1855
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leaveThat child, when thou hast done with him, for me!Let me sit all the day here, that when eveShall find performed thy special ministry,And time come for departure, thou, suspendingThy flight, mayst see another child for tending,Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,—And suddenly my head is covered o'erWith those wings, white above the child who praysNow on that tomb—and I shall feel thee guardingMe, out of all the world; for me, discardingYon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.
I would not look up thither past thy headBecause the door opes, like that child, I know,For I should have thy gracious face instead,Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me lowLike him, and lay, like his, my hands together,And lift them up to pray, and gently tetherMe, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?
If this was ever granted, I would restMy head beneath thine, while thy healing handsClose-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,Back to its proper size again, and smoothingDistortion down till every nerve had soothing,And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.
How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!I think how I should view the earth and skiesAnd sea, when once again my brow was baredAfter thy healing, with such different eyes.O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.What further may be sought for or declared?
Guercino drew this angel I saw teach(Alfred, dear friend!)—that little child to pray,Holding the little hands up, each to eachPressed gently,—with his own head turned awayOver the earth where so much lay before himOf work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him,And he was left at Fano by the beach.
We were at Fano, and three times we wentTo sit and see him in his chapel there,And drink his beauty to our soul's content—My angel with me too: and since I careFor dear Guercino's fame (to which in powerAnd glory comes this picture for a dower,Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)—
And since he did not work thus earnestlyAt all times, and has else endured some wrong—I took one thought his picture struck from me,And spread it out, translating it to song.My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.
The three poems,Caliban on Setebos, Rabbi Ben Ezra, andA Death in the Desert, should be read in that order; for there is a logical order in the thought. The first is God as an amphibious brute would imagine him: the second is noble Hebrew theism: the third is the Christian God of Love. Whilst the second is the finest poem of the three, the first is the most original. The word "upon" is ironical: it is Caliban's treatise on theology. We read Caliban on God, as we read Mill on Political Economy: for Caliban, like many a human theologian, does not scruple to speak the last word on the nature of the Supreme Being. The citation from the Psalms is a rebuke to gross anthropomorphism: Caliban, like the Puritans, has simply made God in his own image.
The difference between Shakespeare's and Browning's Caliban is simply the difference between Shakespeare and Browning. Shakespeare made the monster for decorative purposes, to satisfy his love of the grotesque, as an architect placed gargoyles on a cathedral: the grotesque is an organic part of romantic art. Browning is interested not in Caliban's appearance, but in his processes of thought. Suppose a monster, half fish, half beast, living with supreme comfort in the slime, could think: what kind of God would he imagine had created this world?
Caliban speaks in the third person (does Browning make a slip when he changes occasionally to the first?) in order to have indicated the low order of his intelligence; just as a little child says, "Don't hurt her: she hasn't done anything wrong." He is lying in liquid refuse, with little lizards deliciously tickling his spine (such things are entirely a matter of taste, what would be odious to us would be heaven to a sow) and having nothing to do for the moment, like a man in absolute leisure, turns his thoughts to God. He believes that God is neither good nor bad, but simply capricious. What's the use of being God, if you can't do what you like? He treats earth's creatures as a wanton boy treats his toys; they belong to me; why shouldn't I break them if I choose? No one ought to complain of misfortunes: you can not expect God is going to reward the virtuous and punish the guilty. He has no standards whatever. Just as I, Caliban, sit here and watch a procession of crabs: I might lazily make up my mind, in a kind of sporting interest, to count them as they pass; to let twenty go in safety, and smash the twenty-first, loving not, hating not, just choosing so. When I feel like it, I help some creatures; if in another mood, I torment others; that's the way God treats us, that's the way I would act if I were God.
As Caliban's theology has much of the human in it, so his practical reasoning is decidedly human in its superstition. Granted that we are in the hands of a childish and capricious God, who amuses himself with torturing us, who laughs at our faces distorted with pain, what is the thing we ought to do? How shall we best manage? Caliban's advice is dear: don't let Him notice you: don't get prominent: above all, never boast of your good fortune, for that will surely draw God's attention, and He will put you where you belong. This superstition, that God is against us, is deep-seated in human nature, as the universal practice of "touching wood" sufficiently demonstrates. If a man says, "I haven't had a cold this winter," his friends will advise him to touch wood; and if he wakes up the next morning snuffling, he will probably soliloquise, "What a fool I was! Why couldn't I keep still? Why did I have to mention it? Now see what I've got!"
Caliban disagreed with his mother Sycorax on one important point. She believed in the future life. Caliban says such a belief is absurd. There can be nothing worse than this life. Its good moments are simply devices of God to strengthen us so that He can torture us again, just as in the good old times the executioners gave the sufferers they were tormenting some powerful stimulant, so that they might return to consciousness and suffer; for nothing cheated the spectators worse than to have the victim die during the early stages of the torture. The object was to keep the wretch alive as long as possible. Thus in this life we have moments of comparative ease and rest, wherein we recuperate a little, just as the cat lets the mouse recover strength enough to imagine he is going to get away.
Caliban is of course an absolute and convinced pessimist. A malevolent giant is not so bad a God as an insane child. And Browning means that pessimism is what we should naturally expect from so rudimentary an intellect as Caliban's, which judges the whole order of the universe from proximate and superficial evidences.
The close of the poem is a good commentary on some human ideas of what kind of service is pleasing to God. Poor Caliban! he had saved up some quails, meaning to have a delicious meal. But in his fear he cries to God, I will let them fly, if you will only spare me this time! I will not eat whelks for a month, I will eat no chocolates during Lent, anything to please God!
1864
"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,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 crossAnd 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.Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleepIn 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,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 fishThat longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,And thaw herself within the lukewarm brineO' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;Only, she ever sickened, found repulseAt the other kind of water, not her life,(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 HeThinketh, 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 brownHe hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eyeBy moonlight; and the pie with the long tongueThat 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 themselvesThat build a wall of seeds and settled stalksAbout 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 selfTo be His mate; as well have made Himself:He would not make what he mislikes or slights,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,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 CalibanAble to fly?—for, there, see, he hath wings,And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,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 hornsOf 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,—Well, as the chance were, this might take or elseNot 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.'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabsThat 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 spotsShall 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,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 moreThan He who made them! What consoles but this?That they, unless through Him, do nought at all,And must submit: what other use in things?'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-jointThat, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jayWhen from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:Sound this, and little birds that hate the jayFlock 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 makeWith 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 SetebosThat 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 joyCould 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.It may look up, work up,—the worse for thoseIt works on! 'Careth but for SetebosThe many-handed as a cuttle-fish,Who, making Himself feared through what He does,Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soarTo what is quiet and hath happy life;Next looks down here, and out of very spiteMakes 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.Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his booksCareless 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 robeThe 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,And saith she is Miranda and my wife:'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill craneHe 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 drudgeIn 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.
His dam held that the Quiet made all thingsWhich 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.Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beastLoves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hateOr 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 worldWhen all goes right, in this safe summer-time,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.'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 firmWith stone and stake to stop she-tortoisesCrawling 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,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 onceAnd 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 isleSome flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;Those at His mercy,—why, they please Him mostWhen … 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 fearsBut steals the nut from underneath my thumb,And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,Curls up into a ball, pretending deathFor fright at my approach: the two ways please.But what would move my choler more than this,That either creature counted on its lifeTo-morrow 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!'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.
'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,And we shall have to live in fear of HimSo long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,If He have done His best, make no new worldTo please Him more, so leave off watching this,—If He surprise not even the Quiet's selfSome strange day,—or, suppose, grow into itAs grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,And there is He, and nowhere help at all.
'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.His dam held different, that after deathHe 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 ireIs, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ballOn head and tail as if to save their lives:Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.
Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, supposeThis 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,O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest 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 songAnd sung it, "What I hate, be consecrateTo celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mateFor Thee; what see for envy in poor me"?Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,That some strange day, will either the Quiet catchAnd conquer Setebos, or likelier HeDecrepit 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 windShoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,And fast invading fires begin! White blaze—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 monthOne little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]
In the great poemRabbi Ben Ezra, a quite different reason from that of Caliban's is suggested for the drawbacks and sufferings of life. They are a part of the divine machinery employed by infinite wisdom to further human development, to make us ultimately fit to see His face. There can be no true progress without obstacles: no enjoyment without its opposite: no vacation without duties: no virtue without sin.
The second line of the poem is startling in its direct contradiction of the language and lamentation of conventional poetry. Regret for lost youth and terror before old age are stock ideas in poetry, and in human meditation; but here we are invited to look forward to old age as the best time of life. Not to grow old gracefully, in resignation, but to grow old eagerly, in triumph—this is the Rabbi's suggestion. There is not the slightest doubt that he is right, provided one lives a mental, rather than an animal existence. A short time ago, Mr. Joseph H. Choate was addressing a large company in New York: he said, "Unquestionably the best period of life is the time between seventy and eighty years of age: and I advise you all to hurry up and get there as soon as you can."
God loveth whom He chasteneth. Our doubts and fears, our sorrows and pains, are spurs, stimulants to advance; rejoice that we have them, for they are proofs that we are alive and moving!
In the seventh stanza comes an audacious but cheering thought. Many thinkers regard the deepest sorrow of life as rising from the disparity between our ideals and our achievement; Schiller, in his poem,Das Ideal und das Leben, has expressed this cause of woe in beautiful language. Browning says boldly,
What I aspired to be,And was not,comfortsme:
This paradox, which comforts while it mocks, means, "My achievements are ridiculously small in comparison with my hopes, my ambitions, my dreams: thank God for all this! Thank God I was not content with low aims, thank God I had my aspirations and have them still: they point to future development."
In the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth stanzas, Browning suddenly returns to this idea: in the appraisement of the human soul, efforts, which if unsuccessful, count for nothing in worldly estimation, pay an enormous ultimate dividend, and must therefore be rated high. The reason why the world counts only things done and not things attempted, is because the world's standards are too coarse: they are adapted only for gross and obvious results. You can not weigh diamonds on hay scales: the indicator would show precisely nothing. And yet one diamond, too fine for these huge scales, might be of more value than thousands of tons of hay.
From the twenty-sixth stanza to the end, Browning takes up the figure of the Potter, the Wheel, and the Clay. I think that he was drawn to use this metaphor, not from Scripture, but as a protest against the use of it in Fitzgerald'sOmar Khayyám. Fitzgerald published his translation in 1859; and although it attracted no public attention, it is certainly possible that Browning saw it. He would have enjoyed its melodious beauty, but the philosophy of the poem would have been to him detestable and abhorrent. Much is made there of the Potter, meaning blind destiny: and the moral is, "Drink! the Past gone, seize To-day!" Browning explicitly rejects and scorns this teaching: it is propounded by fools for the benefit of other fools.
Fool! all that is, at all,Lasts ever, past recall;Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:What entered into thee,Thatwas, is, and shall be:Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
In Browning's metaphor, the Potter is God: the Wheel is the whirling course of life's experiences: the Clay is man. God holds us on the wheel to turn us into the proper shape. Owing to our flaws, the strain is sometimes too great, and some of us are warped and twisted by this stern discipline: other characters, made of better material, constantly grow more beautiful and more serviceable under the treatment. Browning had suffered the greatest sorrow of his life when he wrote this poem, and yet he had faith enough to say in the thirty-first stanza, thatnot even while the whirl was worst, did he, bound dizzily to the terrible wheel of life, once lose his belief that he was in God's hands and that the deep cuttings were for his ultimate benefit.
In the making of a cup, the Potter engraved around the base lovely images of youth and pleasure, and near the rim skulls and signs of death: but what is a cup for? It is meant for the Master's lips. The nearer therefore we approach to death, the nearer we are to God's presence, who is making us fit to slake His thirst. Finished at last, we are done forever with life's wheel: we come to the banquet, the festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, the glorious appearance of the Master.
1864
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!"
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!"
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
What is he but a bruteWhose flesh has 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?
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?"
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!"
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!
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!"
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.
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 armour to indue.
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.
For note, when evening shuts,A certain moment cutsThe deed off, calls the glory from the grey:A whisper from the westShoots—"Add this to the rest,Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."
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"
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.
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 waitedest age: wait death nor be afraid!
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.
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!
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?
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:
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:
Thoughts hardly to be packedInto a narrow act,Fancies that broke through language and escaped;All I could ever be,All, men ignored in me,This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
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!"
Fool! All that is, at all,Lasts ever, past recall;Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:What entered into thee,Thatwas, is, and shall be:Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
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.
What though the earlier groovesWhich ran the laughing lovesAround thy base, no longer pause and press?What though, about thy rim,Scull-things in order grimGrow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?
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 a-glow!Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel?
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 colours rife,Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:
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!
Browning wrote four remarkable poems dealing with music:A Toccata of Galuppi's,Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha,Abt Vogler, andCharles Avison. InAbt Voglerthe miracle of extemporisation has just been accomplished. The musician sits at the keys, tears running down his face: tears of weakness, because of the storm of divine inspiration that has passed through him: tears of sorrow, because he never can recapture the fine, careless rapture of his unpremeditated music: tears of joy, because he knows that on this particular day he has been the channel chosen by the Infinite God.
If he had only been an architect, his dream would have remained in a permanent form. The armies of workmen would have done his will, and the world would have admired it for ages. If he had only been a poet or a painter, his inspiration would have taken the form of fixed type or enduring shape and color: but in the instance of music, the armies of thoughts that have worked together in absolute harmony to elevate the noble building of sound, which has risen like an exhalation, have vanished together with the structure they animated. It has gone like the wonderful beauty of some fantastic cloud.
His sorrow at this particular irreparable loss gives way to rapture as he reflects on the source whence came the inspiration. He could not possibly haveconstructedsuch wonderful music: it was the God welling up within him: for this past hour divine inspiration has spoken through him. He has had one glimpse at the Celestial Radiance. How can he now think that the same God who expanded his heart lacks the power to fill it? The Source from whence this river came must be inexhaustible, and it was vouchsafed to him to feel for a short time its infinite richness. The broken arcs on earth are the earnest of the perfect round in heaven.
Abt Vogler says that the philosophers may each make his guess at the meaning of this earthly scheme of weal and woe: but the musicians, the musicians who have felt in their own bosoms the presence of the Divine Power and heard its marvellous voice,—why, the philosophers may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know!