Selected Poems Read Online

If care – where is the sign? I ask,

And get no answer, and agree in sum,

[270] O king, with thy profound discouragement,

Who seest the wider but to sigh the more.

Most progress is most failure: thou sayest well.

The last point now: – thou dost except a case –

Holding joy not impossible to one

With artist-gifts – to such a man as I

Who leave behind me living works indeed;

For, such a poem, such a painting lives.

What? dost thou verily trip upon a word,

Confound the accurate view of what joy is

[280] (Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine)

With feeling joy? confound the knowing how

And showing how to live (my faculty)

With actually living? – Otherwise

Where is the artist’s vantage o’er the king?

Because in my great epos I display

How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act –

Is this as though I acted? if I paint,

Carve the young Phoebus, am I therefore young?

Methinks I’m older that I bowed myself

[290] The many years of pain that taught me art!

Indeed, to know is something, and to prove

How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more:

But, knowing naught, to enjoy is something too.

Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there,

Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I.

I can write love-odes: thy fair slave’s an ode.

I get to sing of love, when grown too grey

For being beloved: she turns to that young man,

The muscles all a-ripple on his back.

[300] I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king!

‘But,’ sayest thou – (and I marvel, I repeat

To find thee trip on such a mere word) ‘what

Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die:

Sappho survives, because we sing her songs,

And Aeschylus, because we read his plays!’

Why, if they live still, let them come and take

Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup,

Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive?

Say rather that my fate is deadlier still,

[310] In this, that every day my sense of joy

Grows more acute, my soul (intensified

By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;

While every day my hairs fall more and more,

My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase –

The horror quickening still from year to year,

The consummation coming past escape

When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy –

When all my works wherein I prove my worth,

Being present still to mock me in men’s mouths,

[320] Alive still, in the praise of such as thou,

I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man,

The man who loved his life so over-much,

Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible,

I dare at times imagine to my need

Some future state revealed to us by Zeus,

Unlimited in capability

For joy, as this is in desire for joy,

– To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us:

That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait

[330] On purpose to make prized the life at large –

Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death,

We burst there as the worm into the fly,

Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no!

Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas,

He must have done so, were it possible!

Live long and happy, and in that thought die:

Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest,

I cannot tell thy messenger aright

Where to deliver what he bears of thine

[340] To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame

Indeed, if Christus be not one with him –

I know not, nor am troubled much to know.

Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew,

As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised,

Hath access to a secret shut from us?

Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king,

In stooping to inquire of such an one,

As if his answer could impose at all!

He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.

[350] Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves

Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ;

And (as I gathered from a bystander)

Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.

Two in the Campagna

I

I wonder do you feel today

As I have felt since, hand in hand,

We sat down on the grass, to stray

In spirit better through the land,

This morn of Rome and May?

II

For me, I touched a thought, I know,

Has tantalized me many times,

(Like turns of thread the spiders throw

Mocking across our path) for rhymes

[10] To catch at and let go.

III

Help me to hold it! First it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,

Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed

Took up the floating weft,

IV

Where one small orange cup amassed

Five beetles, – blind and green they grope

Among the honey-meal: and last,

Everywhere on the grassy slope

[20] I traced it. Hold it fast!

V

The champaign with its endless fleece

Of feathery grasses everywhere!

Silence and passion, joy and peace,

An everlasting wash of air –

Rome’s ghost since her decease.

VI

Such life here, through such lengths of hours,

Such miracles performed in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,

Such letting nature have her way

[30] While heaven looks from its towers!

VII

How say you? Let us, O my dove,

Let us be unashamed of soul,

As earth lies bare to heaven above!

How is it under our control

To love or not to love?

VIII

I would that you were all to me,

You that are just so much, no more.

Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!

Where does the fault lie? What the core

[40] O’ the wound, since wound must be?

IX

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart

Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul’s springs, – your part my part

In life, for good and ill.

X

No. I yearn upward, touch you close,

Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

Catch your soul’s warmth, – I pluck the rose

And love it more than tongue can speak –

[50] Then the good minute goes.

XI

Already how am I so far

Out of that minute? Must I go

Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onward, whenever light winds blow,

Fixed by no friendly star?

XII

Just when I seemed about to learn!

Where is the thread now? Off again!

The old trick! Only I discern –

Infinite passion, and the pain

[60] Of finite hearts that yearn.

A Grammarian’s Funeral

Shortly after the Revival of Learning in Europe

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,

Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes

Each in its tether

Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,

Cared-for till cock-crow:

Look out if yonder be not day again

Rimming the rock-row!

[10] That’s the appropriate country; there, man’s thought,

Rarer, intenser,

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,

Chafes in the censer.

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;

Seek we sepulture

On a tall mountain, citied to the top,

Crowded with culture!

All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;

Clouds overcome it;

[20] No! yonder sparkle is the citadel’s

Circling its summit.

Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:

Wait ye the warning?

Our low life was the level’s and the night’s;

He’s for the morning.

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

’Ware the beholders!

This is our master, famous calm and dead,

Borne on our shoulders.

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

[30] Safe from the weather!

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,

Singing together,

He was a man born with thy face and throat,

Lyric Apollo!

Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note

Winter would follow?

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

Cramped and diminished,

[40] Moaned he, ‘New measures, other feet anon!

My dance is finished?’

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

Make for the city!)

He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride

Over men’s pity;

Left play for work, and grappled with the world

Bent on escaping:

‘What’s in the scroll,’ quoth he, ‘thou keepest furled?

Show me their shaping,

[50] Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, –

Give!’ – So, he gowned him,

Straight got by heart that book to its last page:

Learned, we found him.

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

Accents uncertain:

‘Time to taste life,’ another would have said,

‘Up with the curtain!’

This man said rather, ‘Actual life comes next?

Patience a moment!

[60] Grant I have mastered learning’s crabbed text,

Still there’s the comment.

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

Painful or easy!

Even to the crumbs I’d fain eat up the feast,

Ay, nor feel queasy.’

Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,

When he had learned it,

When he had gathered all books had to give!

Sooner, he spurned it.

[70] Image the whole, then execute the parts –

Fancy the fabric

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,

Ere mortar dab brick!

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

Gaping before us.)

Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace

(Hearten our chorus!)

That before living he’d learn how to live –

No end to learning:

Earn the means first – God surely will contrive

[80] Use for our earning.

Others mistrust and say, ‘But time escapes:

Live now or never!’

He said, ‘What’s time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!

Man has Forever.’

Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:

Calculus racked him:

Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:

Tussis attacked him.

[90] ‘Now, master, take a little rest!’ – not he!

(Caution redoubled,

Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)

Not a whit troubled

Back to his studies, fresher than at first,

Fierce as a dragon

He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)

Sucked at the flagon.

Oh, if we draw a circle premature,

Heedless of far gain,

[100] Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure

Bad is our bargain!

Was it not great? did not he throw on God,

(He loves the burthen) –

God’s task to make the heavenly period

Perfect the earthen?

Did not he magnify the mind, show clear

Just what it all meant?

He would not discount life, as fools do here,

Paid by instalment.

[110] He ventured neck or nothing – heaven’s success

Found, or earth’s failure:

‘Wilt thou trust death or not?’ He answered ‘Yes:

Hence with life’s pale lure!’

That low man seeks a little thing to do,

Sees it and does it:

This high man, with a great thing to pursue,

Dies ere he knows it.

That low man goes on adding one to one,

His hundred’s soon hit:

[120] This high man, aiming at a million,

Misses an unit.

That, has the world here – should he need the next,

Let the world mind him!

This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed

Seeking shall find him.

So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,

Ground he at grammar;

Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife:

While he could stammer

[130] He settled Hoti’s business – let it be! –

Properly based Oun –

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,

Dead from the waist down.

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

Hail to your purlieus,

All ye highfliers of the feathered race,

Swallows and curlews!

Here’s the top-peak; the multitude below

Live, for they can, there:

[140] This man decided not to Live but Know –

Bury this man there?

Here – here’s his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,

Lightnings are loosened,

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

Peace let the dew send!

Lofty designs must close in like effects:

Loftily lying,

Leave him – still loftier than the world suspects,

Living and dying.

James Lee’s Wife

I James Lee’s Wife Speaks at the Window

I

Ah, Love, but a day

And the world has changed!

The sun’s away,

And the bird estranged;

The wind has dropped,

And the sky’s deranged:

Summer has stopped.

II

Look in my eyes!

[10] Wilt thou change too?

Should I fear surprise?

Shall I find aught new

In the old and dear,

In the good and true,

With the changing year?

III

Thou art a man,

But I am thy love.

For the lake, its swan;

For the dell, its dove;

And for thee – (oh, haste!)

[20] Me, to bend above,

Me, to hold embraced.

II By the Fireside

I

Is all our fire of shipwreck wood,

Oak and pine?

Oh, for the ills half-understood,

The dim dead woe

Long ago

Befallen this bitter coast of France!

Well, poor sailors took their chance;

[20] I take mine.

II

[30] A ruddy shaft our fire must shoot

O’er the sea:

Do sailors eye the casement – mute,

Drenched and stark,

From their bark –

And envy, gnash their teeth for hate

O’ the warm safe house and happy freight

– Thee and me?

III

God help you, sailors, at your need!

Spare the curse!

[40] For some ships, safe in port indeed,

Rot and rust,

Run to dust,

All through worms i’ the wood, which crept,

Gnawed our hearts out while we slept:

That is worse.

IV

Who lived here before us two?

Old-world pairs.

Did a woman ever – would I knew! –

Watch the man

[50] With whom began

Love’s voyage full-sail, – (now, gnash your teeth!)

When planks start, open hell beneath

Unawares?

III In the Doorway

I

The swallow has set her six young on the rail,

And looks sea-ward:

The water’s in stripes like a snake, olive-pale

To the leeward, –

On the weather-side, black, spotted white with the wind.

‘Good fortune departs, and disaster’s behind,’ –

[60] Hark, the wind with its wants and its infinite wail!

II

Our fig-tree, that leaned for the saltness, has furled

Her five fingers,

Each leaf like a hand opened wide to the world

Where there lingers

No glint of the gold, Summer sent for her sake:

How the vines writhe in rows, each impaled on its stake!

My heart shrivels up and my spirit shrinks curled.

III

Yet here are we two; we have love, house enough,

With the field there,

[70] This house of four rooms, that field red and rough,

Though it yield there,

For the rabbit that robs, scarce a blade or a bent;

If a magpie alight now, it seems an event;

And they both will be gone at November’s rebuff.

IV

But why must cold spread? but wherefore bring change

To the spirit,

God meant should mate his with an infinite range,

And inherit

His power to put life in the darkness and cold?

[80] Oh, live and love worthily, bear and be bold!

Whom Summer made friends of, let Winter estrange!

IV Along the Beach

I

I will be quiet and talk with you,

And reason why you are wrong.

You wanted my love – is that much true?

And so I did love, so I do:

What has come of it all along?

II

I took you – how could I otherwise?

For a world to me, and more;

For all, love greatens and glorifies

[90] Till God’s a-glow, to the loving eyes,

In what was mere earth before.

III

Yes, earth – yes, mere ignoble earth!

Now do I mis-state, mistake?

Do I wrong your weakness and call it worth?

Expect all harvest, dread no dearth,

Seal my sense up for your sake?

IV

Oh, Love, Love, no, Love! not so, indeed!

You were just weak earth, I knew:

With much in you waste, with many a weed,

[100] And plenty of passions run to seed,

But a little good grain too.

V

And such as you were, I took you for mine:

Did not you find me yours,

To watch the olive and wait the vine,

And wonder when rivers of oil and wine

Would flow, as the Book assures?

VI

Well, and if none of these good things came,

What did the failure prove?

The man was my whole world, all the same,

[110] With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame,

And, either or both, to love.

VII

Yet this turns now to a fault – there! there!

That I do love, watch too long,

And wait too well, and weary and wear;

And ’tis all an old story, and my despair

Fit subject for some new song:

VIII

‘How the light, light love, he has wings to fly

At suspicion of a bond:

My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-bye,

[120] Which will turn up next in a laughing eye,

And why should you look beyond?’

V On the Cliff

I

I leaned on the turf,

I looked at a rock

Left dry by the surf;

For the turf, to call it grass were to mock:

Dead to the roots, so deep was done

The work of the summer sun.

II

And the rock lay flat

As an anvil’s face:

[130] No iron like that!

Baked dry; of a weed, of a shell, no trace:

Sunshine outside, but ice at the core,

Death’s altar by the lone shore.

III

On the turf, sprang gay

With his films of blue,

No cricket, I’ll say,

But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too,

The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight,

Real fairy, with wings all right.

IV

[140] On the rock, they scorch

Like a drop of fire

From a brandished torch,

Fall two red fans of a butterfly:

No turf, no rock: in their ugly stead,

See, wonderful blue and red!

V

Is it not so

With the minds of men?

The level and low,

The burnt and bare, in themselves; but then

[150] With such a blue and red grace, not theirs, –

Love settling unawares!

VI Reading a Book, Under the Cliff

I

‘Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no?

Which needs the other’s office, thou or I?

Dost want to be disburdened of a woe,

And can, in truth, my voice untie

Its links, and let it go?

II

‘Art thou a dumb wronged thing that would be righted,

Entrusting thus thy cause to me? Forbear!

No tongue can mend such pleadings; faith, requited

[160] With falsehood, – love, at last aware

Of scorn, – hopes, early blighted, –

III

‘We have them; but I know not any tone

So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow:

Does think men would go mad without a moan,

If they knew any way to borrow

A pathos like thy own?

IV

‘Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the sighs? The one

So long escaping from lips starved and blue,

That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nun

[170] Stretches her length; her foot comes through

The straw she shivers on;

V

‘You had not thought she was so tall: and spent,

Her shrunk lids open, her lean fingers shut

Close, close, their sharp and livid nails indent

The clammy palm; then all is mute:

That way, the spirit went.

VI

‘Or wouldst thou rather that I understand

Thy will to help me? – like the dog I found

Once, pacing sad this solitary strand,

[180] Who would not take my food, poor hound,

But whined and licked my hand.’

VII

All this, and more, comes from some young man’s pride

Of power to see, – in failure and mistake,

Relinquishment, disgrace, on every side, –

Merely examples for his sake,

Helps to his path untried:

VIII

Instances he must – simply recognize?

Oh, more than so! – must, with a learner’s zeal,

Make doubly prominent, twice emphasize,

[190] By added touches that reveal

The god in babe’s disguise.

IX

Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest!

Himself the undefeated that shall be:

Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test, –

His triumph, in eternity

Too plainly manifest!

X

Whence, judge if he learn forthwith what the wind

Means in its moaning – by the happy prompt

Instinctive way of youth, I mean; for kind

[200] Calm years, exacting their accompt

Of pain, mature the mind:

XI

And some midsummer morning, at the lull

Just about daybreak, as he looks across

A sparkling foreign country, wonderful

To the sea’s edge for gloom and gloss,

Next minute must annul, –

XII

Then, when the wind begins among the vines,

So low, so low, what shall it say but this?

‘Here is the change beginning, here the lines

[210] Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss

The limit time assigns.’

XIII

Nothing can be as it has been before;

Better, so call it, only not the same.

To draw one beauty into our hearts’ core,

And keep it changeless! such our claim;

So answered, – Never more!

XIV

Simple? Why this is the old woe o’ the world;

Tune, to whose rise and fall we live and die.

Rise with it, then! Rejoice that man is hurled

[220] From change to change unceasingly,

His soul’s wings never furled!

XV

That’s a new question; still replies the fact,

Nothing endures: the wind moans, saying so;

We moan in acquiescence: there’s life’s pact,

Perhaps probation – do I know?

God does: endure his act!

XVI

Only, for man, how bitter not to grave

On his soul’s hands’ palms one fair good wise thing

Just as he grasped it! For himself, death’s wave;

[230] While time first washes – ah, the sting! –

O’er all he’d sink to save.

VII Among the Rocks

I

Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,

This autumn morning! How he sets his bones

To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet

For the ripple to run over in its mirth;

Listening the while, where on the heap of stones

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.

II

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;

Such is life’s trial, as old earth smiles and knows.

[240] If you loved only what were worth your love,

Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:

Make the low nature better by your throes!

Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

VIII Beside the Drawing-Board

I

‘As like as a Hand to another Hand!’

Whoever said that foolish thing,

Could not have studied to understand

The counsels of God in fashioning,

Out of the infinite love of his heart,

This Hand, whose beauty I praise, apart

[250] From the world of wonder left to praise,

If I tried to learn the other ways

Of love in its skill, or love in its power.

‘As like as a Hand to another Hand’:

Who said that, never took his stand,

Found and followed, like me, an hour,

The beauty in this, – how free, how fine

To fear, almost, – of the limit-line!

As I looked at this, and learned and drew,

Drew and learned, and looked again,

[260] While fast the happy minutes flew,

Its beauty mounted into my brain,

And a fancy seized me; I was fain

To efface my work, begin anew,

Kiss what before I only drew;

Ay, laying the red chalk ’twixt my lips,

With soul to help if the mere lips failed,

I kissed all right where the drawing ailed,

Kissed fast the grace that somehow slips

Still from one’s soul-less finger-tips.

II

[270] ’Tis a clay cast, the perfect thing,

From Hand live once, dead long ago:

Princess-like it wears the ring

To fancy’s eye, by which we know

That here at length a master found

His match, a proud lone soul its mate,

As soaring genius sank to ground,

And pencil could not emulate

The beauty in this, – how free, how fine

To fear almost! – of the limit-line.

[280] Long ago the god, like me

The worm, learned, each in our degree:

Looked and loved, learned and drew,

Drew and learned and loved again,

While fast the happy minutes flew,

Till beauty mounted into his brain

And on the finger which outvied

His art he placed the ring that’s there,

Still by fancy’s eye descried,

In token of a marriage rare:

[290] For him on earth, his art’s despair,

For him in heaven, his soul’s fit bride.

III

Little girl with the poor coarse hand

I turned from to a cold clay cast –

I have my lesson, understand

The worth of flesh and blood at last.

Nothing but beauty in a Hand?

Because he could not change the hue,

Mend the lines and make them true

To this which met his soul’s demand, –

[300] Would Da Vinci turn from you?

I hear him laugh my woes to scorn –

‘The fool forsooth is all forlorn

Because the beauty, she thinks best,

Lived long ago or was never born, –

Because no beauty bears the test

In this rough peasant Hand! Confessed!

“Art is null and study void!”

So sayest thou? So said not I,

Who threw the faulty pencil by,

[310] And years instead of hours employed,

Learning the veritable use

Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath

Lines and hue of the outer sheath,

If haply I might reproduce

One motive of the powers profuse,

Flesh and bone and nerve that make

The poorest coarsest human hand

An object worthy to be scanned

A whole life long for their sole sake.

[320] Shall earth and the cramped moment-space

Yield the heavenly crowning grace?

Now the parts and then the whole!

Who art thou, with stinted soul

And stunted body, thus to cry

“I love, – shall that be life’s strait dole?

I must live beloved or die!”

This peasant hand that spins the wool

And bakes the bread, why lives it on,

Poor and coarse with beauty gone, –

[330] What use survives the beauty?’ Fool!

Go, little girl with the poor coarse hand!

I have my lesson, shall understand.

IX On Deck

I

There is nothing to remember in me,

Nothing I ever said with a grace,

Nothing I did that you care to see,

Nothing I was that deserves a place

In your mind, now I leave you, set you free.

II

Conceded! In turn, concede to me,

Such things have been as a mutual flame.

[340] Your soul’s locked fast; but, love for a key,

You might let it loose, till I grew the same

In your eyes, as in mine you stand: strange plea!

III

For then, then, what would it matter to me

That I was the harsh ill-favoured one?

We both should be like as pea and pea;

It was ever so since the world begun:

So, let me proceed with my reverie.

IV

How strange it were if you had all me,

As I have all you in my heart and brain,

[350] You, whose least word brought gloom or glee,

Who never lifted the hand in vain –

Will hold mine yet, from over the sea!

V

Strange, if a face, when you thought of me,

Rose like your own face present now,

With eyes as dear in their due degree,

Much such a mouth, and as bright a brow,

Till you saw yourself, while you cried ‘’Tis She!’

VI

Well, you may, you must, set down to me

Love that was life, life that was love;

[360] A tenure of breath at your lips’ decree,

A passion to stand as your thoughts approve,

A rapture to fall where your foot might be.

VII

But did one touch of such love for me

Come in a word or a look of yours,

Whose words and looks will, circling, flee

Round me and round while life endures, –

Could I fancy ‘As I feel, thus feels he’;

VIII

Why, fade you might to a thing like me,

And your hair grow these coarse hanks of hair,

[370] Your skin, this bark of a gnarled tree, –

You might turn myself! – should I know or care

When I should be dead of joy, James Lee?

Gold Hair:

A Story of Pornic

I

Oh, the beautiful girl, too white,

Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,

Just where the sea and the Loire unite!

And a boasted name in Brittany

She bore, which I will not write.

II

Too white, for the flower of life is red;

Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen

Of a soul that is meant (her parents said)

To just see earth, and hardly be seen,

[10] And blossom in heaven instead.

III

Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair!

One grace that grew to its full on earth:

Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare,

And her waist want half a girdle’s girth,

But she had her great gold hair.

IV

Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss,

Freshness and fragrance – floods of it, too!

Gold, did I say? Nay, gold’s mere dross:

Here, Life smiled, ‘Think what I meant to do!’

[20] And Love sighed, ‘Fancy my loss!’

V

So, when she died, it was scarce more strange

Than that, when delicate evening dies,

And you follow its spent sun’s pallid range,

There’s a shoot of colour startles the skies

With sudden, violent change, –

VI

That, while the breath was nearly to seek,

As they put the little cross to her lips,

She changed; a spot came out on her cheek,

A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse,

[30] And she broke forth, ‘I must speak!’

VII

‘Not my hair!’ made the girl her moan –

‘All the rest is gone or to go;

But the last, last grace, my all, my own,

Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know!

Leave my poor gold hair alone!’

VIII

The passion thus vented, dead lay she;

Her parents sobbed their worst on that;

All friends joined in, nor observed degree:

For indeed the hair was to wonder at,

[40] As it spread – not flowing free,

IX

But curled around her brow, like a crown,

And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap,

And calmed about her neck – ay, down

To her breast, pressed flat, without a gap

I’ the gold, it reached her gown.

X

All kissed that face, like a silver wedge

’Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair:

E’en the priest allowed death’s privilege,

As he planted the crucifix with care

[50] On her breast, ’twixt edge and edge.

XI

And thus was she buried, inviolate

Of body and soul, in the very space

By the altar; keeping saintly state

In Pornic church, for her pride of race,

Pure life and piteous fate.

XII

And in after-time would your fresh tear fall,

Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile,

As they told you of gold, both robe and pall,

How she prayed them leave it alone awhile,

[60] So it never was touched at all.

XIII

Years flew; this legend grew at last

The life of the lady; all she had done,

All been, in the memories fading fast

Of lover and friend, was summed in one

Sentence survivors passed:

XIV

To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth;

Had turned an angel before the time:

Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearth

Of frailty, all you could count a crime

[70] Was – she knew her gold hair’s worth.

XV

At little pleasant Pornic church,

It chanced, the pavement wanted repair,

Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch,

A certain sacred space lay bare,

And the boys began research.

XVI

’Twas the space where our sires would lay a saint,

A benefactor, – a bishop, suppose,

A baron with armour-adornments quaint,

Dame with chased ring and jewelled rose,

[80] Things sanctity saves from taint;

XVII

So we come to find them in after-days

When the corpse is presumed to have done with gauds

Of use to the living, in many ways:

For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds,

And the church deserves the praise.

XVIII

They grubbed with a will: and at length – O cor

Humanum, pectora caeca, and the rest! –

They found – no gaud they were prying for,

No ring, no rose, but – who would have guessed? –

[90] A double Louis-d’or!

XIX

Here was a case for the priest: he heard,

Marked, inwardly digested, laid

Finger on nose, smiled, ‘There’s a bird

Chirps in my ear’: then, ‘Bring a spade,

Dig deeper!’ – he gave the word.

XX

And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid,

Or rotten planks which composed it once,

Why, there lay the girl’s skull wedged amid

A mint of money, it served for the nonce

[100] To hold in its hair-heaps hid!

XXI

Hid there? Why? Could the girl be wont

(She the stainless soul) to treasure up

Money, earth’s trash and heaven’s affront?

Had a spider found out the communion-cup,

Was a toad in the christening-font?

XXII

Truth is truth: too true it was.

Gold! She hoarded and hugged it first,

Longed for it, leaned o’er it, loved it – alas –

Till the humour grew to a head and burst,

[110] And she cried, at the final pass, –

XXIII

‘Talk not of God, my heart is stone!

Nor lover nor friend – be gold for both!

Gold I lack; and, my all, my own,

It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die loth

If they let my hair alone!’

XXIV

Louis-d’or, some six times five,

And duly double, every piece.

Now do you see? With the priest to shrive,

With parents preventing her soul’s release

[120] By kisses that kept alive, –

XXV

With heaven’s gold gates about to ope,

With friends’ praise, gold-like, lingering still,

An instinct had bidden the girl’s hand grope

For gold, the true sort – ‘Gold in heaven, if you will;

But I keep earth’s too, I hope.’

XXVI

Enough! The priest took the grave’s grim yield:

The parents, they eyed that price of sin

As if thirty pieces lay revealed

On the place to bury strangers in,

[130] The hideous Potter’s Field.

XXVII

But the priest bethought him: ‘“Milk that’s spilt”

– You know the adage! Watch and pray!

Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt!

It would build a new altar; that, we may!’

And the altar therewith was built.

XXVIII

Why I deliver this horrible verse?

As the text of a sermon, which now I preach:

Evil or good may be better or worse

In the human heart, but the mixture of each

[140] Is a marvel and a curse.

XXIX

The candid incline to surmise of late

That the Christian faith proves false, I find;

For our Essays-and-Reviews’ debate

Begins to tell on the public mind,

And Colenso’s words have weight:

XXX

I still, to suppose it true, for my part,

See reasons and reasons; this, to begin:

’Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart

At the head of a lie – taught Original Sin,

[150] The Corruption of Man’s Heart.

Dîs Aliter Visum; or, Le Byron de Nos Jours

I

Stop, let me have the truth of that!

Is that all true? I say, the day

Ten years ago when both of us

Met on a morning, friends – as thus

We meet this evening, friends or what? –

II

Did you – because I took your arm

And sillily smiled, ‘A mass of brass

That sea looks, blazing underneath!’

While up the cliff-road edged with heath,

[10] We took the turns nor came to harm –

III

Did you consider ‘Now makes twice

That I have seen her, walked and talked

With this poor pretty thoughtful thing,

Whose worth I weigh: she tries to sing;

Draws, hopes in time the eye grows nice;

IV

‘Reads verse and thinks she understands;

Loves all, at any rate, that’s great,

Good, beautiful; but much as we

Down at the bath-house love the sea,

[20] Who breathe its salt and bruise its sands:

V

‘While … do but follow the fishing-gull

That flaps and floats from wave to cave!

There’s the sea-lover, fair my friend!

What then? Be patient, mark and mend!

Had you the making of your skull?’

VI

And did you, when we faced the church

With spire and sad slate roof, aloof

From human fellowship so far,

Where a few graveyard crosses are,

[30] And garlands for the swallows’ perch, –

VII

Did you determine, as we stepped

O’er the lone stone fence, ‘Let me get

Her for myself, and what’s the earth

With all its art, verse, music, worth –

Compared with love, found, gained, and kept?

VIII

‘Schumann’s our music-maker now;

Has his march-movement youth and mouth?

Ingres’s the modern man that paints;

Which will lean on me, of his saints?

[40] Heine for songs; for kisses, how?’

IX

And did you, when we entered, reached

The votive frigate, soft aloft

Riding on air this hundred years,

Safe-smiling at old hopes and fears, –

Did you draw profit while she preached?

X

Resolving, ‘Fools we wise men grow!

Yes, I could easily blurt out curt

Some question that might find reply

As prompt in her stopped lips, dropped eye,

[50] And rush of red to cheek and brow:

XI

‘Thus were a match made, sure and fast,

’Mid the blue weed-flowers round the mound

Where, issuing, we shall stand and stay

For one more look at baths and bay,

Sands, sea-gulls, and the old church last –

XII

‘A match ’twixt me, bent, wigged and lamed,

Famous, however, for verse and worse,

Sure of the Fortieth spare Arm-chair

When gout and glory seat me there,

[60] So, one whose love-freaks pass unblamed, –

XIII

‘And this young beauty, round and sound

As a mountain-apple, youth and truth

With loves and doves, at all events

With money in the Three per Cents;

Whose choice of me would seem profound:-

XIV

‘She might take me as I take her.

Perfect the hour would pass, alas!

Climb high, love high, what matter? Still,

Feet, feelings, must descend the hill:

[70] An hour’s perfection can’t recur.

XV

‘Then follows Paris and full time

For both to reason: “Thus with us!”

She’ll sigh, “Thus girls give body and soul

At first word, think they gain the goal,

When ’tis the starting-place they climb!

XVI

‘“My friend makes verse and gets renown;

Have they all fifty years, his peers?

He knows the world, firm, quiet and gay;

Boys will become as much one day:

[80] They’re fools; he cheats, with beard less brown.

XVII

‘“For boys say, Love me or I die!

He did not say, The truth is, youth

I want, who am old and know too much;

I’d catch youth: lend me sight and touch!

Drop heart’s blood where life’s wheels grate dry!”

XVIII

‘While I should make rejoinder’ – (then

It was, no doubt, you ceased that least

Light pressure of my arm in yours)

‘“I can conceive of cheaper cures

[90] For a yawning-fit o’er books and men.

XIX

‘“What? All I am, was, and might be,

All, books taught, art brought, life’s whole strife,

Painful results since precious, just

Were fitly exchanged, in wise disgust,

For two cheeks freshened by youth and sea?

XX

‘“All for a nosegay! – what came first;

With fields on flower, untried each side;

I rally, need my books and men,

And find a nosegay”: drop it, then,

[100] No match yet made for best or worst!’

XXI

That ended me. You judged the porch

We left by, Norman; took our look

At sea and sky, wondered so few

Find out the place for air and view;

Remarked the sun began to scorch;

XXII

Descended, soon regained the baths,

And then, good-bye! Years ten since then:

Ten years! We meet: you tell me, now,

By a window-seat for that cliff-brow,

[110] On carpet-stripes for those sand-paths.

XXIII

Now I may speak: you fool, for all

Your lore! Who made things plain in vain?

What was the sea for? What, the grey

Sad church, that solitary day,

Crosses and graves and swallows’ call?

XXIV

Was there naught better than to enjoy?

No feat which, done, would make time break,

And let us pent-up creatures through

Into eternity, our due?

[120] No forcing earth teach heaven’s employ?

XXV

No wise beginning, here and now,

What cannot grow complete (earth’s feat)

And heaven must finish, there and then?

No tasting earth’s true food for men,

Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet?

XXVI

No grasping at love, gaining a share

O’ the sole spark from God’s life at strife

With death, so, sure of range above

The limits here? For us and love,

[130] Failure; but, when God fails, despair.

XXVII

This you call wisdom? Thus you add

Good unto good again, in vain?

You loved, with body worn and weak;

I loved, with faculties to seek:

Were both loves worthless since ill-clad?

XXVIII

Let the mere star-fish in his vault

Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed,

Rose-jacinth to the finger-tips:

He, whole in body and soul, outstrips

[140] Man, found with either in default.

XXIX

But what’s whole, can increase no more,

Is dwarfed and dies, since here’s its sphere.

The devil laughed at you in his sleeve!

You knew not? That I well believe;

Or you had saved two souls: nay, four.

XXX

For Stephanie sprained last night her wrist,

Ankle or something. ‘Pooh,’ cry you?

At any rate she danced, all say,

Vilely; her vogue has had its day.

[150] Here comes my husband from his whist.

A Death in the Desert

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene:

It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth,

Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek

And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu:

Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest,

Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth,

Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xi,

From Xanthus, my wife’s uncle, now at peace:

Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name.

[10] I may not write it, but I make a cross

To show I wait His coming, with the rest,

And leave off here: beginneth Pamphylax.]

I said, ‘If one should wet his lips with wine,

And slip the broadest plantain-leaf we find,

Or else the lappet of a linen robe,

Into the water-vessel, lay it right,

And cool his forehead just above the eyes,

The while a brother, kneeling either side,

Should chafe each hand and try to make it warm, –

[20] He is not so far gone but he might speak.’

This did not happen in the outer cave,

Nor in the secret chamber of the rock

Where, sixty days since the decree was out,

We had him, bedded on a camel-skin,

And waited for his dying all the while;

But in the midmost grotto: since noon’s light

Reached there a little, and we would not lose

The last of what might happen on his face.

I at the head, and Xanthus at the feet,

[30] With Valens and the Boy, had lifted him,

And brought him from the chamber in the depths,

And laid him in the light where we might see:

For certain smiles began about his mouth,

And his lids moved, presageful of the end.

Beyond, and half way up the mouth o’ the cave,

The Bactrian convert, having his desire,

Kept watch, and made pretence to graze a goat

That gave us milk, on rags of various herb,

Plantain and quitch, the rocks’ shade keeps alive:

[40] So that if any thief or soldier passed,

(Because the persecution was aware)

Yielding the goat up promptly with his life,

Such man might pass on, joyful at a prize,

Nor care to pry into the cool o’ the cave.

Outside was all noon and the burning blue.

‘Here is wine,’ answered Xanthus, – dropped a drop;

I stooped and placed the lap of cloth aright,

Then chafed his right hand, and the Boy his left:

But Valens had bethought him, and produced

[50] And broke a ball of nard, and made perfume.

Only, he did – not so much wake, as – turn

And smile a little, as a sleeper does

If any dear one call him, touch his face –

And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed.

Then Xanthus said a prayer, but still he slept:

It is the Xanthus that escaped to Rome,

Was burned, and could not write the chronicle.

Then the Boy sprang up from his knees, and ran,

Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought,

[60] And fetched the seventh plate of graven lead

Out of the secret chamber, found a place,

Pressing with finger on the deeper dints,

And spoke, as ’twere his mouth proclaiming first,

‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.’

Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once,

And sat up of himself, and looked at us;

And thenceforth nobody pronounced a word:

Only, outside, the Bactrian cried his cry

Like the lone desert-bird that wears the ruff,

[70] As signal we were safe, from time to time.

First he said, ‘If a friend declared to me,

This my son Valens, this my other son,

Were James and Peter, – nay, declared as well

This lad was very John, – I could believe!

– Could, for a moment, doubtlessly believe:

So is myself withdrawn into my depths,

The soul retreated from the perished brain

Whence it was wont to feel and use the world

Through these dull members, done with long ago.

[80] Yet I myself remain; I feel myself:

And there is nothing lost. Let be, awhile!’

[This is the doctrine he was wont to teach,

How divers persons witness in each man,

Three souls which make up one soul: first, to wit,

A soul of each and all the bodily parts,

Seated therein, which works, and is what Does,

And has the use of earth, and ends the man

Downward: but, tending upward for advice,

Grows into, and again is grown into

[90] By the next soul, which, seated in the brain,

Useth the first with its collected use,

And feeleth, thinketh, willeth, – is what Knows:

Which, duly tending upward in its turn,

Grows into, and again is grown into

By the last soul, that uses both the first,

Subsisting whether they assist or no,

And, constituting man’s self, is what Is –

And leans upon the former, makes it play,

As that played off the first: and, tending up,

[100] Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man

Upward in that dread point of intercourse,

Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him.

What Does, what Knows, what Is; three souls, one man.

I give the glossa of Theotypas.]

And then, ‘A stick, once fire from end to end;

Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark!

Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself

A little where the fire was: thus I urge

The soul that served me, till it task once more

[110] What ashes of my brain have kept their shape,

And these make effort on the last o’ the flesh,

Trying to taste again the truth of things –’

(He smiled) – ‘their very superficial truth;

As that ye are my sons, that it is long

Since James and Peter had release by death,

And I am only he, your brother John,

Who saw and heard, and could remember all.

Remember all! It is not much to say.

What if the truth broke on me from above

[120] As once and oft-times? Such might hap again:

Doubtlessly He might stand in presence here,

With head wool-white, eyes flame, and feet like brass,

The sword and the seven stars, as I have seen –

I who now shudder only and surmise

“How did your brother bear that sight and live?”

‘If I live yet, it is for good, more love

Through me to men: be naught but ashes here

That keep awhile my semblance, who was John, –

Still, when they scatter, there is left on earth

[130] No one alive who knew (consider this!)

– Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands

That which was from the first, the Word of Life.

How will it be when none more saith “I saw”?

‘Such ever was love’s way: to rise, it stoops.

Since I, whom Christ’s mouth taught, was bidden teach,

I went, for many years, about the world,

Saying “It was so; so I heard and saw,”

Speaking as the case asked: and men believed.

Afterward came the message to myself

[140] In Patmos isle; I was not bidden teach,

But simply listen, take a book and write,

Nor set down other than the given word,

With nothing left to my arbitrament

To choose or change: I wrote, and men believed.

Then, for my time grew brief, no message more,

No call to write again, I found a way,

And, reasoning from my knowledge, merely taught

Men should, for love’s sake, in love’s strength believe;

Or I would pen a letter to a friend

[150] And urge the same as friend, nor less nor more:

Friends said I reasoned rightly, and believed.

But at the last, why, I seemed left alive

Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,

To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared

When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things;

Left to repeat, “I saw, I heard, I knew, ”

And go all over the old ground again,

With Antichrist already in the world,

And many Antichrists, who answered prompt

[160] “Am I not Jasper as thyself art John?

Nay, young, whereas through age thou mayst forget:

Wherefore, explain, or how shall we believe?”

I never thought to call down fire on such,

Or, as in wonderful and early days,

Pick up the scorpion, tread the serpent dumb;

But patient stated much of the Lord’s life

Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work:

Since much that at the first, in deed and word,

Lay simply and sufficiently exposed,

[170] Had grown (or else my soul was grown to match,

Fed through such years, familiar with such light,

Guarded and guided still to see and speak)

Of new significance and fresh result;

What first were guessed as points, I now knew stars,

And named them in the Gospel I have writ.

For men said, “It is getting long ago:

Where is the promise of His coming?” – asked

These young ones in their strength, as loth to wait,

Of me who, when their sires were born, was old.

[180] I, for I loved them, answered, joyfully,

Since I was there, and helpful in my age;

And, in the main, I think such men believed.

Finally, thus endeavouring, I fell sick,

Ye brought me here, and I supposed the end,

And went to sleep with one thought that, at least,

Though the whole earth should lie in wickedness,

We had the truth, might leave the rest to God.

Yet now I wake in such decrepitude

As I had slidden down and fallen afar,

[190] Past even the presence of my former self,

Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap,

Till I am found away from my own world,

Feeling for foot-hold through a blank profound,

Along with unborn people in strange lands,

Who say – I hear said or conceive they say –

“Was John at all, and did he say he saw?

Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!”

‘And how shall I assure them? Can they share

– They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength

[200] About each spirit, that needs must bide its time,

Living and learning still as years assist

Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see –

With me who hardly am withheld at all,

But shudderingly, scarce a shred between,

Lie bare to the universal prick of light?

Is it for nothing we grow old and weak,

We whom God loves? When pain ends, gain ends too.

To me, that story – ay, that Life and Death

Of which I wrote “it was” – to me, it is;

[210] – Is, here and now: I apprehend naught else.

Is not God now i’ the world His power first made?

Is not His love at issue still with sin

Visibly when a wrong is done on earth?

Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around?

Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise

To the right hand of the throne – what is it beside,

When such truth, breaking bounds, o’erfloods my soul.

And, as I saw the sin and death, even so

See I the need yet transiency of both,

[220] The good and glory consummated thence?

I saw the power; I see the Love, once weak,

Resume the Power: and in this word “I see, ”

Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both

That moving o’er the spirit of man, unblinds

His eye and bids him look. These are, I see;

But ye, the children, His beloved ones too,

Ye need, – as I should use an optic glass

I wondered at erewhile, somewhere i’ the world,

It had been given a crafty smith to make;

[230] A tube, he turned on objects brought too close,

Lying confusedly insubordinate

For the unassisted eye to master once:

Look through his tube, at distance now they lay,

Become succinct, distinct, so small, so clear!

Just thus, ye needs must apprehend what truth

I see, reduced to plain historic fact,

Diminished into clearness, proved a point

And far away: ye would withdraw your sense

From out eternity, strain it upon time,

[240] Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death,

Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread,

As though a star should open out, all sides,

Grow the world on you, as it is my world.

‘For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,

And hope and fear, – believe the aged friend, –

Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,

How love might be, hath been indeed, and is;

And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost

Such prize despite the envy of the world,

[250] And, having gained truth, keep truth: that is all.

But see the double way wherein we are led,

How the soul learns diversely from the flesh!

With flesh, that hath so little time to stay,

And yields mere basement for the soul’s emprise,

Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the light,

And warmth was cherishing and food was choice

To every man’s flesh, thousand years ago,

As now to yours and mine; the body sprang

At once to the height, and stayed: but the soul, – no!

[260] Since sages who, this noontide, meditate

In Rome or Athens, may descry some point

Of the eternal power, hid yestereve;

And, as thereby the power’s whole mass extends,

So much extends the aether floating o’er,

The love that tops the might, the Christ in God.

Then, as new lessons shall be learned in these

Till earth’s work stop and useless time run out,

So duly, daily, needs provision be

For keeping the soul’s prowess possible,

[270] Building new barriers as the old decay,

Saving us from evasion of life’s proof,

Putting the question ever, “Does God love,

And will ye hold that truth against the world?”

Ye know there needs no second proof with good

Gained for our flesh from any earthly source:

We might go freezing, ages, – give us fire,

Thereafter we judge fire at its full worth,

And guard it safe through every chance, ye know!

That fable of Prometheus and his theft,

[280] How mortals gained Jove’s fiery flower, grows old

(I have been used to hear the pagans own)

And out of mind; but fire, howe’er its birth,

Here is it, precious to the sophist now

Who laughs the myth of Aeschylus to scorn,

As precious to those satyrs of his play,

Who touched it in gay wonder at the thing.

While were it so with the soul, – this gift of truth

Once grasped, were this our soul’s gain safe, and sure

To prosper as the body’s gain is wont, –

[290] Why, man’s probation would conclude, his earth

Crumble; for he both reasons and decides,

Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire

For gold or purple once he knows its worth?

Could he give Christ up were His worth as plain?

Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift,

Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact,

And straightway in his life acknowledge it,

As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire.

Sigh ye, “It had been easier once than now”?

[300] To give you answer I am left alive;

Look at me who was present from the first!

Ye know what things I saw; then came a test,

My first, befitting me who so had seen:

“Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, Him

Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life?

What should wring this from thee!” – ye laugh and ask.

What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a noise,

The sudden Roman faces, violent hands,

And fear of what the Jews might do! Just that,

And it is written, “I forsook and fled”:

[310] There was my trial, and it ended thus.

Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow:

Another year or two, – what little child,

What tender woman that had seen no least

Of all my sights, but barely heard them told,

Who did not clasp the cross with a light laugh,

Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God?

Well, was truth safe for ever, then? Not so.

Already had begun the silent work

[320] Whereby truth, deadened of its absolute blaze,

Might need love’s eye to pierce the o’erstretched doubt.

Teachers were busy, whispering “All is true

As the aged ones report; but youth can reach

Where age gropes dimly, weak with stir and strain,

And the full doctrine slumbers till today.”

Thus, what the Roman’s lowered spear was found,

A bar to me who touched and handled truth,

Now proved the glozing of some new shrewd tongue,

This Ebion, this Cerinthus or their mates,

[300] Till imminent was the outcry “Save our Christ!”

Whereon I stated much of the Lord’s life

Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work.

Such work done, as it will be, what comes next?

What do I hear say, or conceive men say,

“Was John at all, and did he say he saw?

Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!”

‘Is this indeed a burthen for late days,

And may I help to bear it with you all,

Using my weakness which becomes your strength?

[340] For if a babe were born inside this grot,

Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun,

Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light’s place, –

One loving him and wishful he should learn,

Would much rejoice himself was blinded first

Month by month here, so made to understand

How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss:

I think I could explain to such a child

There was more glow outside than gleams he caught,

Ay, nor need urge “I saw it, so believe!”

[350] It is a heavy burthen you shall bear

In latter days, new lands, or old grown strange,

Left without me, which must be very soon.

What is the doubt, my brothers? Quick with it!

I see you stand conversing, each new face,

Either in fields, of yellow summer eves,

On islets yet unnamed amid the sea;

Or pace for shelter ’neath a portico

Out of the crowd in some enormous town

Where now the larks sing in a solitude;

[360] Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand

Idly conjectured to be Ephesus:

And no one asks his fellow any more

“Where is the promise of His coming?” but

“Was he revealed in any of His lives,

As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul?”

‘Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out,

And let us ask and answer and be saved!

My book speaks on, because it cannot pass;

One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads

[370] “Here is a tale of things done ages since;

What truth was ever told the second day?

Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for naught.

Remains the doctrine, love; well, we must love,

And what we love most, power and love in one,

Let us acknowledge on the record here,

Accepting these in Christ: must Christ then be?

Has He been? Did not we ourselves make Him?

Our mind receives but what it holds, no more.

First of the love, then; we acknowledge Christ –

[380] A proof we comprehend His love, a proof

We had such love already in ourselves,

Knew first what else we should not recognize.

’Tis mere projection from man’s inmost mind,

And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back,

Becomes accounted somewhat out of him;

He throws it up in air, it drops down earth’s,

With shape, name, story added, man’s old way.

How prove you Christ came otherwise at least?

Next try the power: He made and rules the world:

[390] Certes there is a world once made, now ruled,

Unless things have been ever as we see.

Our sires declared a charioteer’s yoked steeds

Brought the sun up the east and down the west,

Which only of itself now rises, sets,

As if a hand impelled it and a will, –

Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands:

But the new question’s whisper is distinct,

Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves?

We have the hands, the will; what made and drives

[400] The sun is force, is law, is named, not known,

While will and love we do know; marks of these,

Eye-witnesses attest, so books declare –

As that, to punish or reward our race,

The sun at undue times arose or set

Or else stood still: what do not men affirm?

But earth requires as urgently reward

Or punishment today as years ago,

And none expects the sun will interpose:

Therefore it was mere passion and mistake,

[410] Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth.

Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things;

Ever the will, the intelligence, the love,

Man’s! – which he gives, supposing he but finds,

As late he gave head, body, hands and feet,

To help these in what forms he called his gods.

First, Jove’s brow, Juno’s eyes were swept away,

But Jove’s wrath, Juno’s pride continued long;

As last, will, power, and love discarded these,

So law in turn discards power, love, and will.

[420] What proveth God is otherwise at least?

All else, projection from the mind of man!”

‘Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong,

But place my gospel where I put my hands.

‘I say that man was made to grow, not stop;

That help, he needed once, and needs no more,

Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn:

For he hath new needs, and new helps to these.

This imports solely, man should mount on each

New height in view; the help whereby he mounts,

[430] The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall,

Since all things suffer change save God the Truth.

Man apprehends Him newly at each stage

Whereat earth’s ladder drops, its service done;

And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved.

You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs

To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn,

And check the careless step would spoil their birth;

But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go,

Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds,

[440] It is no longer for old twigs ye look,

Which proved once underneath lay store of seed,

But to the herb’s self, by what light ye boast,

For what fruit’s signs are. This book’s fruit is plain,

Nor miracles need prove it any more.

Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade ’ware

At first of root and stem, saved both till now

From trampling ox, rough boar and wanton goat.

What? Was man made a wheelwork to wind up,

And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?

[450] No! – grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne’er forgets:

May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.

‘This might be pagan teaching: now hear mine.

‘I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile,

Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself,

So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth:

When they can eat, babe’s-nurture is withdrawn.

I fed the babe whether it would or no:

I bid the boy or feed himself or starve.

I cried once, “That ye may believe in Christ,

[460] Behold this blind man shall receive his sight!”

I cry now, “Urgest thou, for I am shrewd

And smile at stories how John’s word could cure –

Repeat that miracle and take my faith?”

I say, that miracle was duly wrought

When, save for it, no faith was possible.

Whether a change were wrought i’ the shows o’ the world,

Whether the change came from our minds which see

Of shows o’ the world so much as and no more

Than God wills for His purpose, – (what do I

[470] See now, suppose you, there where you see rock

Round us?) – I know not; such was the effect,

So faith grew, making void more miracles

Because too much: they would compel, not help.

I say, the acknowledgement of God in Christ

Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee

All questions in the earth and out of it,

And has so far advanced thee to be wise.

Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved?

In life’s mere minute, with power to use that proof,

[480] Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung?

Thou hast it; use it and forthwith, or die!

‘For I say, this is death and the sole death,

When a man’s loss comes to him from his gain,

Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,

And lack of love from love made manifest;

A lamp’s death when, replete with oil, it chokes;

A stomach’s when, surcharged with food, it starves.

With ignorance was surety of a cure.

When man, appalled at nature, questioned first

[490] “What if there lurk a might behind this might?”

He needed satisfaction God could give,

And did give, as ye have the written word:

But when he finds might still redouble might,

Yet asks, “Since all is might, what use of will?”

– Will, the one source of might, – he being man

With a man’s will and a man’s might, to teach

In little how the two combine in large, –

That man has turned round on himself and stands,

Which in the course of nature is, to die.

[500] ‘And when man questioned, “What if there be love

Behind the will and might, as real as they?” –

He needed satisfaction God could give,

And did give, as ye have the written word:

But when, beholding that love everywhere,

He reasons, “Since such love is everywhere,

And since ourselves can love and would be loved,

We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not,” –

How shall ye help this man who knows himself,

That he must love and would be loved again,

[510] Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ,

Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him?

The lamp o’erswims with oil, the stomach flags

Loaded with nurture, and that man’s soul dies.

‘If he rejoin, “But this was all the while

A trick; the fault was, first of all, in thee,

Thy story of the places, names and dates,

Where, when and how the ultimate truth had rise,

– Thy prior truth, at last discovered none,

Whence now the second suffers detriment.

[520] What good of giving knowledge if, because

O’ the manner of the gift, its profit fail?

And why refuse what modicum of help

Had stopped the after-doubt, impossible

I’ the face of truth – truth absolute, uniform?

Why must I hit of this and miss of that,

Distinguish just as I be weak or strong,

And not ask of thee and have answer prompt,

Was this once, was it not once? – then and now

And evermore, plain truth from man to man.

[530] Is John’s procedure just the heathen bard’s?

Put question of his famous play again

How for the ephemerals’ sake Jove’s fire was filched,

And carried in a cane and brought to earth:

The fact is in the fable, cry the wise,

Mortals obtained the boon, so much is fact,

Though fire be spint and produced on earth.

As with the Titan’s, so now with thy tale:

Why breed in us perplexity, mistake,

Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words?”

[540] ‘I answer, Have ye yet to argue out

The very primal thesis, plainest law,

– Man is not God but hath God’s end to serve,

A master to obey, a course to take,

Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become?

Grant this, then man must pass from old to new,

From vain to real, from mistake to fact,

From what once seemed good, to what now proves best.

How could man have progression otherwise?

Before the point was mooted “What is God?”

[550] No savage man inquired “What am myself?”

Much less replied, “First, last, and best of things.”

Man takes that title now if he believes

Might can exist with neither will nor love,

In God’s case – what he names now Nature’s Law –

While in himself he recognizes love

No less than might and will: and rightly takes.

Since if man prove the sole existent thing

Where these combine, whatever their degree,

However weak the might or will or love,

[560] So they be found there, put in evidence, –

He is as surely higher in the scale

Than any might with neither love nor will,

As life, apparent in the poorest midge,

(When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wing)

Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas’ self –

Given to the nobler midge for resting-place!

Thus, man proves best and highest – God, in fine,

And thus the victory leads but to defeat,

The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall,

[570] His life becomes impossible, which is death.

‘But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch

He is mere man, and in humility

Neither may know God nor mistake himself;

I point to the immediate consequence

And say, by such confession straight he falls

Into man’s place, a thing nor God nor beast,

Made to know that he can know and not more:

Lower than God who knows all and can all,

Higher than beasts which know and can so far

[580] As each beast’s limit, perfect to an end,

Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more;

While man knows partly but conceives beside,

Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact,

And in this striving, this converting air

Into a solid he may grasp and use,

Finds progress, man’s distinctive mark alone,

Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are,

Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.

Such progress could no more attend his soul

[590] Were all it struggles after found at first

And guesses changed to knowledge absolute,

Than motion wait his body, were all else

Than it the solid earth on every side,

Where now through space he moves from rest to rest.

Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect

He could not, what he knows now, know at first;

What he considers that he knows today,

Come but tomorrow, he will find misknown;

Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns

[600] Because he lives, which is to be a man,

Set to instruct himself by his past self:

First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn,

Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind,

Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law.

God’s gift was that man should conceive of truth

And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake,

As midway help till he reach fact indeed.

The statuary ere he mould a shape

Boasts a like gift, the shape’s idea, and next

[610] The aspiration to produce the same;

So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout,

Cries ever “Now I have the thing I see”:

Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought,

From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself.

How were it had he cried “I see no face,

No breast, no feet i’ the ineffectual clay”?

Rather commend him that he clapped his hands,

And laughed “It is my shape and lives again!”

Enjoyed the falsehood, touched it on to truth,

[620] Until yourselves applaud the flesh indeed

In what is still flesh-imitating clay.

Right in you, right in him, such way be man’s!

God only makes the live shape at a jet.

Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship?

The pattern on the Mount subsists no more,

Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness;

But copies, Moses strove to make thereby,

Serve still and are replaced as time requires:

By these, make newest vessels, reach the type!

[630] If ye demur, this judgement on your head,

Never to reach the ultimate, angels’ law,

Indulging every instinct of the soul

There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!

‘Such is the burthen of the latest time.

I have survived to hear it with my ears,

Answer it with my lips: does this suffice?

For if there be a further woe than such,

Wherein my brothers struggling need a hand,

So long as any pulse is left in mine,

[640] May I be absent even longer yet,

Plucking the blind ones back from the abyss,

Though I should tarry a new hundred years!’

But he was dead; ’twas about noon, the day

Somewhat declining: we five buried him

That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways,

And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus.

By this, the cave’s mouth must be filled with sand.

Valens is lost, I know not of his trace;

The Bactrian was but a wild childish man,

[650] And could not write nor speak, but only loved:

So, lest the memory of this go quite,

Seeing that I tomorrow fight the beasts,

I tell the same to Phoebas, whom believe!

For many look again to find that face,

Beloved John’s to whom I ministered,

Somewhere in life about the world; they err:

Either mistaking what was darkly spoke

At ending of his book, as he relates,

Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech

[660] Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose.

Believe ye will not see him any more

About the world with his divine regard!

For all was as I say, and now the man

Lies as he lay once, breast to breast with God.

[Cerinthus read and mused; one added this:

‘If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men

Mere man, the first and best but nothing more, –

Account Him, for reward of what He was,

Now and for ever, wretchedest of all.

[670] For see; Himself conceived of life as love,

Conceived of love as what must enter in,

Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved:

Thus much for man’s joy, all men’s joy for Him.

Well, He is gone, thou sayest, to fit reward.

But by this time are many souls set free,

And very many still retained alive:

Nay, should His coming be delayed awhile,

Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute)

See if, for every finger of thy hands,

[680] There be not found, that day the world shall end,

Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ’s word

That He will grow incorporate with all,

With me as Pamphylax, with him as John,

Groom for each bride! Can a mere man do this?

Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do.

Call Christ, then, the illimitable God,

Or lost!’

But ’twas Cerinthus that is lost.]

Caliban upon Setebos; or, Natural Theology in the Island

‘Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.’

[’Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,

Flat on his belly in the pit’s much mire,

With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.

And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,

And feels about his spine small eft-things course,

Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:

And while above his head a pompion-plant,

Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,

Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,

[10] And now a flower drops with a bee inside,

And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch, –

He looks out o’er yon sea which sunbeams cross

And recross till they weave a spider-web

(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)

And talks to his own self, howe’er he please,

Touching that other, whom his dam called God.

Because to talk about Him, vexes – ha,

Could He but know! and time to vex is now,

When talk is safer than in winter-time.

[20] Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep

In confidence he drudges at their task,

And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,

Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]

Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!

’Thinketh, He dwelleth i’ the cold o’ the moon.

’Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,

But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;

Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:

Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,

[30] And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.

’Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:

He hated that He cannot change His cold,

Nor cure its ache. ‘Hath spied an icy fish

That longed to ’scape the rock-stream where she lived,

And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine

O’ the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,

A crystal spike ’twixt two warm walls of wave;

Only, she ever sickened, found repulse

At the other kind of water, not her life

[40] (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o’ the sun)

Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,

And in her old bounds buried her despair,

Hating and loving warmth alike: so He.

’Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,

Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.

Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;

Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,

That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown

He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye

[50] By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue

That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,

And says a plain word when she finds her prize,

But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves

That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks

About their hole – He made all these and more,

Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?

He could not, Himself, make a second self

To be His mate; as well have made Himself:

He would not make what he mislikes or slights,

[60] An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains:

But did, in envy, listlessness or sport,

Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be –

Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,

Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,

Things He admires and mocks too, – that is it.

Because, so brave, so better though they be,

It nothing skills if He begin to plague.

Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,

Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,

[70] Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss, –

Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,

Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain;

Last, throw me on my back i’ the seeded thyme,

And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.

Put case, unable to be what I wish,

I yet could make a live bird out of clay:

Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban

Able to fly? – for, there, see, he hath wings,

And great comb like the hoopoe’s to admire,

[80] And there, a sting to do his foes offence,

There, and I will that he begin to live,

Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns

Of grigs high up that make the merry din,

Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not.

In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,

And he lay stupid-like, – why, I should laugh;

And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,

Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,

Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again, –

[90] Well, as the chance were, this might take or else

Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,

And give the mankin three sound legs for one,

Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,

And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.

Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,

Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,

Making and marring clay at will? So He.

’Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,

Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.

[100] ’Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs

That march now from the mountain to the sea,

’Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,

Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.

’Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots

Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;

’Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,

And two worms he whose nippers end in red;

As it likes me each time, I do: so He.

Well then, ’supposeth He is good i’ the main,

[110] Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,

But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!

Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,

And envieth that, so helped, such things do more

Than He who made them! What consoles but this?

That they, unless through Him, do naught at all,

And must submit: what other use in things?

’Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint

That, blown through, gives exact the scream o’ the jay

When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:

[120] Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay

Flock within stone’s throw, glad their foe is hurt:

Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth

‘I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,

I make the cry my maker cannot make

With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!’

Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?

Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,

What knows, – the something over Setebos

[130] That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,

Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.

There may be something quiet o’er His head,

Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,

Since both derive from weakness in some way.

I joy because the quails come; would not joy

Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:

This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.

’Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,

But never spends much thought nor care that way.

[140] It may look up, work up, – the worse for those

It works on! ’Careth but for Setebos

The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,

Who, making Himself feared through what He does,

Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar

To what is quiet and hath happy life;

Next looks down here, and out of very spite

Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,

These good things to match those as hips do grapes.

’Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.

[150] Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books

Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:

Vexed, ’stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,

Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;

Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;

Weareth at whiles for an enchanter’s robe

The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;

And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,

A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,

Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,

[160] And saith she is Miranda and my wife:

’Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane

He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;

Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,

Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,

And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge

In a hole o’ the rock and calls him Caliban;

A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.

’Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,

Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.

[170] His dam held that the Quiet made all things

Which Setebos vexed only: ’holds not so.

Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.

Had He meant other, while His hand was in,

Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,

Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,

Or overscale my flesh ’neath joint and joint,

Like an orc’s armour? Ay, – so spoil His sport!

He is the One now: only He doth all.

’Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.

[180] Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?

’Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast

Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,

But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate

Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.

Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,

Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,

By no means for the love of what is worked.

’Tasteth, himself, no finer good i’ the world

When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,

[190] And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,

Than trying what to do with wit and strength.

’Falls to make something: ‘piled yon pile of turfs,

And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,

And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,

And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,

And crowned the whole with a sloth’s skull a-top,

Found dead i’ the woods, too hard for one to kill.

No use at all i’ the work, for work’s sole sake;

’Shall some day knock it down again: so He.

[200] ’Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!

One hurricane will spoil six good months’ hope.

He hath a spite against me, that I know,

Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?

So it is, all the same, as well I find.

’Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm

With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises

Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,

Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,

Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,

[210] And licked the whole labour flat: so much for spite.

’Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)

Where, half an hour before, I slept i’ the shade:

Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!

’Dug up a newt He may have envied once

And turned to stone, shut up inside a stone.

Please Him and hinder this? – What Prosper does?

Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!

There is the sport: discover how or die!

All need not die, for of the things o’ the isle

[220] Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;

Those at His mercy, – why, they please Him most

When … when … well, never try the same way twice!

Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.

You must not know His ways, and play Him off,

Sure of the issue. ’Doth the like himself:

’Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears

But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,

And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:

’Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,

[230] Curls up into a ball, pretending death

For fright at my approach: the two ways please.

But what would move my choler more than this,

That either creature counted on its life

Tomorrow and next day and all days to come,

Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart,

‘Because he did so yesterday with me,

And otherwise with such another brute,

So must he do henceforth and always.’ – Ay?

Would teach the reasoning couple what ‘must’ means!

[240] ’Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.

’Conceiveth all things will continue thus,

And we shall have to live in fear of Him

So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,

If He have done His best, make no new world

To please Him more, so leave off watching this, –

If He surprise not even the Quiet’s self

Some strange day, – or, suppose, grow into it

As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,

And there is He, and nowhere help at all.

[250] ’Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.

His dam held different, that after death

He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:

Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,

Giving just respite lest we die through pain,

Saving last pain for worst, – with which, an end.

Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire

Is, not to seem too happy. ’Sees, himself,

Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,

Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.

[260] ’Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball

On head and tail as if to save their lives:

Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.

Even so, ’would have Him misconceive, suppose

This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,

And always, above all else, envies Him;

Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,

Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,

And never speaks his mind save housed as now:

Outside, ’groans, curses. If He caught me here,

[270] O’erheard this speech, and asked ‘What chuckles at?’

’Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,

Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,

Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,

Or push my tame beast for the ore to taste:

While myself lit a fire, and made a song

And sung it, ‘What I hate, be consecrate

To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate

For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?’

Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,

[280] Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,

That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch

And conquer Setebos, or likelier He

Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.

[What, what? A curtain o’er the world at once!

Crickets stop hissing; not a bird – or, yes,

There scuds His raven that has told Him all!

It was fool’s play, this prattling! Ha! The wind

Shoulders the pillared dust, death’s house o’ the move,

And fast invading fires begin! White blaze –

[290] A tree’s head snaps – and there, there, there, there, there,

His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!

Lo! ’Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!

’Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,

Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month

One little mess of whelks, so he may ’scape!]

Confessions

I

What is he buzzing in my ears?

‘Now that I come to die,

Do I view the world as a vale of tears?’

Ah, reverend sir, not I!

II

What I viewed there once, what I view again

Where the physic bottles stand

On the table’s edge, – is a suburb lane,

With a wall to my bedside hand.

III

That lane sloped, much as the bottles do,

[10] From a house you could descry

O’er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue

Or green to a healthy eye?

IV

To mine, it serves for the old June weather

Blue above lane and wall;

And that farthest bottle labelled ‘Ether’

Is the house o’ertopping all.

V

At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper,

There watched for me, one June,

A girl: I know, sir, it’s improper,

[20] My poor mind’s out of tune.

VI

Only, there was a way … you crept

Close by the side, to dodge

Eyes in the house, two eyes except:

They styled their house ‘The Lodge.’

VII

What right had a lounger up their lane?

But, by creeping very close,

With the good wall’s help, – their eyes might strain

And stretch themselves to Oes,

VIII

Yet never catch her and me together,

[30] As she left the attic, there,

By the rim of the bottle labelled ‘Ether,’

And stole from stair to stair,

IX

And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas,

We loved, sir – used to meet:

How sad and bad and mad it was –

But then, how it was sweet!

Youth and Art

I

It once might have been, once only:

We lodged in a street together,

You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,

I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

II

Your trade was with sticks and clay,

You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,

Then laughed ‘They will see some day

Smith made, and Gibson demolished.’

III

[10] My business was song, song, song;

I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered,

‘Kate Brown’s on the boards ere long,

And Grisi’s existence embittered!’

IV

I earned no more by a warble

Than you by a sketch in plaster;

You wanted a piece of marble,

I needed a music-master.

V

We studied hard in our styles,

Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,

[20] For air looked out on the tiles,

For fun watched each other’s windows.

VI

You lounged, like a boy of the South,

Cap and blouse – nay, a bit of beard too;

Or you got it, rubbing your mouth

With fingers the clay adhered to.

VII

And I – soon managed to find

Weak points in the flower-fence facing,

Was forced to put up a blind

And be safe in my corset-lacing.

VIII

[30] No harm! It was not my fault

If you never turned your eye’s tail up

As I shook upon E in alt,

Or ran the chromatic scale up:

IX

For spring bade the sparrows pair,

And the boys and girls gave guesses,

And stalls in our street looked rare

With bulrush and watercresses.

X

Why did not you pinch a flower

In a pellet of clay and fling it?

[40] Why did not I put a power

Of thanks in a look, or sing it?

XI

I did look, sharp as a lynx,

(And yet the memory rankles)

When models arrived, some minx

Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.

XII

But I think I gave you as good!

‘That foreign fellow, – who can know

How she pays, in a playful mood,

For his tuning her that piano?’

XIII

[50] Could you say so, and never say

‘Suppose we join hands and fortunes,

And I fetch her from over the way,

Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?’

XIV

No, no: you would not be rash,

Nor I rasher and something over:

You’ve to settle yet Gibson’s hash,

And Grisi yet lives in clover.

XV

But you meet the Prince at the Board,

I’m queen myself at bals-paré,

[60] I’ve married a rich old lord,

And you’re dubbed knight and an R.A.

XVI

Each life unfulfilled, you see;

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:

We have not sighed deep, laughed free,

Starved, feasted, despaired, – been happy.

XVII

And nobody calls you a dunce,

And people suppose me clever:

This could but have happened once,

And we missed it, lost it for ever.

A Likeness

Some people hang portraits up

In a room where they dine or sup:

And the wife clinks tea-things under,

And her cousin, he stirs his cup,

Asks, ‘Who was the lady, I wonder?’

‘’Tis a daub John bought at a sale,’

Quoth the wife, – looks black as thunder:

‘What a shade beneath her nose!

Snuff-taking, I suppose, –’

[10] Adds the cousin, while John’s corns ail.

Or else, there’s no wife in the case,

But the portrait’s queen of the place,

Alone ’mid the other spoils

Of youth, – masks, gloves and foils,

And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,

And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,

And the cast from a fist (‘not, alas! mine,

But my master’s, the Tipton Slasher’),

And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,

[20] And a satin shoe used for cigar-case,

And the chamois-horns (‘shot in the Chablais’)

And prints – Rarey drumming on Cruiser,

And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,

And the little edition of Rabelais:

Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets,

May saunter up close to examine it,

And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it,

‘But the eyes are half out of their sockets;

That hair’s not so bad, where the gloss is,

[30] But they’ve made the girl’s nose a proboscis:

Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy!

What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?’

All that I own is a print,

An etching, a mezzotint;

’Tis a study, a fancy, a fiction,

Yet a fact (take my conviction)

Because it has more than a hint

Of a certain face, I never

Saw elsewhere touch or trace of

[40] In women I’ve seen the face of:

Just an etching, and, so far, clever.

I keep my prints, an imbroglio,

Fifty in one portfolio.

When somebody tries my claret,

We turn round chairs to the fire,

Chirp over days in a garret,

Chuckle o’er increase of salary,

Taste the good fruits of our leisure,

Talk about pencil and lyre,

[50] And the National Portrait Gallery:

Then I exhibit my treasure.

After we’ve turned over twenty,

And the debt of wonder my crony owes

Is paid to my Marc Antonios,

He stops me – ‘Festina lentè!

What’s that sweet thing there, the etching?’

How my waistcoat-strings want stretching,

How my cheeks grow red as tomatoes,

How my heart leaps! But hearts, after leaps, ache.

[60] ‘By the by, you must take, for a keepsake,

That other, you praised, of Volpato’s.’

The fool! would he try a flight further and say –

He never saw, never before today,

What was able to take his breath away,

A face to lose youth for, to occupy age

With the dream of, meet death with, – why, I’ll not engage

But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage,

I should toss him the thing’s self – ‘’Tis only a duplicate,

A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!’

Mr Sludge, ‘The Medium’

Now, don’t, sir! Don’t expose me! Just this once!

This was the first and only time, I’ll swear, –

Look at me, – see, I kneel, – the only time,

I swear, I ever cheated, – yes, by the soul

Of Her who hears – (your sainted mother, sir!)

All, except this last accident, was truth –

This little kind of slip! – and even this,

It was your own wine, sir, the good champagne,

(I took it for Catawba, you’re so kind)

[10] Which put the folly in my head!

                        ‘Get up?’

You still inflict on me that terrible face?

You show no mercy? – Not for Her dear sake,

The sainted spirit’s, whose soft breath even now

Blows on my cheek – (don’t you feel something, sir?)

You’ll tell?

          Go tell, then! Who the devil cares

What such a rowdy chooses to …

                                Aie – aie – aie!

Please, sir! your thumbs are through my windpipe, sir!

Ch-ch!

       Well, sir, I hope you’ve done it now!

Oh Lord! I little thought, sir, yesterday,

[20] When your departed mother spoke those words

Of peace through me, and moved you, sir, so much,

You gave me – (very kind it was of you)

These shirt-studs – (better take them back again,

Please, sir) – yes, little did I think so soon

A trifle of trick, all through a glass too much

Of his own champagne, would change my best of friends

Into an angry gentleman!

                               Though, ’twas wrong.

I don’t contest the point; your anger’s just:

Whatever put such folly in my head,

[30] I know ’twas wicked of me. There’s a thick

Dusk undeveloped spirit (I’ve observed)

Owes me a grudge – a negro’s, I should say,

Or else an Irish emigrant’s; yourself

Explained the case so well last Sunday, sir,

When we had summoned Franklin to clear up

A point about those shares i’ the telegraph:

Ay, and he swore … or might it be Tom Paine? …

Thumping the table close by where I crouched,

He’d do me soon a mischief: that’s come true!

[40] Why, now your face clears! I was sure it would!

Then, this one time … don’t take your hand away,

Through yours I surely kiss your mother’s hand …

You’ll promise to forgive me? – or, at least,

Tell nobody of this? Consider, sir!

What harm can mercy do? Would but the shade

Of the venerable dead-one just vouchsafe

A rap or tip! What bit of paper’s here?

Suppose we take a pencil, let her write,

Make the least sign, she urges on her child

[50] Forgiveness? There now! Eh? Oh! ’Twas your foot,

And not a natural creak, sir?

                                     Answer, then!

Once, twice, thrice … see, I’m waiting to say ‘thrice!’

All to no use? No sort of hope for me?

It’s all to post to Greeley’s newspaper?

What? If I told you all about the tricks?

Upon my soul! – the whole truth, and naught else,

And how there’s been some falsehood – for your part,

Will you engage to pay my passage out,

And hold your tongue until I’m safe on board?

[60] England’s the place, not Boston – no offence!

I see what makes you hesitate: don’t fear!

I mean to change my trade and cheat no more,

Yes, this time really it’s upon my soul!

Be my salvation! – under Heaven, of course.

I’ll tell some queer things. Sixty Vs must do.

A trifle, though, to start with! We’ll refer

The question to this table?

                                      How you’re changed!

Then split the difference; thirty more, we’ll say.

Ay, but you leave my presents! Else I’ll swear

[70] ’Twas all through those: you wanted yours again,

So, picked a quarrel with me, to get them back!

Tread on a worm, it turns, sir! If I turn,

Your fault! ’Tis you’ll have forced me! Who’s obliged

To give up life yet try no self-defence?

At all events, I’ll run the risk. Eh?

                                           Done!

May I sit, sir? This dear old table, now!

Please, sir, a parting egg-nog and cigar!

I’ve been so happy with you! Nice stuffed chairs,

And sympathetic sideboards; what an end

[80] To all the instructive evenings! (It’s alight.)

Well, nothing lasts, as Bacon came and said.

Here goes, – but keep your temper, or I’ll scream!

Fol-lol-the-rido-liddle-iddle-ol!

You see, sir, it’s your own fault more than mine;

It’s all your fault, you curious gentlefolk!

You’re prigs, – excuse me, – like to look so spry,

So clever, while you cling by half a claw

To the perch whereon you puff yourselves at roost,

Such piece of self-conceit as serves for perch

[90] Because you chose it, so it must be safe.

Oh, otherwise you’re sharp enough! You spy

Who slips, who slides, who holds by help of wing,

Wanting real foothold, – who can’t keep upright

On the other perch, your neighbour chose, not you:

There’s no outwitting you respecting him!

For instance, men love money – that, you know

And what men do to gain it: well, suppose

A poor lad, say a help’s son in your house,

Listening at keyholes, hears the company

[100] Talk grand of dollars, V-notes, and so forth,

How hard they are to get, how good to hold,

How much they buy, – if, suddenly, in pops he –

‘I’ve got a V-note!’ – what do you say to him?

What’s your first word which follows your last kick?

‘Where did you steal it, rascal?’ That’s because

He finds you, fain would fool you, off your perch,

Not on the special piece of nonsense, sir,

Elected your parade-ground: let him try

Lies to the end of the list, – ‘He picked it up,

[110] His cousin died and left it him by will,

The President flung it to him, riding by,

An actress trucked it for a curl of his hair,

He dreamed of luck and found his shoe enriched,

He dug up clay, and out of clay made gold’ –

How would you treat such possibilities?

Would not you, prompt, investigate the case

With cow-hide? ‘Lies, lies, lies,’you’d shout: and why?

Which of the stories might not prove mere truth?

This last, perhaps, that clay was turned to coin!

[120] Let’s see, now, give him me to speak for him!

How many of your rare philosophers,

In plaguy books I’ve had to dip into,

Believed gold could be made thus, saw it made

And made it? Oh, with such philosophers

You’re on your best behaviour! While the lad –

With him, in a trice, you settle likelihoods,

Nor doubt a moment how he got his prize:

In his case, you hear, judge and execute,

All in a breath: so would most men of sense.

[130] But let the same lad hear you talk as grand

At the same keyhole, you and company,

Of signs and wonders, the invisible world;

How wisdom scouts our vulgar unbelief

More than our vulgarest credulity;

How good men have desired to see a ghost,

What Johnson used to say, what Wesley did,

Mother Goose thought, and fiddle-diddle-dee: –

If he break in with, ‘Sir, I saw a ghost!’

Ah, the ways change! He finds you perched and prim;

[140] It’s a conceit of yours that ghosts may be:

There’s no talk now of cow-hide. ‘Tell it out!

Don’t fear us! Take your time and recollect!

Sit down first: try a glass of wine, my boy!

And, David, (is not that your Christian name?)

Of all things, should this happen twice – it may –

Be sure, while fresh in mind, you let us know!’

Does the boy blunder, blurt out this, blab that,

Break down in the other, as beginners will?

All’s candour, all’s considerateness – ‘No haste!

[150] Pause and collect yourself! We understand!

That’s the bad memory, or the natural shock,

Or the unexplained phenomena!’

                                       Egad,

The boy takes heart of grace; finds, never fear,

The readiest way to ope your own heart wide,

Show – what I call your peacock-perch, pet post

To strut, and spread the tail, and squawk upon!

‘Just as you thought, much as you might expect!

There be more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,’ …

And so on. Shall not David take the hint,

[160] Grow bolder, stroke you down at quickened rate?

If he ruffle a feather, it’s ‘Gently, patiently!

Manifestations are so weak at first!

Doubting, moreover, kills them, cuts all short,

Cures with a vengeance!’

                      There, sir, that’s your style!

You and your boy – such pains bestowed on him,

Or any headpiece of the average worth,

To teach, say, Greek, would perfect him apace,

Make him a Person (‘Person?’ thank you, sir!)

Much more, proficient in the art of lies.

[170] You never leave the lesson! Fire alight,

Catch you permitting it to die! You’ve friends;

There’s no withholding knowledge, – least from those

Apt to look elsewhere for their souls’ supply:

Why should not you parade your lawful prize?

Who finds a picture, digs a medal up,

Hits on a first edition, – he henceforth

Gives it his name, grows notable: how much more,

Who ferrets out a ‘medium’? ‘David’s yours,

You highly-favoured man? Then, pity souls

[180] Less privileged! Allow us share your luck!’

So, David holds the circle, rules the roast,

Narrates the vision, peeps in the glass ball,

Sets-to the spirit-writing, hears the raps,

As the case may be.

                      Now mark! To be precise –

Though I say, ‘lies’ all these, at this first stage,

’Tis just for science’ sake: I call such grubs

By the name of what they’ll turn to, dragonflies.

Strictly, it’s what good people style untruth;

But yet, so far, not quite the full-grown thing:

[190] It’s fancying, fable-making, nonsense-work –

What never meant to be so very bad –

The knack of story-telling, brightening up

Each dull old bit of fact that drops its shine.

One does see somewhat when one shuts one’s eyes,

If only spots and streaks; tables do tip

In the oddest way of themselves: and pens, good Lord,

Who knows if you drive them or they drive you?

’Tis but a foot in the water and out again;

Not that duck-under which decides your dive.

[200] Note this, for it’s important: listen why.

I’ll prove, you push on David till he dives

And ends the shivering. Here’s your circle, now:

Two-thirds of them, with heads like you their host,

Turn up their eyes, and cry, as you expect,

‘Lord, who’d have thought it!’ But there’s always one

Looks wise, compassionately smiles, submits

‘Of your veracity no kind of doubt,

But – do you feel so certain of that boy’s?

Really, I wonder! I confess myself

[210] More chary of my faith!’ That’s galling, sir!

What, he the investigator, he the sage,

When all’s done? Then, you just have shut your eyes,

Opened your mouth, and gulped down David whole,

You! Terrible were such catastrophe!

So, evidence is redoubled, doubled again,

And doubled besides; once more, ‘He heard, we heard,

You and they heard, your mother and your wife,

Your children and the stranger in your gates:

Did they or did they not?’ So much for him,

[220] The black sheep, guest without the wedding-garb,

The doubting Thomas! Now’s your turn to crow:

‘He’s kind to think you such a fool: Sludge cheats?

Leave you alone to take precautions!’

                                      Straight

The rest join chorus. Thomas stands abashed,

Sips silent some such beverage as this,

Considers if it be harder, shutting eyes

And gulping David in good fellowship,

Than going elsewhere, getting, in exchange,

With no egg-nog to lubricate the food,

[230] Some just as tough a morsel. Over the way,

Holds Captain Sparks his court: is it better there?

Have not you hunting-stories, scalping-scenes,

And Mexican War exploits to swallow plump

If you’d be free o’ the stove-side, rocking-chair,

And trio of affable daughters?

                         Doubt succumbs!

Victory! All your circle’s yours again!

Out of the clubbing of submissive wits,

David’s performance rounds, each chink gets patched,

Every protrusion of a point’s filed fine,

[240] All’s fit to set a-rolling round the world,

And then return to David finally,

Lies seven-feet thick about his first half-inch.

Here’s a choice birth o’ the supernatural,

Poor David’s pledged to! You’ve employed no tool

That laws exclaim at, save the devil’s own,

Yet screwed him into henceforth gulling you

To the top o’ your bent, – all out of one half-lie!

You hold, if there’s one half or a hundredth part

Of a lie, that’s his fault, – his be the penalty!

[250] I dare say! You’d prove firmer in his place?

You’d find the courage, – that first flurry over,

That mild bit of romancing-work at end, –

To interpose with ‘It gets serious, this;

Must stop here. Sir, I saw no ghost at all.

Inform your friends I made … well, fools of them,

And found you ready-made.