.
To his feet sprang each in fury, fists were clenched and teeth were ground.
“End it! no time like the present! Captain, yours were our disgrace!
No delay, begin and finish! Stand back, leave the pair a space!
Let civilians be instructed: henceforth simply ply the pen,
[130] Fly the sword! This clerk’s no swordsman? Suit him with a pistol, then!
Even odds! A dozen paces ’twixt the most and least expert
Make a dwarf a giant’s equal: nay, the dwarf, if he’s alert,
Likelier hits the broader target!”
‘Up we stood accordingly.
As they handed me the weapon, such was my soul’s thirst to try
Then and there conclusions with this bully, tread on and stamp out
Every spark of his existence, that, – crept close to, curled about
By that toying tempting teasing fool-forefinger’s middle joint, –
Don’t you guess? – the trigger yielded. Gone my chance! and at the point
Of such prime success moreover: scarce an inch above his head
[140] Went my ball to hit the wainscot. He was living, I was dead.
‘Up he marched in flaming triumph – ’twas his right, mind! – up, within
Just an arm’s length. “Now, my clerkling,” chuckled Cocky with a grin
As the levelled piece quite touched me, “Now, Sir Counting-House, repeat
That expression which I told you proved bad manners! Did I cheat?”
‘“Cheat you did, you knew you cheated, and, this moment, know as well.
As for me, my homely breeding bids you – fire and go to Hell!”
‘Twice the muzzle touched my forehead. Heavy barrel, flurried wrist,
Either spoils a steady lifting. Thrice: then, “Laugh at Hell who list,
[150] I can’t! God’s no fable either. Did this boy’s eye wink once? No!
There’s no standing him and Hell and God all three against me, – so,
I did cheat!”
‘And down he threw the pistol, out rushed – by the door
Possibly, but, as for knowledge if by chimney, roof or floor,
He effected disappearance – I’ll engage no glance was sent
That way by a single starer, such a blank astonishment
Swallowed up their senses: as for speaking – mute they stood as mice.
‘Mute not long, though! Such reaction, such a hubbub in a trice!
“Rogue and rascal! Who’d have thought it? What’s to be expected next,
When His Majesty’s Commission serves a sharper as pretext
[160] For … But where’s the need of wasting time now? Naught requires delay:
Punishment the Service cries for: let disgrace be wiped away
Publicly, in good broad daylight! Resignation? No, indeed
Drum and fife must play the Rogue’s March, rank and file be free to speed
Tardy marching on the rogue’s part by appliance in the rear
– Kicks administered shall right this wronged civilian, – never fear,
Mister Clive, for – though a clerk – you bore yourself – suppose we say –
Just as would beseem a soldier!”
‘“Gentlemen, attention – pray!
First, one word!”
‘I passed each speaker severally in review.
When I had precise their number, names and styles, and fully knew
Over whom my supervision thenceforth must extend, – why, then –
[170] “Some five minutes since, my life lay – as you all saw, gentlemen –
At the mercy of your friend there. Not a single voice was raised
In arrest of judgement, not one tongue – before my powder blazed –
Ventured ‘Can it be the youngster blundered, really seemed to mark
Some irregular proceeding? We conjecture in the dark,
Guess at random, – still, for sake of fair play – what if for a freak,
In a fit of absence, – such things have been! – if our friend proved weak
– What’s the phrase? – corrected fortune! Look into the case, at least!’
Who dared interpose between the altar’s victim and the priest?
Yet he spared me! You eleven! Whosoever, all or each,
[180] To the disadvantage of the man who spared me, utters speech
– To his face, behind his back, – that speaker has to do with me:
Me who promise, if positions change and mine the chance should be,
Not to imitate your friend and waive advantage!”
‘Twenty-five
Years ago this matter happened: and ’tis certain,’ added Clive,
‘Never, to my knowledge, did Sir Cocky have a single breath
Breathed against him: lips were closed throughout his life, or since his death,
For if he be dead or living I can tell no more than you.
All I know is – Cocky had one chance more; how he used it, – grew
Out of such unlucky habits, or relapsed, and back again
[190] Brought the late-ejected devil with a score more in his train, –
That’s for you to judge. Reprieval I procured, at any rate.
Ugh – the memory of that minute’s fear makes gooseflesh rise! Why prate
Longer? You’ve my story, there’s your instance: fear I did, you see!’
‘Well’ – I hardly kept from laughing – ‘if I see it, thanks must be
Wholly to your Lordship’s candour. Not that – in a common case –
When a bully caught at cheating thrusts a pistol in one’s face,
I should underrate, believe me, such a trial to the nerve!
’Tis no joke, at one-and-twenty, for a youth to stand nor swerve.
[200] Fear I naturally look for – unless, of all men alive,
I am forced to make exception when I come to Robert Clive.
Since at Arcot, Plassy, elsewhere, he and death – the whole world knows –
Came to somewhat closer quarters.’
Quarters? Had we come to blows,
Clive and I, you had not wondered – up he sprang so, out he rapped
Such a round of oaths – no matter! I’ll endeavour to adapt
To our modern usage words he – well, ’twas friendly licence – flung
At me like so many fire-balls, fast as he could wag his tongue.
‘You – a soldier? You – at Plassy? Yours the faculty to nick
Instantaneously occasion when your foe, if lightning-quick,
[210] – At his mercy, at his malice, – has you, through some stupid inch
Undefended in your bulwark? Thus laid open, – not to flinch
– That needs courage, you’ll concede me. Then, look here! Suppose the man,
Checking his advance, his weapon still extended, not a span
Distant from my temple, – curse him! – quietly had bade me “There!
Keep your life, calumniator! – worthless life I freely spare:
Mine you freely would have taken – murdered me and my good fame
Both at once – and all the better! Go, and thank your own bad aim
Which permits me to forgive you!” What if, with such words as these,
He had cast away his weapon? How should I have borne me, please?
Nay, I’ll spare you pains and tell you. This, and only this, remained –
[220] Pick his weapon up and use it on myself. I so had gained
Sleep the earlier, leaving England probably to pay on still
Rent and taxes for half India, tenant at the Frenchman’s will.’
‘Such the turn,’ said I, ‘the matter takes with you? Then I abate
– No, by not one jot nor tittle, – of your act my estimate.
Fear – I wish I could detect there: courage fronts me, plain enough –
Call it desperation, madness – never mind! for here’s in rough
Why, had mine been such a trial, fear had overcome disgrace.
True, disgrace were hard to bear: but such a rush against God’s face
– None of that for me, Lord Plassy, since I go to church at times,
[230] Say the creed my mother taught me! Many years in foreign climes
Rub some marks away – not all, though! We poor sinners reach life’s brink,
Overlook what rolls beneath it, recklessly enough, but think
There’s advantage in what’s left us – ground to stand on, time to call
“Lord, have mercy!” ere we topple over – do not leap, that’s all!’
Oh, he made no answer, – re-absorbed into his cloud. I caught
Something like ‘Yes – courage: only fools will call it fear.’
If aught
Comfort you, my great unhappy hero Clive, in that I heard,
Next week, how your own hand dealt you doom, and uttered just the word
[240] ‘Fearfully courageous!’ – this, be sure, and nothing else I groaned.
I’m no Clive, nor parson either: Clive’s worst deed – we’ll hope condoned.
[Wanting is – what?]
Wanting is – what?
Summer redundant,
Blueness abundant,
– Where is the blot?
Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same,
– Framework which waits for a picture to frame:
What of the leafage, what of the flower?
Roses embowering with naught they embower!
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer,
[10] Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer!
Breathe but one breath
Rose-beauty above,
And all that was death
Grows life, grows love,
Grows love!
Donald
‘Will you hear my story also,
– Huge Sport, brave adventure in plenty?’
The boys were a band from Oxford,
The oldest of whom was twenty.
The bothy we held carouse in
Was bright with fire and candle;
Tale followed tale like a merry-go-round
Whereof Sport turned the handle.
In our eyes and noses – turf-smoke:
[10] In our ears a tune from the trivet,
Whence ‘Boiling, boiling,’ the kettle sang,
‘And ready for fresh Glenlivet.’
So, feat capped feat, with a vengeance:
Truths, though, – the lads were loyal:
‘Grouse, five score brace to the bag!
Deer, ten hours’ stalk of the Royal!’
Of boasting, not one bit, boys!
Only there seemed to settle
Somehow above your curly heads,
[20] – Plain through the singing kettle,
Palpable through the cloud,
As each new-puffed Havana
Rewarded the teller’s well-told tale, –
This vaunt ‘To Sport – Hosanna!
‘Hunt, fish, shoot,
Would a man fulfil life’s duty!
Not to the bodily frame alone
Does Sport give strength and beauty,
‘But character gains in – courage?
[30] Ay, Sir, and much beside it!
You don’t sport, more’s the pity:
You soon would find, if you tried it,
‘Good sportsman means good fellow,
Sound-hearted he, to the centre;
Your mealy-mouthed mild milksops
– There’s where the rot can enter!
‘There’s where the dirt will breed,
The shabbiness Sport would banish!
Oh no, Sir, no! In your honoured case
[40] All such objections vanish.
‘’Tis known how hard you studied:
A Double-First – what, the jigger!
Give me but half your Latin and Greek,
I’ll never again touch trigger!
‘Still, tastes are tastes, allow me!
Allow, too, where there’s keenness
For Sport, there’s little likelihood
Of a man’s displaying meanness!’
So, put on my mettle, I interposed.
[50] ‘Will you hear my story?’ quoth I.
‘Never mind how long since it happed,
I sat, as we sit, in a bothy;
‘With as merry a band of mates, too,
Undergrads all on a level:
(One’s a Bishop, one’s gone to the Bench,
And one’s gone – well, to the Devil.)
‘When, lo, a scratching and tapping!
In hobbled a ghastly visitor.
Listen to just what he told us himself
[60] – No need of our playing inquisitor!’
Do you happen to know in Ross-shire
Mount … Ben … but the name scarce matters:
Of the naked fact I am sure enough,
Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.
You may recognize Ben by description;
Behind him – a moor’s immenseness:
Up goes the middle mount of a range,
Fringed with its firs in denseness.
Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind!
[70] For an edge there is, though narrow;
From end to end of the range, a stripe
Of path runs straight as an arrow.
And the mountaineer who takes that path
Saves himself miles of journey
He has to plod if he crosses the moor
Through heather, peat and burnie.
But a mountaineer he needs must be,
For, look you, right in the middle
Projects bluff Ben – with an end in ich –
[80] Why planted there, is a riddle:
Since all Ben’s brothers little and big
Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder,
And only this burliest out must bulge
Till it seems – to the beholder
From down in the gully, – as if Ben’s breast,
To a sudden spike diminished,
Would signify to the boldest foot
‘All further passage finished!’
Yet the mountaineer who sidles on
[90] And on to the very bending,
Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,
No necessary ending.
Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt
Having trod, he, there arriving,
Finds – what he took for a point was breadth,
A mercy of Nature’s contriving.
So, he rounds what, when ’tis reached, proves straight,
From one side gains the other:
The wee path widens – resume the march,
[100] And he foils you, Ben my brother!
But Donald – (that name, I hope, will do) –
I wrong him if I call ‘foiling’
The tramp of the callant, whistling the while
As blithe as our kettle’s boiling.
He had dared the danger from boyhood up,
And now, – when perchance was waiting
A lass at the brig below, – ’twixt mount
And moor would he stand debating?
Moreover this Donald was twenty-five,
[110] A glory of bone and muscle:
Did a fiend dispute the right of way,
Donald would try a tussle.
Lightsomely marched he out of the broad
On to the narrow and narrow;
A step more, rounding the angular rock,
Reached the front straight as an arrow.
He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,
When – whom found he full-facing?
What fellow in courage and wariness too,
[120] Had scouted ignoble pacing,
And left low safety to timid mates,
And made for the dread dear danger,
And gained the height where – who could guess
He could meet with a rival ranger?
’Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared,
Gigantic and magnific,
By the wonder – ay, and the peril – struck
Intelligent and pacific:
For a red deer is no fallow deer
[130] Grown cowardly through park-feeding;
He batters you like a thunderbolt
If you brave his haunts unheeding.
I doubt he could hardly perform volte-face
Had valour advised discretion:
You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a rope
No Blondin makes profession.
Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit,
Though pride ill brooks retiring:
Each eyed each – mute man, motionless beast –
[140] Less fearing than admiring.
These are the moments when quite new sense,
To meet some need as novel,
Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource:
– ‘Nor advance nor retreat but – grovel!’
And slowly, surely, never a whit
Relaxing the steady tension
Of eye-stare which binds man to beast, –
By an inch and inch declension,
Sank Donald sidewise down and down:
[150] Till flat, breast upwards, lying
At his six-foot length, no corpse more still,
– ‘If he cross me! The trick’s worth trying.’
Minutes were an eternity;
But a new sense was created
In the stag’s brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure,
With eye-stare unabated,
Feelingly he extends a foot
Which tastes the way ere it touches
Earth’s solid and just escapes man’s soft,
[160] Nor hold of the same unclutches
Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk,
Lands itself no less finely:
So a mother removes a fly from the face
Of her babe asleep supinely.
And now ’tis the haunch and hind foot’s turn
– That’s hard: can the beast quite raise it?
Yes, traversing half the prostrate length,
His hoof-tip does not graze it.
Just one more lift! But Donald, you see,
[170] Was sportsman first, man after:
A fancy lightened his caution through,
– He well-nigh broke into laughter.
‘It were nothing short of a miracle!
Unrivalled, unexampled –
All sporting feats with this feat matched
Were down and dead and trampled!’
The last of the legs as tenderly
Follows the rest: or never
Or now is the time! His knife in reach,
[180] And his right-hand loose – how clever!
For this can stab up the stomach’s soft,
While the left-hand grasps the pastern.
A rise on the elbow, and – now’s the time
Or never: this turn’s the last turn!
I shall dare to place myself by God
Who scanned – for He does – each feature
Of the face thrown up in appeal to Him
By the agonizing creature.
Nay, I hear plain words: ‘Thy gift brings this!’
[190] Up he sprang, back he staggered,
Over he fell, and with him our friend
– At following game no laggard.
Yet he was not dead when they picked next day
From the gully’s depth the wreck of him;
His fall had been stayed by the stag beneath
Who cushioned and saved the neck of him.
But the rest of his body – why, doctors said,
Whatever could break was broken;
Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toast
[200] In a tumbler of port-wine soaken.
‘That your life is left you, thank the stag!’
Said they when – the slow cure ended –
They opened the hospital door, and thence
– Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended,
And minor damage left wisely alone, –
Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled,
Out – what went in a Goliath well-nigh, –
Some half of a David hobbled.
‘You must ask an alms from house to house:
[210] Sell the stag’s head for a bracket,
With its grand twelve tines – I’d buy it myself –
And use the skin for a jacket!’
He was wiser, made both head and hide
His win-penny: hands and knees on,
Would manage to crawl – poor crab – by the roads
In the misty stalking-season.
And if he discovered a bothy like this,
Why, harvest was sure: folk listened.
He told his tale to the lovers of Sport:
[220] Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened.
And when he had come to the close, and spread
His spoils for the gazers’ wonder,
With ‘Gentlemen, here’s the skull of the stag
I was over, thank God, not under!’ –
The company broke out in applause;
‘By Jingo, a lucky cripple!
Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread,
And a tug, besides, at our tipple!’
And ‘There’s my pay for your pluck!’ cried This,
[230] ‘And mine for your jolly story!’
Cried That, while T’other – but he was drunk –
Hiccupped ‘A trump, a Tory!’
I hope I gave twice as much as the rest;
For, as Homer would say, ‘within gate
Though teeth kept tongue,’ my whole soul growled
‘Rightly rewarded, – Ingrate!’
Never the Time and the Place
Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path – how soft to pace!
This May – what magic weather!
Where is the loved one’s face?
In a dream that loved one’s face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
[10] With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Through the magic of May to herself indeed!
[20] Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we –
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
– I and she!
The Names
Shakespeare! – to such name’s sounding, what succeeds
Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell, –
Act follows word, the speaker knows full well,
Nor tampers with its magic more than needs.
Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads
With his soul only; if from lips it fell,
Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,
Would own ‘Thou didst create us!’ Naught impedes
We voice the other name, man’s most of might,
[10] Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love
Mutely await their working, leave to sight
All of the issue as – below – above –
Shakespeare’s creation rises: one remove,
Though dread – this finite from that infinite.
Now
Out of your whole life give but a moment!
All of your life that has gone before,
All to come after it, – so you ignore,
So you make perfect the present, – condense,
In a rapture of rage, for perfection’s endowment,
Thought and feeling and soul and sense –
Merged in a moment which gives me at last
You around me for once, you beneath me, above me –
Me – sure that despite of time future, time past, –
[10] This tick of our life-time’s one moment you love me!
How long such suspension may linger? Ah, Sweet –
The moment eternal – just that and no more –
When ecstasy’s utmost we clutch at the core
While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut and lips meet!
Beatrice Signorini
This strange thing happened to a painter once:
Viterbo boasts the man among her sons
Of note, I seem to think: his ready tool
Picked up its precepts in Cortona’s school –
That’s Pietro Berretini, whom they call
Cortona, these Italians: greatish-small,
Our painter was his pupil, by repute
His match if not his master absolute,
Though whether he spoiled fresco more or less,
[10] And what’s its fortune, scarce repays your guess.
Still, for one circumstance, I save his name
– Francesco Romanelli: do the same!
He went to Rome and painted: there he knew
A wonder of a woman painting too –
For she, at least, was no Cortona’s drudge:
Witness that ardent fancy-shape – I judge
A semblance of her soul – she called ‘Desire’
With starry front for guide, where sits the fire
She left to brighten Buonarroti’s house.
[20] If you see Florence, pay that piece your vows,
Though blockhead Baldinucci’s mind, imbued
With monkish morals, bade folk ‘Drape the nude
And stop the scandal!’ quoth the record prim
I borrow this of: hang his book and him!
At Rome, then, where these fated ones met first,
The blossom of his life had hardly burst
While hers was blooming at full beauty’s stand:
No less Francesco – when half-ripe he scanned
Consummate Artemisia – grew one want
[30] To have her his and make her ministrant
With every gift of body and of soul
To him. In vain. Her sphery self was whole –
Might only touch his orb at Art’s sole point.
Suppose he could persuade her to enjoint
Her life – past, present, future – all in his
At Art’s sole point by some explosive kiss
Of love through lips, would love’s success defeat
Artistry’s haunting curse – the Incomplete?
Artists no doubt they both were, – what beside
[40] Was she? who, long had felt heart, soul spread wide
Her life out, knowing much and loving well,
On either side Art’s narrow space where fell
Reflection from his own speck: but the germ
Of individual genius – what we term
The very self, the God-gift whence had grown
Heart’s life and soul’s life, – how make that his own?
Vainly his Art, reflected, smiled in small
On Art’s one facet of her ampler ball;
The rest, touch-free, took in, gave back heaven, earth,
[50] All where he was not. Hope, well-nigh ere birth
Came to Desire, died off all-unfulfilled.
‘What though in Art I stand the abler-skilled,’
(So he conceited: mediocrity
Turns on itself the self-transforming eye)
‘If only Art were suing, mine would plead
To purpose: man – by nature I exceed
Woman the bounded: but how much beside
She boasts, would sue in turn and be denied!
Love her? My own wife loves me in a sort
[60] That suits us both: she takes the world’s report
Of what my work is worth, and, for the rest,
Concedes that, while his consort keeps her nest,
The eagle soars a licensed vagrant, lives
A wide free life which she at least forgives –
Good Beatricé Signorini! Well
And wisely did I choose her. But the spell
To subjugate this Artemisia – where?
She passionless? – she resolute to care
Nowise beyond the plain sufficiency
[70] Of fact that she is she and I am I
– Acknowledged arbitrator for us both
In her life as in mine which she were loth
Even to learn the laws of? No, and no,
Twenty times over! Ay, it must be so:
I for myself, alas!’
Whereon, instead
Of the checked lover’s-utterance – why, he said
– Leaning above her easel: ‘Flesh is red’
(Or some such just remark) – ‘by no means white
As Guido’s practice teaches: you are right.’
[80] Then came the better impulse: ‘What if pride
Were wisely trampled on, whate’er betide?
If I grow hers, not mine – join lives, confuse
Bodies and spirits, gain not her but lose
Myself to Artemisia? That were love!
Of two souls – one must bend, one rule above:
If I crouch under proudly, lord turned slave,
Were it not worthier both than if she gave
Herself – in treason to herself – to me?’
And, all the while, he felt it could not be.
[90] Such love were true love: love that way who can!
Someone that’s born half woman not whole man:
For man, prescribed man better or man worse,
Why, whether microcosm or universe,
What law prevails alike through great and small,
The world and man – world’s miniature we call?
Male is the master. ‘That way’ – smiled and sighed
Our true male estimator – ‘puts her pride
My wife in making me the outlet whence
She learns all Heaven allows: ’tis my pretence
[100] To paint: her lord should do what else but paint?
Do I break brushes, cloister me turned saint?
Then, best of all suits sanctity her spouse
Who acts for Heaven, allows and disallows
At pleasure, past appeal, the right, the wrong
In all things. That’s my wife’s way. But this strong
Confident Artemisia – an adept
In Art does she conceit herself? “Except
In just this instance,” tell her, “no one draws
More rigidly observant of the laws
[110] Of right design: yet here, – permit me hint, –
If the acromion had a deeper dint,
That shoulder were perfection.” What surprise
– Nay scorn, shoots black fire from those startled eyes!
She to be lessoned in design forsooth!
I’m doomed and done for, since I spoke the truth.
Make my own work the subject of dispute –
Fails it of just perfection absolute
Somewhere? Those motors, flexors, – don’t I know
Ser Santi, styled “Tirititototo
[120] The pencil-prig,” might blame them? Yet my wife –
Were he and his nicknamer brought to life,
Tito and Titian, to pronounce again –
Ask her who knows more – I or the great Twain
Our colourist and draughtsman!
‘I help her,
Not she helps me; and neither shall demur
Because my portion is –’ he chose to think –
‘Quite other than a woman’s: I may drink
At many waters, must repose by none –
Rather arise and fare forth, having done
[130] Duty to one new excellence the more,
Abler thereby, though impotent before
So much was gained of knowledge. Best depart
From this last lady I have learned by heart!’
Thus he concluded of himself – resigned
To play the man and master: ‘Man boasts mind:
Woman, man’s sport calls mistress, to the same
Does body’s suit and service. Would she claim
– My placid Beatricé-wife – pretence
Even to blame her lord if, going hence,
[140] He wistfully regards one whom – did fate
Concede – he might accept queen, abdicate
Kingship because of? – one of no meek sort
But masterful as he: man’s match in short?
Oh, there’s no secret I were best conceal!
Bicé shall know; and should a stray tear steal
From out the blue eye, stain the rose cheek – bah!
A smile, a word’s gay reassurance – ah,
With kissing interspersed, – shall make amends,
Turn pain to pleasure.’
‘What, in truth so ends
[150] Abruptly, do you say, our intercourse?’
Next day, asked Artemisia: ‘I’ll divorce
Husband and wife no longer. Go your ways,
Leave Rome! Viterbo owns no equal, says
The byword, for fair women: you, no doubt,
May boast a paragon all specks without,
Using the painter’s privilege to choose
Among what’s rarest. Will your wife refuse
Acceptance from – no rival – of a gift?
You paint the human figure I make shift
[160] Humbly to reproduce: but, in my hours
Of idlesse, what I fain would paint is – flowers.
Look now!’
She twitched aside a veiling cloth.
‘Here is my keepsake – frame and picture both:
For see, the frame is all of flowers festooned
About an empty space, – left thus, to wound
No natural susceptibility:
How can I guess? ’Tis you must fill, not I,
The central space with – her whom you like best!
That is your business, mine has been the rest.
[170] But judge!’
How judge them? Each of us, in flowers,
Chooses his love, allies it with past hours,
Old meetings, vanished forms and faces: no –
Here let each favourite unmolested blow
For one heart’s homage, no tongue’s banal praise,
Whether the rose appealingly bade ‘Gaze
Your fill on me, sultana who dethrone
The gaudy tulip!’ or ’twas ‘Me alone
Rather do homage to, who lily am,
No unabashed rose!’ ‘Do I vainly cram
[180] My cup with sweets, your jonquil?’ ‘Why forget
Vernal endearments with the violet?’
So they contested yet concerted, all
As one, to circle round about, enthral
Yet, self-forgetting, push to prominence
The midmost wonder, gained no matter whence.
There’s a tale extant, in a book I conned
Long years ago, which treats of things beyond
The common, antique times and countries queer
And customs strange to match.
1 comment