Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea,And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")—To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!They give thy letter to me, even now:I read and seem as if I heard thee speak.The master of thy galley still unladesGift after gift; they block my court at lastAnd pile themselves along its porticoRoyal with sunset, like a thought of thee: 10And one white she-slave from the group dispersedOf black and white slaves (like the chequer-workPavement, at once my nation's work and gift,Now covered with this settle-down of doves),One lyric woman, in her crocus vestWoven of sea-wools, with her two white handsCommends to me the strainer and the cupThy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine.Well-counselled, king, in thy munificence!For so shall men remark, in such an act 20Of love for him whose song gives life its joy,Thy recognition of the use of life;Nor call thy spirit barely adequateTo help on life in straight ways, broad enoughFor vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest.Thou, in the daily building of thy tower—Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil,Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth,Or when the general work 'mid good acclaimClimbed with the eye to cheer the architect— 30Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's sake—Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hopeOf some eventual rest a-top of it,Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed,Thou first of men mightst look out to the East:The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun.For this, I promise on thy festivalTo pour libation, looking o'er the sea,Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speakThy great words, and describe thy royal face— 40Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most,Within the eventual element of calm.Thy letter's first requirement meets me here.It is as thou hast heard: in one short lifeI, Cleon, have effected all those thingsThou wonderingly dost enumerate.That epos on thy hundred plates of goldIs mine—and also mine the little chant,So sure to rise from every fishing-barkWhen, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net. 50The image of the sun-god on the phare,Men turn from the sun's self to see, is mine;The Poecile, o'er-storied its whole length,As thou didst hear, with painting, is mine too.I know the true proportions of a manAnd woman also, not observed before;And I have written three books on the soul,Proving absurd all written hitherto,And putting us to ignorance again.For music—why, I have combined the moods, 60Inventing one. In brief, all arts are mine;Thus much the people know and recognize,Throughout our seventeen islands. Marvel not.We of these latter days, with greater mindThan our forerunners, since more composite,Look not so great, beside their simple way,To a judge who only sees one way at once,One mind-point and no other at a time—Compares the small part of a man of usWith some whole man of the heroic age, 70Great in his way—not ours, nor meant for ours.And ours is greater, had we skill to know:For, what we call this life of men on earth,This sequence of the soul's achievements hereBeing, as I find much reason to conceive,Intended to be viewed eventually.As a great whole, not analyzed to parts,But each part having reference to all—How shall a certain part, pronounced complete,Endure effacement by another part? 80Was the thing done?—then, what's to do again?See, in the chequered pavement opposite,Suppose the artist made a perfect rhomb,And next a lozenge, then a trapezoid—He did not overlay them, superimposeThe new upon the old and blot it out,But laid them on a level in his work,Making at last a picture; there it lies.So, first the perfect separate forms were made,The portions of mankind; and after, so, 90Occurred the combination of the same.For where had been a progress, otherwise?Mankind, made up of all the single men—In such a synthesis the labor ends.Now mark me! those divine men of old timeHave reached, thou sayest well, each at one pointThe outside verge that rounds our faculty;And where they reached, who can do more than reach?It takes but little water just to touchAt some one point the inside of a sphere, 100And, as we turn the sphere, touch all the restIn due succession: but the finer airWhich not so palpably nor obviously,Though no less universally, can touchThe whole circumference of that emptied sphere,Fills it more fully than the water did;Holds thrice the weight of water in itselfResolved into a subtler element.And yet the vulgar call the sphere first fullUp to the visible height—and after, void; 110Not knowing air's more hidden properties.And thus our soul, misknown, cries out to ZeusTo vindicate his purpose in our life:Why stay we on the earth unless to grow?Long since, I imaged, wrote the fiction out,That he or other god descended hereAnd, once for all, showed simultaneouslyWhat, in its nature, never can be shown,Piecemeal or in succession;—showed, I say,The worth both absolute and relative 120Of all his children from the birth of time,His instruments for all appointed work.I now go on to image—might we hearThe judgment which should give the due to each,Show where the labor lay and where the ease,And prove Zeus' self, the latent everywhere!This is a dream;—but no dream, let us hope,That years and days, the summers and the springs,Follow each other with unwaning powers.The grapes which dye thy wine are richer far, 130Through culture, than the wild wealth of the rock;The wave plum than the savage-tasted drupe;The pastured honey-bee drops choicer sweet;The flowers turn double, and the leaves turn flowers;That young and tender crescent-moon, thy slave,Sleeping above her robe as buoyed by clouds,Refines upon the women of my youth.What, and the soul alone deteriorates?I have not chanted verse like Homer, no—Nor swept string like Terpander, no—nor carved 140And painted men like Phidias and his friend;I am not great as they are, point by point.But I have entered into sympathyWith these four, running these into one soul,Who, separate, ignored each other's art.Say, is it nothing that I know them all?The wild flower was the larger; I have dashedRose-blood upon its petals, pricked its cup'sHoney with wine, and driven its seed to fruit,And show a better flower if not so large: 150I stand myself. Refer this to the godsWhose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare(All pride apart) upon the absurd pretextThat such a gift by chance lay in my hand,Discourse of lightly or depreciate?It might have fallen to another's hand: what then?I pass too surely: let at least truth stay!And next, of what thou followest on to ask.This being with me as I declare, 0 king,My works, in all these varicolored kinds, 160So done by me, accepted so by men—Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men's hearts)I must not be accounted to attainThe very crown and proper end of life?Inquiring thence how, now life closeth up,I face death with success in my right hand:Whether I fear death less than dost thyselfThe fortunate of men? "For" (writest thou)"Thou leavest much behind, while I leave naught.Thy life stays in the poems men shall sing, 170The pictures men shall study; while my life,Complete and whole now in its power and joy,Dies altogether with my brain and arm,Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave,See on the promontory which I named.And that—some supple courtier of my heirShall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps,To fix the rope to, which best drags it down.I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!" 180Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind.Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to museUpon the scheme of earth and man in chief,That admiration grows as knowledge grows?That imperfection means perfection hid,Reserved in part, to grace the after-time?If, in the morning of philosophy,Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived,Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have lookedOn all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird, 190Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage—Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, and deducedThe perfectness of others yet unseen.Conceding which—had Zeus then questioned thee"Shall I go on a step, improve on this,Do more for visible creatures than is done?"Thou wouldst have answered, "Ay, by making eachGrow conscious in himself—by that alone.All's perfect else: the shell sucks fast the rock,The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims 200And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight,Till life's mechanics can no further go—And all this joy in natural life is putLike fire from off thy finger into each,So exquisitely perfect is the same.But 't is pure fire, and they mere matter are;It has them, not they it: and so I chooseFor man, thy last premeditated work(If I might add a glory to the scheme)That a third thing should stand apart from both, 210A quality arise within his soul,Which, intro-active, made to superviseAnd feel the force it has, may view itself,And so be happy." Man might live at firstThe animal life: but is there nothing more?In due time, let him critically learnHow he lives; and, the more he gets to knowOf his own life's adaptabilities,The more joy-giving will his life become.Thus man, who hath this quality, is best. 220But thou, king, hadst more reasonably said:"Let progress end at once—man make no stepBeyond the natural man, the better beast,Using his senses, not the sense of sense."In man there's failure, only since he leftThe lower and inconscious forms of life.We called it an advance, the rendering plainMan's spirit might grow conscious of man's life,And, by new lore so added to the old,Take each step higher over the brute's head. 230This grew the only life, the pleasure-house,Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul,Which whole surrounding flats of natural lifeSeemed only fit to yield subsistence to;A tower that crowns a country. But alas,The soul now climbs it just to perish there!For thence we have discovered ('t is no dream—We know this, which we had not else perceived)That there's a world of capabilityFor joy, spread round about us, meant for us, 240Inviting us; and still the soul craves all,And still the flesh replies, "Take no jot moreThan ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad!Nay, so much less as that fatigue has broughtDeduction to it." We struggle, fain to enlargeOur bounded physical recipiency,Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,It skills not! life's inadequate to joy,As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take. 250They praise a fountain in my garden hereWherein a Naiad sends the water-bowThin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise.What if I told her, it is just a threadFrom that great river which the hills shut up,And mock her with my leave to take the same?The artificer has given her one small tubePast power to widen or exchange—what bootsTo know she might spout oceans if she could?She cannot lift beyond her first thin thread; 260And so a man can use but a man's joyWhile he sees God's. Is it for Zeus to boast,"See, man, how happy I live, and despair—That I may be still happier—for thy use!"If this were so, we could not thank our Lord,As hearts beat on to doing; 'tis not so—Malice it is not. Is it carelessness?Still, no. If care—where is the sign? I ask,And get no answer, and agree in sum,0 king, with thy profound discouragement, 270Who 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 oneWith artist-gifts—to such a man as IWho 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(Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine) 280With feeling joy? confound the knowing howAnd showing how to live (my faculty)With actually living?—OtherwiseWhere is the artist's vantage o'er the king?Because in my great epos I displayHow 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 myselfThe many years of pain that taught me art! 290Indeed, to know is something, and to proveHow 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 grayFor being beloved: she turns to that young man,The muscles all a-ripple on his back.I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king! 300"But," sayest thou—(and I marvel, I repeat,To find thee trip on such a mere word) "whatThou 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 takeThy 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,In this, that every day my sense of joy 310Grows more acute, my soul (intensifiedBy 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 escapeWhen 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,Alive still, in the praise of such as thou, 320I, 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 needSome future state revealed to us by Zeus,Unlimited in capabilityFor joy, as this is in desire for joy,—To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us:That, stung by straitness of our life, made straitOn purpose to make prized the life at large— 330Freed 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 arightWhere to deliver what he bears of thineTo one called Paulus; we have heard his fame 340Indeed, 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, 0 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.Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves 350Who 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.NOTES"Cleon" expresses the approach of Greek thought at the time ofChrist towards the idea of immortality as made known by Cleon, aGreek poet writing in reply to a Greek patron whose princely giftsand letter asking comment on the philosophical significance of deathhave just reached him. The important conclusions reached by Cleonin his answer are that the composite mind is greater than the mindsof the past, because it is capable of accomplishing much in manylines of activity, and of sympathizing with each of those simplegreat minds that had reached the highest possible perfection "at onepoint." It is, indeed, the necessary next step in development,though all classes of mind fit into the perfected mosaic of life, noone achievement blotting out any other. This soul and minddevelopment he deduces from the physical development he sees abouthim. But since with the growth of human consciousness and theincrease of knowledge comes greater capability to the soul for joywhile the failure of physical powers shuts off the possibility ofrealizing joy, it would have been better had man been left withnothing higher than mere sense like the brutes. Dismissing the ideaof immortality through one's works as unsatisfactory to theindividual, he finally concludes that a long and happy life is allthere is to be hoped for, since, had the future life which he hassometimes dared to hope for been possible, Zeus would long beforehave revealed it. He dismisses the preaching of one Paulus asuntenable."As certain also of your own poets have said": this motto hints thatPaul's speech at Athens (Acts 17.22-28) suggests and justifiesBrowning's conception of such Greek poets as Cleon seeking "theLord, if haply they might feel after him." Paul's quotation, "Forwe are also his offspring," is from the "Phoenomena" by Aratus, aGreek poet of his own town of Tarsus.1. Sprinkled isles: probably the Sporades, so named because theywere scattered, and in opposition to the Cyclades, which formed acircle around Delos.51. Phare: light-house. The French authority, Allard, says thatthough there is no mention in classical writings of any light-housein Greece proper, it is probable that there was one at the port ofAthens as well as at other points in Greece. There were certainlyseveral along both shores of the Hellespont, besides the famousfather of all light-houses, on the island of Pharos, nearAlexandria. Hence the French name for light-house, phare.53. Poecile: the portico at Athens painted with battle pictures byPolygnotus the Thasian.60. Combined the moods: in Greek music the scales were called moodsor modes, and were subject to great variation in the arrangement oftones and semitones.83. Rhomb . . . lozenge . . . trapezoid: all four-sided forms, butdiffering as to the parallel arrangement of their sides and theobliquity of their angles.140. Terpander: musician of Lesbos (about 650 B. C.), who addedthree strings to the four-stringed Greek lyre.141. Phidias: the Athenian sculptor (about 430 B. C.) —and hisfriend: Pericles, ruler of Athens (444-429 B.C.). Plutarch speaksof their friendship in his Life of Pericles.304. Sappho: poet of Lesbos, supreme among lyricists (about 600B. C.). Only fragments of her verse remain.305. AEschylus: oldest of the three great Athenian dramatists(525-472 B. C.).340. Paulus; we have have heard his fame: Paul's mission to theGentiles carried him to many of the islands in the AEgean Sea aswell as to Athens and Corinth (Acts 13-21).
II know a Mount, the gracious Sun perceivesFirst, when he visits, last, too, when he leavesThe world; and, vainly favored, it repaysThe day-long glory of his steadfast gazeBy no change of its large calm front of snow.And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know,He cannot have perceived, that changes everAt his approach; and, in the lost endeavorTo live his life, has parted, one by one,With all a flower's true graces, for the grace 10Of being but a foolish mimic sun,With ray-like florets round a disk-like face.Men nobly call by many a name the MountAs over many a land of theirs its largeCalm front of snow like a triumphal targeIs reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie,Each to its proper praise and own account:Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively.IIOh, Angel of the East, one, one gold lookAcross the waters to this twilight nook, 20—The far sad waters. Angel, to this nook!IIIDear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed?Go!—saying ever as thou dost proceed,That I, French Rudel, choose for my deviceA sunflower outspread like a sacrificeBefore its idol. See! These inexpertAnd hurried fingers could not fail to hurtThe woven picture; 't is a woman's skillIndeed; but nothing baffled me, so, illOr well, the work is finished. Say, men feed 30On songs I sing, and therefore bask the beesOn my flower's breast as on a platform broad:But, as the flower's concern is not for theseBut solely for the sun, so men applaudIn vain this Rudel, he not looking hereBut to the East—the East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear!
NOTES"Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli": Rudel symbolizes his love as theaspiration of the sunflower that longs only to become like the sun,so losing a flower's true grace, while the sun does not evenperceive the flower. He imagines himself as a pilgrim revealing tothe Lady of Tripoli by means of this symbol the entire sinking ofself in his love for her. Even men's praise of his songs is no moreto him than the bees which bask on a sunflower are to it.Rudel was a Provencal troubadour, and lived in the twelfth century.The Crusaders, returning from the East, spread abroad wonderfulreports of the beauty, learning, and wit of the Countess of Tripoli,a small duchy on the Mediterranean, north of Palestine. Rudel,although never having seen her, fell in love with her and composedsongs in honor of her beauty, and finally set out to the East inpilgrim's garb. On his way he was taken ill, but lived to reach theport of Tripoli. The countess, being told of his arrival, went onboard the vessel. When Rudel heard she was coming, he revived, saidshe had restored him to life by her coming, and that he was willingto die, having seen her. He died in her arms; she gave him a richand honorable burial in a sepulchre of porphyry on which wereengraved verses in Arabic.
[Originally appended to the collection of Poems called "Men and Women," the greater portion of which has now been, more correctly, distributed under the other titles of this edition.-R. B.]
IThere they are, my fifty men and womenNaming me the fifty poems finished!Take them, Love, the book and me together:Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.IIRafael made a century of sonnets,Made and wrote them in a certain volumeDinted with the silver-pointed pencilElse he only used to draw Madonnas:These, the world might view—but one, the volume.Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you. 10Did she live and love it all her life-time?Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,Die, and let it drop beside her pillowWhere it lay in place of Rafael's glory,Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving—Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's,Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?You and I would rather read that volume,(Taken to his beating bosom by it)Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas—Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno,Her, that visits Florence in a vision,Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre—Seen by us and all the world in circle.IVYou and I will never read that volume.Guido Reni, like his own eye's appleGuarded long the treasure-book and loved it.Guido Reni dying, all BolognaCried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!" 30Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.VDante once prepared to paint an angel:Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice."While he mused and traced it and retraced it,(Peradventure with a pen corrodedStill by drops of that hot ink he dipped for,When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked,Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma,Bit into the live man's flesh, for parchment,Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40Let the wretch go festering through Florence)—Dante, who loved well because he hated,Hated wickedness that hinders loving,Dante standing, studying his angel—In there broke the folk of his Inferno.Says he—"Certain people of importance"Such he gave his daily dreadful line to)"Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet."Says the poet—"Then I stopped my painting."You and I would rather see that angel, 50Painted by the tenderness of Dante,Would we not?—than read a fresh Inferno.VIIYou and I will never see that picture.While he mused on love and Beatrice,While he softened o'er his outlined angel,In they broke, those "people of importance;"We and Bice bear the loss forever.VIIIWhat of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture?This: no artist lives and loves, that longs notOnce, and only once, and for one only, 60(Ah, the prize !) to find his love a languageFit and fair and simple and sufficient—Using nature that's an art to others,Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.Ay, of all the artists living, loving,None but would forego his proper dowry—Does he paint? he fain would write a poem—Does he write? he fain would paint a picture,Put to proof art alien to the artist's,Once, and only once, and for one only, 70So to be the man and leave the artist,Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.IXWherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement!He who smites the rock and spreads the water,Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him,Even he, the minute makes immortal,Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute,Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing.While he smites, how can he but remember,So he smote before, in such a peril, 80When they stood and mocked—"Shall smiting help us?"When they drank and sneered—"A stroke is easy!"When they wiped their mouths and went their journey,Throwing him for thanks—"But drought was pleasant."Thus old memories mar the actual triumph;Thus the doing savors of disrelish;Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat;O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate,Carelessness or consciousness—the gesture.For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 90Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces,Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude—"How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?"Guesses what is like to prove the sequel—"Egypt's flesh-pots-nay, the drought was better."XOh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant!Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance,Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat.Never dares the man put off the prophet.XIDid he love one face from out the thousands, 100(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely,Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave),He would envy yon dumb patient camel,Keeping a reserve of scanty waterMeant to save his own life in the desert;Ready in the desert to deliver(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened)Hoard and life together for his mistress.XIII shall never, in the years remaining,Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, 110Make you music that should all-express me;So it seems: I stand on my attainment.This of verse alone, one life allows me;Verse and nothing else have I to give you.Other heights in other lives, God willing;All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!XIIIYet a semblance of resource avails us—Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it.Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly,Lines I write the first time and the last time. 120He who works in fresco, steals a hair brush,Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly,Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little,Makes a strange art of an art familiar,Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets.He who blows thro' bronze, may breathe thro' silver,Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess.He who writes, may write for once as I do.XIVLove, you saw me gather men and women,Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, 130Enter each and all, and use their service,Speak from every mouth—the speech, a poem.Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows,Hopes and tears, belief and disbelieving:I am mine and yours—the rest be all men's,Karshish, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty.Let me speak this once in my true person,Not as Lippo, Roland or Andrea,Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence;Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140Take and keep my fifty poems finished;Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also!Poor the speech; be how I speak, for all things.Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon's self!Here in London, yonder late in Florence,Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured.Curving on a sky imbrued with color,Drifted over Fiesole by twilight,Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth.Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 150Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder,Perfect till the nightingales applauded.Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished,Hard to greet, she traverses the houseroofs,Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver,Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.XVIWhat, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy),All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), 160She would turn a new side to her mortal,Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman—Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,Blind to Galileo on his turret,Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even!Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal—When she turns round, comes again in heaven,Opens out anew for worse or better!Proves she like some portent of an icebergSwimming full upon the ship it founders, 170Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals?Proves she as the paved work of a sapphireSeen by Moses when he climbed the mountain?Moses, Aaron, Nadab and AbihuClimbed and saw the very God, the Highest,Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire.Like the bodied heaven in his clearnessShone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work,When they ate and drank and saw God also!XVIIWhat were seen? None knows, none ever shall know. 180Only this is sure—the sight were other,Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence,Dying now impoverished here in London.God be thanked, the meanest of his creaturesBoasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,One to show a woman when he loves her!XVIIIThis I say of me, but think of you, Love!This to you—yourself my moon of poets!Ah, but that's the world's side, there's the wonder,Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you! 190There, in turn I stand with them and praise you—Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it.But the best is when I glide from out them,Cross a step or two of dubious twilight,Come out on the other side, the novelSilent silver lights and darks undreamed of,Where I hush and bless myself with silence.XIXOh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas,Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno,Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it, 200Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom!R. B.NOTES"One Word More" is the dedication to Elizabeth Barrett Browningwhich was appended to "Men and Women" as first published when itcontained fifty poems since distributed under other titles.The poet, recalling how Rafael when he would all-express his love,wrote sonnets to the loved one, and how Dante prepared to paint anangel for Beatrice, draws the conclusion that there is no artist butlongs to give expression to his supreme love in some other art thanhis own which would be the medium of a spontaneous, natural outburstof feeling in a way impossible in the familiar forms of his own art.Thus he would gain a man's joy and miss the artist's sorrow, for,like the miracles of Moses, the work of the artist is subject to thecold criticism of the world, which expects him nevertheless alwaysto be the artist, and has no sympathy for him as a man. Since thereis no other art but poetry in which it is possible for Browning toexpress himself, he will at least drop his accustomed dramatic formand speak in his own person; though it be poor, let it stand as asymbol for all-expression. Yet does she not know him, for he hasshown her his soul-side as one might imagine the moon showinganother side to a mortal lover, which would remain forever as much amystery to the outside world as the vision seen by Moses, etc.Similarly, he has admired the side his moon of poets has shown thewhole world in her poetry, but he blesses himself with the thoughtof the other side which he alone has seen.5. Century of sonnets: Rafael is known to have written four lovesonnets on the back of sketches for his wall painting, the"Disputa," which are still preserved in collections, one of them inthe British Museum. The Italian text of these sonnets with Englishtranslations are given in Wolzogen's Life of him translated byF. E. Bunn[e`]tt. Did he ever write a hundred? It is supposed thatthe lost book once owned by Guido Reni, apparently the one referredto in stanza iv, was a book of drawings. Perhaps these also boresonnets on their backs, or Browning guessed they did.10. Who that one: Margarita, a girl Rafael met and loved in Rome,two portraits of whom exist—one in the Barberini Palace, Rome, theother in the Pitti, in Florence. They resemble the Sistine andother Madonnas by Rafael.21. Madonnas, etc.: "San Sisto," now in Dresden; "Foligno," in theVatican, Rome; the one in Florence is called "del Granduca," andrepresents her appearing in a vision; the one in the Louvre, called"La Belle Jardini[e`]re," is seated in a garden among lilies.32. Dante once, etc.: "On that day," writes Dante, "Vita Nuova,"xxxv, "which fulfilled the year since my lady had been made of thecitizens of eternal life, remembering of her as I sat alone, Ibetook myself to draw the resemblance of an angel upon certaintablets." That this lady was Beatrice Portinari, as Browningsupposes, Dante's devotion to her, in both "The New Life" and "TheDivine Comedy," should leave no doubt. Yet the literalness ofMr. W. M. Rossetti makes him obtuse here, as he and othercommentators seem to be in their understanding of Browningthroughout this stanza. Browning evidently contrasts Dante'stenderness here towards Beatrice with the remorselessness of his penin the "Inferno" (see Cantos 32 and 33), where he stigmatized hisenemies as if using their very flesh for his parchment, so that everafter in the eyes of all Florence they seemed to bear the marks ofthe poet's hate of their wickedness. It was people of this sort,grandees of the town, Browning fancies, who again "hinder loving,"breaking in upon the poet and seizing him unawares forsooth at thisintimate moment of loving artistry. "Chancing to turn my head,"Dante continues, "I perceived that some were standing beside me towhom I should have given courteous greeting, and that they wereobserving what I did: also I learned afterwards that they had beenthere a while before I perceived them." The tender moment was over.He stopped the painting, simply saying, "Another was with me."74. He who smites the rock: Moses, whose experience in smiting therock for water (Exodus 17.1-7; Numbers 20.1-11) is likened to thesorrow of the artist, serving a reckless world.97. Sinai-forehead's . . . brilliance: Exodus 19.9, 16; 34.30.101. Jethro's daughter: Moses' wife, Zipporah (Exodus 2.16, 21).102. AEthiopian bondslave: Numbers 12.1.122. Liberal hand: the free hand of the fresco-painter cramped to dothe exquisite little designs fit for the missal marge = margin of aPrayer-book.150. Samminiato: San Miniato, a church in Florence.161. Turn a new side, etc.: the side turned away from the earthwhich our world never sees.163. Zoroaster: (589-513 B. C.), founder of the Persian religion,and worshipper of light, whose habit it was to observe the heavensfrom his terrace,164. Galileo: (1564-1642), constructor of the first telescope,leading him to discover that the Milky Way was an assemblage ofstarry worlds, and the earth a planet revolving on its axis andabout an orbit, for which opinion he was tried and condemned. Whenforced to retire from his professorship at Padua, he continued hisobservations from his own house in Florence.164. Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats: Homer celebrates the moon in the"Hymn to Diana" (see Shelley's translation), and makes Artemisupbraid her brother Phoebus when he claims that it is not meet forgods to concern themselves with mortals (Iliad, xxi. 470). Keats,in "Endymion," sings of her love for a mortal.174. Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, etc.: Exodus 24.1, 10.