1.No, for I’ll save it! Seven years since,I passed through Paris, stopped a dayTo see the baptism of your Prince;Saw, made my bow, and went my way:Walking the heat and headache off,I took the Seine-side, you surmise,Thought of the Congress, Gortschakoff,Cavour’s appeal and Buol’s replies,So sauntered till—what met my eyes?
— St. 1. To see the baptism of your Prince: the Prince Imperial, son of Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie, born March 16, 1856. the Congress: the Congress of Paris.
Gortschakoff: Prince Alexander Michaelowitsch Gortschakoff; while representing Russia at the Court of Vienna, he kept Austria neutral during the Crimean War.
Cavour: Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, Italian statesman, b. 1810; at the Congress of Paris, brought forward the question of the political consolidation of Italy, which led to the invasion of Italy by the Austrians, who were defeated; d. 6th June, 1861.
Buol: Karl Ferdinand von Buol-Schauenstein, Austrian diplomatist, and minister of foreign affairs from 1852 to 1859.
2.Only the Doric little Morgue!The dead-house where you show your drowned:Petrarch’s Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned.One pays one’s debt in such a case;I plucked up heart and entered,—stalked,Keeping a tolerable faceCompared with some whose cheeks were chalked:Let them! No Briton’s to be balked!
— St. 2. Petrarch’s Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue: Fontaine de Vaucluse, a celebrated fountain, in the department of Vaucluse, in Southern France, the source of the Sorgues. The village named after it was for some time the residence of Petrarch.
3.First came the silent gazers; next,A screen of glass, we’re thankful for;Last, the sight’s self, the sermon’s text,The three men who did most abhorTheir life in Paris yesterday,So killed themselves: and now, enthronedEach on his copper couch, they layFronting me, waiting to be owned.I thought, and think, their sin’s atoned.
4.Poor men, God made, and all for that!The reverence struck me; o’er each headReligiously was hung its hat,Each coat dripped by the owner’s bed,Sacred from touch: each had his berth,His bounds, his proper place of rest,Who last night tenanted on earthSome arch, where twelve such slept abreast,—Unless the plain asphalte seemed best.
5.How did it happen, my poor boy?You wanted to be BuonaparteAnd have the Tuileries for toy,And could not, so it broke your heart?You, old one by his side, I judge,Were, red as blood, a socialist,A leveller! Does the Empire grudgeYou’ve gained what no Republic missed?Be quiet, and unclinch your fist!
6.And this—why, he was red in vain,Or black,—poor fellow that is blue!What fancy was it, turned your brain?Oh, women were the prize for you!Money gets women, cards and diceGet money, and ill-luck gets justThe copper couch and one clear niceCool squirt of water o’er your bust,The right thing to extinguish lust!
7.It’s wiser being good than bad;It’s safer being meek than fierce:It’s fitter being sane than mad.My own hope is, a sun will pierceThe thickest cloud earth ever stretched;That, after Last, returns the First,Though a wide compass round be fetched;That what began best, can’t end worst,Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.
1.Grow old along with me!The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made:Our times are in His handWho saith, “A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”
— St. 1. Grow old along with me!: I understand that the aged Rabbi is addressing some young friend. The best is yet to be, the last of life:
“By the spirit, when age shall o’ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoyMore indeed, than at first when, unconscious, the life of a boy.”—‘Saul’, 162, 163.
2.Not that, amassing flowers,Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,Which lily leave and then as best recall?”Not that, admiring stars,It yearned, “Nor Jove, nor Mars;Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”
3.Not for such hopes and fearsAnnulling youth’s brief years,Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!Rather I prize the doubtLow kinds exist without,Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
— St. 2, 3. The construction is, I do not remonstrate that youth, amassing flowers, sighed, Which rose make ours, which lily leave, etc., nor that, admiring stars, it (youth) yearned, etc.
4.Poor vaunt of life indeed,Were man but formed to feedOn joy, to solely seek and find and feast;Such feasting ended, thenAs sure an end to men;Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?
— St. 4. Irks care: does care irk. . .does doubt fret. . .
5.Rejoice we are alliedTo That which doth provideAnd not partake, effect and not receive!A spark disturbs our clod;Nearer we hold of GodWho gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.
— St. 5. Nearer we hold of God: have title to a nearer relationship. See Webster, s.v. Hold, v.i. def. 3. {No edition is given.}
6.Then, welcome each rebuffThat turns earth’s smoothness rough,Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!Be our joys three-parts pain!Strive, and hold cheap the strain;Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
7.For thence,—a paradoxWhich comforts while it mocks,—Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:What I aspired to be,And was not, comforts me:A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.
— St. 7. What I aspired to be: “‘tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do.”—‘Saul’, v. 296.
8.What is he but a bruteWhose flesh hath soul to suit,Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?To man, propose this test—Thy body at its best,How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?
— St. 8. Thy body at its best, How far, etc.: “In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.”—‘Saul’, v. 151.
9.Yet gifts should prove their use:I own the Past profuseOf power each side, perfection every turn:Eyes, ears took in their dole,Brain treasured up the whole;Should not the heart beat once “How good to live and learn”?
— St. 9. the Past: he means the past of his own life.
10.Not once beat “Praise be Thine!I see the whole design,I, who saw Power, see now Love perfect too:Perfect I call Thy plan:Thanks that I was a man!Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!”
— St. 10. The original reading of the 3d verse was, “I, who saw Power, SHALL see Love perfect too.” The change has cleared up a difficulty. The All-Great is now to me, in my age, the All-Loving too. Maker, remake, complete: there seems to be an anticipation here of the metaphor of the Potter’s wheel, in stanzas 25-32, and see Jer. 18:4.
11.For pleasant is this flesh;Our soul, in its rose-meshPulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:Would we some prize might holdTo match those manifoldPossessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!
12.Let us not always say“Spite of this flesh to-dayI strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!”As the bird wings and sings,Let us cry “All good thingsAre ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!”
13.Therefore I summon ageTo grant youth’s heritage,Life’s struggle having so far reached its term:Thence shall I pass, approvedA man, for aye removedFrom the developed brute; a God though in the germ.
— St. 13. Thence shall I pass, etc.: It will be observed that here and in some of the following stanzas, the Rabbi speaks in the person of youth; so youth should say to itself.
14.And I shall thereuponTake rest, ere I be goneOnce more on my adventure brave and new:Fearless and unperplexed,When I wage battle next,What weapons to select, what armor to indue.
15.Youth ended, I shall tryMy gain or loss thereby;Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:And I shall weigh the same,Give life its praise or blame:Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.
16.For, note when evening shuts,A certain moment cutsThe deed off, calls the glory from the gray:A whisper from the westShoots—“Add this to the rest,Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.”
17.So, still within this life,Though lifted o’er its strife,Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,“This rage was right i’ the main,That acquiescence vain:The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.”
18.For more is not reservedTo man, with soul just nervedTo act to-morrow what he learns to-day:Here, work enough to watchThe Master work, and catchHints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s true play.
19.As it was better, youthShould strive, through acts uncouth,Toward making, than repose on aught found made:So, better, age, exemptFrom strife, should know, than temptFurther. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid!
20.Enough now, if the RightAnd Good and InfiniteBe named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,With knowledge absolute,Subject to no disputeFrom fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.
— St. 20. knowledge absolute: soul knowledge, which is reached through direct assimilation by the soul of the hidden principles of things, as distinguished from intellectual knowledge, which is based on the phenominal, and must be more or less subject to dispute.
21.Be there, for once and all,Severed great minds from small,Announced to each his station in the Past!Was I, the world arraigned,Were they, my soul disdained,Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
— St. 21, vv. 4, 5. The relatives are suppressed;—Was I whom the world arraigned, or were they whom my soul disdained, right?
22.Now, who shall arbitrate?Ten men love what I hate,Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;Ten, who in ears and eyesMatch me: we all surmise,They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?
23.Not on the vulgar massCalled “work”, must sentence pass,Things done, that took the eye and had the price;O’er which, from level stand,The low world laid its hand,Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:
24.But all, the world’s coarse thumbAnd finger failed to plumb,So passed in making up the main account:All instincts immature,All purposes unsure,That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount:
25.Thoughts hardly to be packedInto a narrow act,Fancies that broke through language and escaped:All I could never be,All, men ignored in me,This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
26.Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,That metaphor! and feelWhy time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—Thou, to whom fools propound,When the wine makes its round,“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”
— St. 26. Potter’s wheel: “But now, O Lord, thou art our Father: we are the clay, and thou our Potter; and we are all the work of thy hand.”—Is. 64:8; and see Jer. 18:2-6.
27.Fool! All that is, at all,Lasts ever, past recall;Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:What entered into thee,THAT was, is, and shall be:Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
28.He fixed thee mid this danceOf plastic circumstance,This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:Machinery just meantTo give thy soul its bent,Try thee, and turn thee forth sufficiently impressed.
29.What though the earlier groovesWhich ran the laughing lovesAround thy base, no longer pause and press?What though, about thy rim,Skull-things in order grimGrow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?
30.Look not thou down but up!To uses of a cup,The festal board, lamp’s flash, and trumpet’s peal,The new wine’s foaming flow,The Master’s lips aglow!Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what needst thou with earth’s wheel?
31.But I need, now as then,Thee, God, who mouldest men!And since, not even while the whirl was worst,Did I,—to the wheel of lifeWith shapes and colors rife,Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:
32.So, take and use Thy work,Amend what flaws may lurk,What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim!My times be in Thy hand!Perfect the cup as planned!Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!
Let us begin and carry up this corpse,Singing together.Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes,Each in its tetherSleeping safe in the bosom of the plain,Cared-for till cock-crow:Look out if yonder be not day againRimming the rock-row!That’s the appropriate country; there, man’s thought,Rarer, intenser, {10}Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,Chafes in the censer.Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;Seek we sepultureOn a tall mountain, citied to the top,Crowded with culture!All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;Clouds overcome it;No, yonder sparkle is the citadel’sCircling its summit. {20}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 croftSafe from the weather! {30}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 noteWinter would follow?Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!Cramped and diminished,Moaned he, “New measures, other feet anon!“My dance is finished?” {40}No, that’s the world’s way; (keep the mountain-side,Make for the city!)He knew the signal, and stepped on with prideOver men’s pity;Left play for work, and grappled with the worldBent on escaping:“What’s in the scroll,” quoth he, “thou keepest furled?Show me their shaping,Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,—Give!”—So, he gowned him, {50}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!Grant I have mastered learning’s crabbed text,Still there’s the comment. {60}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.Image the whole, then execute the parts—Fancy the fabric {70}Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,Ere mortar dab brick!(Here’s the town-gate reached; there’s the market-placeGaping 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 contriveUse for our earning. {80}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.“Now, master, take a little rest!”—not he!(Caution redoubled! {90}Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)Not a whit troubled,Back to his studies, fresher than at first,Fierce as a dragonHe (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)Sucked at the flagon.Oh, if we draw a circle premature,Heedless of far gain,Greedy for quick returns of profit, sureBad is our bargain! {100}Was it not great? did not he throw on God(He loves the burthen)—God’s task to make the heavenly periodPerfect the earthen?Did not he magnify the mind, show clearJust what it all meant?He would not discount life, as fools do here,Paid by instalment.He ventured neck or nothing—heaven’s successFound, or earth’s failure: {110}“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:This high man, aiming at a million,Misses an unit. {120}That, has the world here—should he need the next,Let the world mind him!This, throws himself on God, and unperplexedSeeking 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 stammerHe settled HOTI’s business—let it be!—Properly based OUN— {130}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 belowLive, for they can, there:This man decided not to Live but Know—Bury this man there? {140}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.
— 18. overcome: pass over, overhang, overshadow; used as in Macbeth III. IV. 3, “overcome us like a summer’s cloud”.
39, 40. New measures, . . .finished?: do you say? not at all.
42. All in parentheses, throughout the poem, is addressed by the speaker directly to his companions.
57. Actual life comes next: do you say? No. I have more to do first.
86. Calculus: the stone.
88. Tussis: a cough.
95. hydroptic: hydropic, dropsical.
129. Hoti: the Greek particle ‘/Oti, conj. that, etc.
130. Oun: Greek particle Ou^'n, then, now then, etc.
131. the enclitic De: Greek De {Delta epsilon}; in regard to this, the following letter by Browning appeared in the London ‘Daily News’ of Nov. 21, 1874: “To the Editor of ‘The Daily News’. Sir,— In a clever article this morning you speak of ‘the doctrine of the enclitic De’—‘which, with all deference to Mr. Browning, in point of fact does not exist.’ No, not to Mr. Browning: but pray defer to Herr Buttmann, whose fifth list of ‘enclitics’ ends ‘with the inseparable De’—or to Curtius, whose fifth list ends also with ‘De (meaning ‘towards’ and as a demonstrative appendage)’. That this is not to be confounded with the accentuated ‘De, meaning BUT’, was the ‘doctrine’ which the Grammarian bequeathed to those capable of receiving it.— I am, sir, yours obediently, R. B.”—‘Browning Soc. Papers’, Part I., p. 56.
Karshish, the picker-up of learning’s crumbs,The not-incurious in God’s handiwork(This man’s-flesh he hath admirably made,Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,To coop up and keep down on earth a spaceThat puff of vapor from his mouth, man’s soul)—To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracksBefall the flesh through too much stress and strain, {10}Whereby the wily vapor fain would slipBack and rejoin its source before the term,—And aptest in contrivance (under God)To baffle it by deftly stopping such:—The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at homeSends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)Three samples of true snake-stone—rarer still,One of the other sort, the melon-shaped(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs),And writeth now the twenty-second time. {20}My journeyings were brought to Jericho:Thus I resume. Who, studious in our art,Shall count a little labor unrepaid?I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and boneOn many a flinty furlong of this land.Also, the country-side is all on fireWith rumors of a marching hitherward:Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear;Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: {30}I cried and threw my staff, and he was gone.Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,And once a town declared me for a spy;But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,Since this poor covert where I pass the night,This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thenceA man with plague-sores at the third degreeRuns till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!‘Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip, {40}And share with thee whatever Jewry yields.A viscid choler is observableIn tertians, I was nearly bold to say;And falling-sickness hath a happier cureThan our school wots of: there’s a spider hereWeaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back;Take five and drop them. . .but who knows his mind,The Syrian runagate I trust this to?His service payeth me a sublimate {50}Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn,There set in order my experiences,Gather what most deserves, and give thee all—Or I might add, Judaea’s gum-tragacanthScales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,Cracks ‘twixt the pestle and the porphyry,In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-diseaseConfounds me, crossing so with leprosy:Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar— {60}But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully,Protesteth his devotion is my price—Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal?I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,What set me off a-writing first of all.An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!For, be it this town’s barrenness,—or elseThe Man had something in the look of him,—His case has struck me far more than ‘tis worth. {70}So, pardon if—(lest presently I lose,In the great press of novelty at hand,The care and pains this somehow stole from me)I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind,Almost in sight—for, wilt thou have the truth?The very man is gone from me but now,Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!‘Tis but a case of mania: subinducedBy epilepsy, at the turning-point {80}Of trance prolonged unduly some three days;When, by the exhibition of some drugOr spell, exorcization, stroke of artUnknown to me and which ‘twere well to know,The evil thing, out-breaking, all at once,Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,—But, flinging (so to speak) life’s gates too wide,Making a clear house of it too suddenly,The first conceit that entered might inscribeWhatever it was minded on the wall {90}So plainly at that vantage, as it were(First come, first served), that nothing subsequentAttaineth to erase those fancy-scrawlsThe just-returned and new-established soulHath gotten now so thoroughly by heartThat henceforth she will read or these or none.And first—the man’s own firm conviction restsThat he was dead (in fact they buried him)—That he was dead and then restored to lifeBy a Nazarene physician of his tribe: {100}—‘Sayeth, the same bade “Rise”, and he did rise.“Such cases are diurnal”, thou wilt cry.Not so this figment!—not, that such a fume,Instead of giving way to time and health,Should eat itself into the life of life,As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all!For see, how he takes up the after-life.The man—it is one Lazarus a Jew,Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,The body’s habit wholly laudable, {110}As much, indeed, beyond the common healthAs he were made and put aside to show.Think, could we penetrate by any drugAnd bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,And bring it clear and fair, by three days’ sleep!Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?This grown man eyes the world now like a child.Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, {120}Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,—He listened not except I spoke to him,But folded his two hands and let them talk,Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.And that’s a sample how his years must go.Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life,Should find a treasure,—can he use the sameWith straitened habits and with tastes starved small,And take at once to his impoverished brainThe sudden element that changes things, {130}That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand,And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?Is he not such an one as moves to mirth—Warily parsimonious, when no need,Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times?All prudent counsel as to what befitsThe golden mean, is lost on such an one:The man’s fantastic will is the man’s law.So here—we call the treasure knowledge, say,Increased beyond the fleshly faculty— {140}Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,Earth forced on a soul’s use while seeing heaven:The man is witless of the size, the sum,The value in proportion of all things,Or whether it be little or be much.Discourse to him of prodigious armamentsAssembled to besiege his city now,And of the passing of a mule with gourds—‘Tis one! Then take it on the other side,Speak of some trifling fact,—he will gaze rapt {150}With stupor at its very littleness(Far as I see), as if in that indeedHe caught prodigious import, whole results;And so will turn to us the by-standersIn ever the same stupor (note this point),That we, too, see not with his opened eyes.Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play,Preposterously, at cross purposes.Should his child sicken unto death,—why, lookFor scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, {160}Or pretermission of the daily craft!While a word, gesture, glance from that same childAt play or in the school or laid asleep,Will startle him to an agony of fear,Exasperation, just as like. DemandThe reason why—“‘tis but a word,” object—“A gesture”—he regards thee as our lordWho lived there in the pyramid alone,Looked at us (does thou mind?) when, being young,We both would unadvisedly recite {170}Some charm’s beginning, from that book of his,Able to bid the sun throb wide and burstAll into stars, as suns grown old are wont.Thou and the child have each a veil alikeThrown o’er your heads, from under which ye bothStretch your blind hands and trifle with a matchOver a mine of Greek fire, did ye know!He holds on firmly to some thread of life—(It is the life to lead perforcedly)Which runs across some vast, distracting orb {180}Of glory on either side that meagre thread,Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet—The spiritual life around the earthly life:The law of that is known to him as this,His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.So is the man perplext with impulsesSudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,Proclaiming what is right and wrong across,And not along, this black thread through the blaze—“It should be” balked by “here it cannot be”. {190}And oft the man’s soul springs into his faceAs if he saw again and heard againHis sage that bade him “Rise”, and he did rise.Something, a word, a tick o’ the blood withinAdmonishes: then back he sinks at onceTo ashes, who was very fire before,In sedulous recurrence to his tradeWhereby he earneth him the daily bread;And studiously the humbler for that pride,Professedly the faultier that he knows {200}God’s secret, while he holds the thread of life.Indeed the especial marking of the manIs prone submission to the heavenly will—Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.‘Sayeth, he will wait patient to the lastFor that same death which must restore his beingTo equilibrium, body loosening soulDivorced even now by premature full growth:He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to liveSo long as God please, and just how God please. {210}He even seeketh not to please God more(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.Hence, I perceive not he affects to preachThe doctrine of his sect whate’er it be,Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do:How can he give his neighbor the real ground,His own conviction? Ardent as he is—Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old“Be it as God please” re-assureth him.I probed the sore as thy disciple should: {220}“How, beast,” said I, “this stolid carelessnessSufficeth thee, when Rome is on her marchTo stamp out like a little spark thy town,Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?”He merely looked with his large eyes on me.The man is apathetic, you deduce?Contrariwise, he loves both old and young,Able and weak, affects the very brutesAnd birds—how say I? flowers of the field—As a wise workman recognizes tools {230}In a master’s workshop, loving what they make.Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb:Only impatient, let him do his best,At ignorance and carelessness and sin—An indignation which is promptly curbed:As when in certain travel I have feignedTo be an ignoramus in our artAccording to some preconceived design,And happed to hear the land’s practitionersSteeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, {240}Prattle fantastically on disease,Its cause and cure—and I must hold my peace!Thou wilt object—Why have I not ere thisSought out the sage himself, the NazareneWho wrought this cure, inquiring at the source,Conferring with the frankness that befits?Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leechPerished in a tumult many years ago,Accused,—our learning’s fate,—of wizardry,Rebellion, to the setting up a rule {250}And creed prodigious as described to me.His death, which happened when the earthquake fell(Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the lossTo occult learning in our lord the sageWho lived there in the pyramid alone),Was wrought by the mad people—that’s their wont!On vain recourse, as I conjecture it,To his tried virtue, for miraculous help—How could he stop the earthquake? That’s their way!The other imputations must be lies: {260}But take one, though I loath to give it thee,In mere respect for any good man’s fame.(And after all, our patient LazarusIs stark mad; should we count on what he says?Perhaps not: though in writing to a leech‘Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.)This man so cured regards the curer, then,As—God forgive me! who but God himself,Creator and sustainer of the world,That came and dwelt in flesh on it a while! {270}—‘Sayeth that such an one was born and lived,Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house,Then died, with Lazarus by, for aught I know,And yet was. . .what I said nor choose repeat,And must have so avouched himself, in fact,In hearing of this very LazarusWho saith—but why all this of what he saith?Why write of trivial matters, things of priceCalling at every moment for remark?I noticed on the margin of a pool {280}Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort,Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!Thy pardon for this long and tedious case,Which, now that I review it, needs must seemUnduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth!Nor I myself discern in what is writGood cause for the peculiar interestAnd awe indeed this man has touched me with.Perhaps the journey’s end, the wearinessHad wrought upon me first. I met him thus: {290}I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hillsLike an old lion’s cheek teeth. Out there cameA moon made like a face with certain spotsMultiform, manifold, and menacing:Then a wind rose behind me. So we metIn this old sleepy town at unaware,The man and I. I send thee what is writ.Regard it as a chance, a matter riskedTo this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose,Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. {300}Jerusalem’s repose shall make amendsFor time this letter wastes, thy time and mine;Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too—So, through the thunder comes a human voiceSaying, “O heart I made, a heart beats here!Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!Thou hast no power nor may’st conceive of mine:But love I gave thee, with myself to love, {310}And thou must love me who have died for thee!”The madman saith He said so: it is strange.
— 1. Karshish. . .To Abib. {that is, phrase finishes on line 7.}
17. snake-stone: a certain kind of stone supposed to be efficacious when placed upon the bite of a snake, in absorbing or charming away the poison.
21. My journeyings were brought to Jericho: i.e., in his last letter.
28. Vespasian: T. Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, Roman emperor, A.D. 70-79; sent by Nero in 66 to conduct the war against the Jews; when proclaimed emperor, left his son Titus to continue the war.
24-33. his ardent scientific interest has caused him to brave all dangers.
49. The Syrian runagate: perhaps I’m writing for nothing in trusting my letter to him.
60. Thou hadst: wouldst have. Zoar: one of the “cities of the plain”, S. E. of the Dead Sea (Gen. 19:22).
65-78. Though he’s deeply impressed with the subject, he approaches it with extreme diffidence, writing to the “all-sagacious” Abib.
82. exhibition: used in its medical sense of administering a remedy.
103. fume: vaporish fancy.
106. As saffron tingeth: Chaucer uses “saffron” metaphorically as a verb:—