Chapter 119

Well, Leicester Square is not the Residenz:Instead of shrugging shoulder, turning friendThe deaf ear, with a wink to the police—I 'll answer—by a question, wisdom's mode.How many years, o' the average, do menLive in this world? Some score, say computists.Quintuple me that term and give mankindThe likely hundred, and with all my heartI 'll take your task upon me, work your way,Concentrate energy on some one cause:Since, counseller, I also have my cause,My flag, my faith in its effect, my hopeIn its eventual triumph for the goodO' the world. And once upon a time, when IWas like all you, mere voice and nothing more,Myself took wings, soared sunward, and thence sang,"Look where I live i' the loft, come up to me,Groundlings, nor grovel longer! gain this height,And prove you breathe here better than below!Why, what emancipation far and wideWill follow in a trice! They too can soar,Each tenant of the earth's circumferenceClaiming to elevate humanity,They also must attain such altitude,Live in the luminous circle that surroundsThe planet, not the leaden orb itself.Press out, each point, from surface to yon vergeWhich one has gained and guaranteed your realm!"Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught,Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mineForever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct.Alive with tremors in the shaggy growthOf wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs thereImparting exultation to the hills!Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walkAnd waft my words above the grassy seaUnder the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome,—Hear ye not still—"Be Italy again"?And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart?Decrepit council-chambers,—where some lampDrives the unbroken black three paces offFrom where the graybeards huddle in debate,Dim cowls and capes, and midmost glimmers oneLike tarnished gold, and what they say is doubt,And what they think is fear, and what suspendsThe breath in them is not the plaster-patchTime disengages from the painted wallWhere Rafael moulderingly bids adieu,Nor tick of the insect turning tapestryWhich a queen's finger traced of old, to dust;But some word, resonant, redoubtable,Of who once felt upon his head a handWhereof the head now apprehends his foot."Light in Rome, Law in Rome, and LibertyO' the soul in Rome—the free Church, the free State!Stamp out the nature that's best typifiedBy its embodiment in Peter's Dome,The scorpion-body with the greedy pairOf outstretched nippers, either colonnadeAgape for the advance of heads and hearts!"There 's one cause for you! one and only one,For I am vocal through the universe,I' the workshop, manufactory, exchangeAnd market-place, seaport and custom-houseO' the frontier: listen if the echoes die—"Unfettered commerce! Power to speak and hear,And print and read! The universal vote!Its rights for labor!" This, with much beside,I spoke when I was voice and nothing more,But altogether such an one as youMy censors. "Voice, and nothing more, indeed!"Re-echoes round me: "that 's the censure, there 'sInvolved the ruin of you soon or late!Voice,—when its promise beat the empty air:And nothing more,—when solid earth's your stage,And we desiderate performance, deedFor word, the realizing all you dreamedIn the old days: now, for deed, we find at doorO' the council-chamber posted, mute as mouse,Hohenstiel-Schwangau, sentry and safeguardO' the graybeards all a-chuckle, cowl to cape,Who challenge Judas,—that 's endearment's style,—To stop their mouths or let escape grimace,While they keep cursing Italy and him.The power to speak, hear, print and read is ours?Ay, we learn where and how, when clapped insideA convict-transport bound for cool Cayenne!The universal vote we have: its urn,We also have where votes drop, fingered-o'erBy the universal Prefect. Say, Trade 's freeAnd Toil turned master out o' the slave it was:What then? These feed man's stomach, but his soulCraves finer fare, nor lives by bread alone,As somebody says somewhere. Hence you standProved and recorded either false or weak,Faulty in promise or performance: which?"Neither, I hope. Once pedestalled on earth,To act not speak, I found earth was not air.I saw that multitude of mine, and notThe nakedness and nullity of airFit only for a voice to float in free.Such eyes I saw that craved the light alone,Such mouths that wanted bread and nothing else,Such hands that supplicated handiwork,Men with the wives, and women with the babes,Yet all these pleading just to live, not die!Did I believe one whit less in belief,Take truth for falsehood, wish the voice revokedThat told the truth to heaven for earth to hear?No, this should be, and shall; but when and how?At what expense to these who averageYour twenty years of life, my computists?"Not bread alone," but bread before all elseFor these: the bodily want serve first, said I;If earth-space and the lifetime help not here,Where is the good of body having been?But, helping body, if we somewhat balkThe soul of finer fare, such food 's to findElsewhere and afterward—all indicates,Even this selfsame fact that soul can starveYet body still exist its twenty years:While, stint the body, there 's an end at onceO' the revel in the fancy that Rome 's free,And superstition's fettered, and one printsWhate'er one pleases, and who pleases readsThe same, and speaks out and is spoken to,And divers hundred thousand fools may voteA vote untampered with by one wise man,And so elect Barabbas deputyIn lieu of his concurrent. I who traceThe purpose written on the face of things,For my behoof and guidance—(whoso needsNo such sustainment, sees beneath my signs,Proves, what I take for writing, penmanship,Scribble and flourish with no sense for meO' the sort I solemnly go spelling out,—Let him! there 's certain work of mine to showAlongside his work: which gives warrantyOf shrewder vision in the workman—judge!)I who trace Providence without a breakI' the plan of things, drop plumb on this plain printOf an intention with a view to good,That man is made in sympathy with manAt outset of existence, so to speak;But in dissociation, more and more,Man from his fellow, as their lives advanceIn culture; still humanity, that 's bornA mass, keeps flying off, fining awayEver into a multitude of points,And ends in isolation, each from each:Peerless above i' the sky, the pinnacle,—Absolute contact, fusion, all belowAt the base of being. How comes this about?This stamp of God characterizing manAnd nothing else but man in the universe—That, while he feels with man (to use man's speech)I' the little things of life, its fleshly wantsOf food and rest and health and happiness,Its simplest spirit-motions, loves and hates,Hopes, fears, soul-cravings on the ignoblest scale,O' the fellow-creature,—owns the bond at base,—He tends to freedom and divergencyIn the upward progress, plays the pinnacleWhen life 's at greatest (grant again the phrase!Because there 's neither great nor small in life)."Consult thou for thy kind that have the eyesTo see, the mouths to eat, the hands to work,Men with the wives, and women with the babes!"Prompts Nature. "Care thou for thyself aloneI' the conduct of the mind God made thee with!Think, as if man had never thought before!Act, as if all creation hung attentOn the acting of such faculty as thine,To take prime pattern from thy masterpiece!"Nature prompts also: neither law obeyedTo the uttermost by any heart and soulWe know or have in record: both of themAcknowledged blindly by whatever manWe ever knew or heard of in this world."Will you have why and wherefore, and the factMade plain as pikestaff?" modern Science asks."That mass man sprung from was a jelly-lumpOnce on a time; he kept an after-courseThrough fish and insect, reptile, bird and beast,Till he attained to be an ape at lastOr last but one. And if this doctrine shockIn aught the natural pride" ... Friend, banish fear,The natural humility replies.Do you suppose, even I, poor potentate,Hohenstiel-Schwangau, who once ruled the roast,—I was born able at all points to plyMy tools? or did I have to learn my trade,Practise as exile ere perform as prince?The world knows something of my ups and downs:But grant me time, give me the managementAnd manufacture of a model me,Me fifty-fold, a prince without a flaw,—Why, there 's no social grade, the sordidest,My embryo potentate should blink and 'scape.King, all the better he was cobbler once,He should know, sitting on the throne, how tastesLife to who sweeps the doorway. But life 's hard,Occasion rare; you cut probation short,And, being half-instructed, on the stageYou shuffle through your part as best you can,And bless your stars, as I do. God takes time.I like the thought he should have lodged me onceI' the hole, the cave, the hut, the tenement,The mansion and the palace; made me learnThe feel o' the first, before I found myselfLoftier i' the last, not more emancipate;From first to last of lodging, I was I,And not at all the place that harbored me.Do I refuse to follow farther yetI' the backwardness, repine if tree and flower,Mountain or streamlet were my dwelling-placeBefore I gained enlargement, grew mollusc?As well account that way for many a thrillOf kinship, I confess to, with the powersCalled Nature: animate, inanimate,In parts or in the whole, there 's something thereMan-like that somehow meets the man in me.My pulse goes altogether with the heartO' the Persian, that old Xerxes, when he stayedHis march to conquest of the world, a dayI' the desert, for the sake of one superbPlane-tree which queened it there in solitude:Giving her neck its necklace, and each armIts armlet, suiting soft waist, snowy side,With cincture and apparel. Yes, I lodgedIn those successive tenements; perchanceTaste yet the straitness of them while I stretchLimb and enjoy new liberty the more.And some abodes are lost or ruinous;Some, patched-up and pieced-out, and so transformedThey still accommodate the travellerHis day of lifetime. Oh, you count the links,Descry no bar of the unbroken man?Yes,—and who welds a lump of ore, supposeHe likes to make a chain and not a bar,And reach by link on link, link small, link large,Out to the due length—why, there 's forethought stillOutside o' the series, forging at one end,While at the other there 's—no matter whatThe kind of critical intelligenceBelieving that last link had last but oneFor parent, and no link was, first of all,Fitted to anvil, hammered into shape.Else, I accept the doctrine, and deduceThis duty, that I recognize mankind,In all its height and depth and length and breadth.Mankind i' the main have little wants, not large:I, being of will and power to help, i' the main,Mankind, must help the least wants first. My friend,That is, my foe, without such power and will,May plausibly concentrate all he wields,And do his best at helping some large want,Exceptionally noble cause, that's seenSubordinate enough from where I stand.As he helps, I helped once, when like himself,Unable to help better, work more wide;And so would work with heart and hand to-day;Did only computists confess a fault,And multiply the single score by five,Five only, give man's life its hundred years.Change life, in me shall follow change to match!Time were then, to work here, there, everywhere,By turns and try experiment at ease!Full time to mend as well as mar: why waitThe slow and sober uprise all aroundO' the building? Let us run up, right to roof,Some sudden marvel, piece of perfectness,And testify what we intend the whole!Is the world losing patience? "Wait!" say we:"There 's time: no generation needs to dieUnsolaced; you 've a century in store!"But, no: I sadly let the voices wingTheir way i' the upper vacancy, nor testTruth on this solid as I promised once.Well, and what is there to be sad about?The world 's the world, life 's life, and nothing else.'T is part of life, a property to prize,That those o' the higher sort engaged i' the world,Should fancy they can change its ill to good,Wrong to right, ugliness to beauty: findEnough success in fancy turning fact,To keep the sanguine kind in countenanceAnd justify the hope that busies them:Failure enough,—to who can follow changeBeyond their vision, see new good prove illI' the consequence, see blacks and whites of lifeShift square indeed, but leave the checkered faceUnchanged i' the main,—failure enough for such,To bid ambition keep the whole from change,As their best service. I hope naught beside.No, my brave thinkers, whom I recognize,Gladly, myself the first, as, in a sense,All that our world 's worth, flower and fruit of man!Such minds myself award supremacyOver the common insignificance,When only Mind 's in question,—Body bowsTo quite another government, you know.Be Kant crowned king o' the castle in the air!Hans Slouch—his own, and children's mouths to feedI' the hovel on the ground—wants meat, nor chews"The Critique of Pure Reason" in exchange.But, now,—suppose I could allow your claimsAnd quite change life to please you,—would it please?Would life comport with change and still be life?Ask, now, a doctor for a remedy:There 's his prescription. Bid him point you outWhich of the five or six ingredients savesThe sick man. "Such the efficacity?Then why not dare and do things in one doseSimple and pure, all virtue, no alloyOf the idle drop and powder?" What 's his word?The efficacity, neat, were neutralized:It wants dispersing and retarding,—nay,Is put upon its mettle, plays its partPrecisely through such hindrance everywhere,Finds some mysterious give and take i' the case.Some gain by opposition, he foregoesShould he unfetter the medicament.So with this thought of yours that fain would workFree in the world: it wants just what it finds—The ignorance, stupidity, the hate,Envy and malice and uncharitablenessThat bar your passage, break the flow of youDown from those happy heights where many a cloudCombined to give you birth and bid you beThe royalest of rivers: on you glideSilverly till you reach the summit-edge,Then over, on to all that ignorance,Stupidity, hate, envy, bluffs and blocks,Posted to fret you into foam and noise.What of it? Up you mount in minute mist,And bridge the chasm that, crushed your quietude,A spirit-rainbow, earthborn jewelryOutsparkling the insipid firmamentBlue above Terni and its orange-trees.Do not mistake me! You, too, have your rights!Hans must not burn Kant's house above his headBecause he cannot understand Kant's book:And still less must Hans' pastor burn Kant's selfBecause Kant understands some books too well.But, justice seen to on this little point,Answer me, is it manly, is it sageTo stop and struggle with arrangements hereIt took so many lives, so much of toil,To tinker up into efficiency?Can't you contrive to operate at once,—Since time is short and art is long,—to showYour quality i' the world, whate'er you boast,Without this fractious call on folks to crushThe world together just to set you free,Admire the capers you will cut perchance,Nor mind the mischief to your neighbors?"Age!Age and experience bring discouragement,"You taunt me: I maintain the opposite.Am I discouraged who—perceiving health,Strength, beauty, as they tempt the eye of soul,Are uncombinable with flesh and blood—Resolve to let my body live its best,And leave my soul what better yet may beOr not be, in this life or afterward?—In either fortune, wiser than who waitsTill magic art procure a miracle.In virtue of my very confidenceMankind ought to outgrow its babyhood;I prescribe rocking, deprecate rough hands,While thus the cradle holds it past mistake.Indeed, my task 's the harder—equableSustainment everywhere, all strain, no push—Whereby friends credit me with indolence,Apathy, hesitation. "Stand stock-stillIf able to move briskly? 'All a-strain'—So must we compliment your passiveness?Sound asleep, rather!"Just the judgment passedUpon a statue, luckless like myself,I saw at Rome once! 'T was some artist's whimTo cover all the accessories closeI' the group, and leave you only LaocoönWith neither sons nor serpents to denoteThe purpose of his gesture. Then a crowdWas called to try the question, criticiseWherefore such energy of legs and arms,Nay, eyeballs, starting from the socket. One—I give him leave to write my history—Only one said, "I think the gesture strivesAgainst some obstacle we cannot see."All the rest made their minds up. "'T is a yawnOf sheer fatigue subsiding to repose:The statue 's 'Somnolency' clear enough!"There, my arch stranger-friend, my audience bothAnd arbitress, you have one half your wish,At least: you know the thing I tried to do!All, so far, to my praise and glory—allTold as befits the self-apologist,—Who ever promises a candid sweepAnd clearance of those errors miscalled crimesNone knows more, none laments so much as he,And ever rises from confession, provedA god whose fault was—trying to be man.Just so, fair judge,—if I read smile aright—I condescend to figure in your eyesAs biggest heart and best of Europe's friends,And hence my failure. God will estimateSuccess one day; and, in the mean time—you!I daresay there 's some fancy of the sortFrolicking round this final puff I sendTo die up yonder in the ceiling-rose,—Some consolation-stakes, we losers win!A plague of the return to "I—I—IDid this, meant that, hoped, feared the other thing!"Autobiography, adieu! The restShall make amends, be pure blame, historyAnd falsehood: not the ineffective truth,But Thiers-and-Victor-Hugo exercise.Hear what I never was, but might have beenI' the better world where goes tobacco-smoke!Here lie the dozen volumes of my life:(Did I say "lie"? the pregnant word will serve.)Cut on to the concluding chapter, though!Because the little hours begin to strike.Hurry Thiers-Hugo to the labor's end!Something like this the unwritten chapter reads.Exemplify the situation thus!Hohenstiel-Schwangau, being, no dispute,Absolute mistress, chose the Assembly, first,To serve her: chose this man, its PresidentAfterward, to serve also,—speciallyTo see that folk did service one and all.And now the proper term of years was out,When the Head-servant must vacate his place;And nothing lay so patent to the worldAs that his fellow-servants one and allWere—mildly to make mention—knaves or fools,Each of them with his promise flourished fullI' the face of you by word and impudence,Or filtered slyly out by nod and winkAnd nudge upon your sympathetic rib—That not one minute more did knave or foolMean to keep faith and serve as he had swornHohenstiel-Schwangau, once her Head away.Why should such swear except to get the chance,When time should ripen and confusion bloom,Of putting Hohenstielers-SchwangaueseTo the true use of human property—Restoring souls and bodies, this to Pope,And that to King, that other to his plannedPerfection of a Share-and-share-alike,That other still, to Empire absoluteIn shape of the Head-servant's very selfTransformed to Master whole and sole? each schemeDiscussible, concede one circumstance—That each scheme's parent were, beside himself,Hohenstiel-Schwangau, not her serving-manSworn to do service in the way she choseRather than his way: way superlative,Only,—by some infatuation,—hisAnd his and his and every one's but hersWho stuck to just the Assembly and the Head.I make no doubt the Head, too, had his dreamOf doing sudden duty swift and sureOn all that heap of untrustworthiness—Catching each vaunter of the villanyHe meant to perpetrate when time was ripe,Once the Head-servant fairly out of doors,—And, caging here a knave and there a fool,Cry, "Mistress of your servants, these and me,Hohenstiel-Schwangau! I, their trusty Head,Pounce on a pretty scheme concocting hereThat's stopped, extinguished by my vigilance.Your property is safe again: but mark!Safe in these hands, not yours, who lavish trustToo lightly. Leave my hands their charge awhile!I know your business better than yourself:Let me alone about it! Some fine day,Once we are rid of the embarrassment,You shall look up and see your longings crowned!"Such fancy might have tempted him be false,But this man chose truth and was wiser so.He recognized that for great minds i' the worldThere is no trial like the appropriate oneOf leaving little minds their libertyOf littleness to blunder on through life,Now aiming at right ends by foolish means,Now, at absurd achievement through the aidOf good and wise endeavor—to acquiesceIn folly's life-long privilege, though with powerTo do the little minds the good they need,Despite themselves, by just abolishingTheir right to play the part and fill the placeI' the scheme of things He schemed who made alikeGreat minds and little minds, saw use for each.Could the orb sweep those puny particlesIt just half-lights at distance, hardly leadsI' the leash—sweep out each speck of them from spaceThey anticise in with their days and nightsAnd whirlings round and dancings off, forsooth,And all that fruitless individual lifeOne cannot lend a beam to but they spoil—Sweep them into itself and so, one star,Preponderate henceforth i' the heritageOf heaven! No! in less senatorial phrase,The man endured to help, not save outrightThe multitude by substituting himFor them, his knowledge, will and way, for God's:Nor change the world, such as it is, and wasAnd will be, for some other, suiting allExcept the purpose of the maker. No!He saw that weakness, wickedness will be,And therefore should be: that the perfect man,As we account perfection—at most pureO' the special gold, whate'er the form it take,Head-work or heart-work, fined and thrice-refinedI' the crucible of life, whereto the powersOf the refiner, one and all, are flungTo feed the flame, he saw that e'en the block,Such perfect man holds out triumphant, breaksInto some poisonous ore, gold's opposite,At the very purest, so compensatingMan's Adversary—what if we believe?For earlier stern exclusion of his stuff.See the sage, with the hunger for the truth,And see his system that's all true, exceptThe one weak place that's stanchioned by a lie!The moralist, who walks with head erectI' the crystal clarity of air so long,Until a stumble, and the man's one mire!Philanthropy undoes the social knotWith axe-edge, makes love room 'twixt head and trunk:Religion—but, enough, the thing's too clear!Well, if these sparks break out i' the greenest tree,Our topmost of performance, yours and mine,What will be done i' the dry ineptitudeOf ordinary mankind, bark and bole,All seems ashamed of but their mother-earth?Therefore throughout Head's term of servitudeHe did the appointed service, and foreboreExtraneous action that were duty else,Done by some other servant, idle nowOr mischievous: no matter, each his own—Own task, and, in the end, own praise or blame!He suffered them strut, prate, and brag their best,Squabble at odds on every point save one,And there shake hands,—agree to trifle time,Obstruct advance with, each, his cricket-cry,"Wait till the Head be off the shoulders here!Then comes my King, my Pope, my Autocrat,My Socialist Republic to her own—To-wit, that property of only me,Hohenstiel-Schwangau who conceits herselfFree, forsooth, and expects I keep her so!"—Nay, suffered when, perceiving with dismayHead's silence paid no tribute to their noise,They turned on him. "Dumb menace in that mouth,Malice in that unstridulosity!He cannot but intend some stroke of stateShall signalize his passage into peaceOut of the creaking,—hinder transferenceO' the Hohenstielers-Schwangauese to king,Pope, autocrat, or socialist republic! That 'sExact the cause his lips unlocked would cry!Therefore be stirring: brave, beard, bully him!Dock, by the million, of its friendly joints,The electoral body short at once! who did,May do again, and undo us beside;Wrest from his hands the sword for self-defence,The right to parry any thrust in playWe peradventure please to meditate!"And so forth; creak, creak, creak: and ne'er a lineHis locked mouth oped the wider, till at lastO' the long degraded and insulting day,Sudden the clock told it was judgment-time.Then he addressed himself to speak indeedTo the fools, not knaves: they saw him walk straight downEach step of the eminence, as he first engaged,And stand at last o' the level,—all he swore."People, and not the people's varletry,This is the task you set myself and these!Thus I performed my part of it, and thusThey thwarted me throughout, here, here and here:Study each instance! yours the loss, not mine.What they intend now is demonstrableAs plainly: here's such man, and here's such modeOf making you some other than the thingYou, wisely or unwisely, choose to be,And only set him up to keep you so.Do you approve this? Yours the loss, not mine.Do you condemn it? There 's a remedy.Take me—who know your mind, and mean your good.With clearer brain and stouter arm than they,Or you, or haply anybody else—And make me master for the moment! ChooseWhat time, what power you trust me with: I tooWill choose as frankly ere I trust myselfWith time and power: they must be adequateTo the end and aim, since mine the loss, with yours,If means be wanting; once their worth approved,Grant them, and I shall forthwith operate—Ponder it well!—to the extremist stretchO' the power you trust me: if with unsuccess,God wills it, and there 's nobody to blame."Whereon the people answered with a shout,"The trusty one! no tricksters any more!"How could they other? He was in his place.What followed? Just what he foresaw, what provedThe soundness of both judgments,—his, o' the knavesAnd fools, each trickster with his dupe,—and theirs,The people's, in what head and arm could help.There was uprising, masks dropped, flags unfurled,Weapons outflourished in the wind, my faith!Heavily did he let his fist fall plumbOn each perturber of the public peace,No matter whose the wagging head it broke—From bald-pate craft and greed and impudenceOf night-hawk at first chance to prowl and preyFor glory and a little gain beside,Passing for eagle in the dusk of the age,—To florid head-top, foamy patriotismAnd tribunitial daring, breast laid bareThrough confidence in rectitude, with handOn private pistol in the pocket: theseAnd all the dupes of these, who lent themselvesAs dust and feather do, to help offenceO' the wind that whirls them at you, then subsidesIn safety somewhere, leaving filth afloat,Annoyance you may brush from eyes and beard,—These he stopped: bade the wind's spite howl or whineIts worst outside the building, wind conceivesMeant to be pulled together and becomeIts natural playground so. What foolishnessOf dust or feather proved importunateAnd fell 'twixt thumb and finger, found them gripeTo detriment of bulk and buoyancy.Then followed silence and submission. Next,The inevitable comment came on workAnd work's cost: he was censured as profuseOf human life and liberty: too swiftAnd thorough his procedure, who had laggedAt the outset, lost the opportunityThrough timid scruples as to right and wrong."There 's no such certain mark of a small mind"(So did Sagacity explain the fault)"As when it needs must square away and sinkTo its own small dimensions, private scaleOf right and wrong,—humanity i' the large,The right and wrong of the universe, forsooth!This man addressed himself to guard and guideHohenstiel-Schwangau. When the case demandsHe frustrate villany in the egg, unhatched,With easy stamp and minimum of pangE'en to the punished reptile, 'There 's my oathRestrains my foot,' objects our guide and guard,'I must leave guardianship and guidance now:Rather than stretch one handbreadth of the law,I am bound to see it break from end to end.First show me death i' the body politic:Then prescribe pill and potion, what may pleaseHohenstiel-Schwangau! all is for her sake:'T was she ordained my service should be so.What if the event demonstrate her unwise,If she unwill the thing she willed before?I hold to the letter and obey the bondAnd leave her to perdition loyally.'Whence followed thrice the expenditure we blameOf human life and liberty: for wantO' the by-blow, came deliberate butcher's-work!""Elsewhere go carry your complaint!" bade he."Least, largest, there 's one law for all the minds,Here or above: be true at any price!'T is just o' the great scale, that such happy strokeOf falsehood would be found a failure. TruthStill stands unshaken at her base by me,Reigns paramount i' the world, for the large goodO' the long late generations,—I and youForgotten like this buried foolishness!Not so the good I rooted in its grave."This is why he refused to break his oath,Rather appealed to the people, gained the powerTo act as he thought best, then used it, onceFor all, no matter what the consequenceTo knaves and fools. As thus began his sway,So, through its twenty years, one rule of rightSufficed him: govern for the many first,The poor mean multitude, all mouths and eyes:Bid the few, better favored in the brain,Be patient, nor presume on privilege,Help him or else be quiet,—never craveThat he help them,—increase, forsooth, the gulfYawning so terribly 'twixt mind and mindI' the world here, which his purpose was to blockAt bottom, were it by an inch, and bridge,If by a filament, no more, at top.Equalize things a little! And the wayHe took to work that purpose out, was plainEnough to intellect and honestyAnd—superstition, style it if you please,So long as you allow there was no lackO' the quality imperative in man—Reverence. You see deeper? thus saw he,And by the light he saw, must walk: how elseWas he to do his part? a man's, with mightAnd main, and not a faintest touch of fear,Sure he was in the hand of God who comesBefore and after, with a work to doWhich no man helps nor hinders. Thus the man,—So timid when the business was to touchThe uncertain order of humanity,Imperil, for a problematic cureOf grievance on the surface, any goodI' the deep of things, dim yet discernible,—This same man, so irresolute before,Show him a true excrescence to cut sheer,A devil's graft on God's foundation-stock,Then—no complaint of indecision more!He wrenched out the whole canker, root and branch,Deaf to who cried that earth would tumble inAt its four corners if he touched a twig.Witness that lie of lies, arch-infamy,When the Republic, with her life involvedIn just this law—"Each people rules itselfIts own way, not as any stranger please"—Turned, and for first proof she was living, badeHohenstiel-Schwangau fasten on the throatOf the first neighbor that claimed benefitO' the law herself established: "HohenstielFor Hohenstielers! Rome, by parityOf reasoning, for Romans? That 's a jestWants proper treatment,—lancet—puncture suitsThe proud flesh: Rome ape Hohenstiel forsooth!"And so the siege and slaughter and successWhereof we nothing doubt that HohenstielWill have to pay the price, in God's good time.Which does not always fall on SaturdayWhen the world looks for wages. Anyhow,He found this infamy triumphant. Well:Sagacity suggested, make this speech!"The work was none of mine: suppose wrong wait,Stand over for redressing? Mine for me,My predecessors' work on their own head!Meantime, there 's plain advantage, should we leaveThings as we find them. Keep Rome manacledHand and foot: no fear of unruliness!Her foes consent to even seem our friendsSo long, no longer. Then, there 's glory gotBy boldness and bravado to the world:The disconcerted world must grin and bearThe old saucy writing,—'Grunt thereat who may,So shall things be, for such my pleasure is—Hohenstiel-Schwangau's.' How that reads in Rome,I' the capitol where Brennus broke his pate,And lends a flourish to our journalists!"Only, it was nor read nor flourished of,Since, not a moment did such glory stayExcision of the canker! Out it came,Root and branch, with much roaring, and some blood,And plentiful abuse of him from friendAnd foe. Who cared? Not Nature, who assuagedThe pain and set the patient on his legsPromptly: the better! had it been the worse,'T is Nature you must try conclusions with,Not he, since nursing canker kills the sickFor certain, while to cut may cure, at least."Ah," groaned a second time Sagacity,"Again the little mind, precipitate,Rash, rude, when even in the right, as here!The great mind knows the power of gentleness,Only tries force because persuasion fails.Had this man, by prelusive trumpet-blast,Signified, 'Truth and Justice mean to come,Nay, fast approach your threshold! Ere they knock,See that the house be set in order, sweptAnd garnished, windows shut, and doors thrown wide!The free State comes to visit the free Church:Receive her! or ... or ... never mind what else!'Thus moral suasion heralding brute force,How had he seen the old abuses die,And new life kindle here, there, everywhere,Roused simply by that mild yet potent spell—Beyond or beat of drum or stroke of sword—Public opinion!"

Well, Leicester Square is not the Residenz:

Instead of shrugging shoulder, turning friend

The deaf ear, with a wink to the police—

I 'll answer—by a question, wisdom's mode.

How many years, o' the average, do men

Live in this world? Some score, say computists.

Quintuple me that term and give mankind

The likely hundred, and with all my heart

I 'll take your task upon me, work your way,

Concentrate energy on some one cause:

Since, counseller, I also have my cause,

My flag, my faith in its effect, my hope

In its eventual triumph for the good

O' the world. And once upon a time, when I

Was like all you, mere voice and nothing more,

Myself took wings, soared sunward, and thence sang,

"Look where I live i' the loft, come up to me,

Groundlings, nor grovel longer! gain this height,

And prove you breathe here better than below!

Why, what emancipation far and wide

Will follow in a trice! They too can soar,

Each tenant of the earth's circumference

Claiming to elevate humanity,

They also must attain such altitude,

Live in the luminous circle that surrounds

The planet, not the leaden orb itself.

Press out, each point, from surface to yon verge

Which one has gained and guaranteed your realm!"

Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught,

Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mine

Forever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct.

Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth

Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there

Imparting exultation to the hills!

Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walk

And waft my words above the grassy sea

Under the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome,—

Hear ye not still—"Be Italy again"?

And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart?

Decrepit council-chambers,—where some lamp

Drives the unbroken black three paces off

From where the graybeards huddle in debate,

Dim cowls and capes, and midmost glimmers one

Like tarnished gold, and what they say is doubt,

And what they think is fear, and what suspends

The breath in them is not the plaster-patch

Time disengages from the painted wall

Where Rafael moulderingly bids adieu,

Nor tick of the insect turning tapestry

Which a queen's finger traced of old, to dust;

But some word, resonant, redoubtable,

Of who once felt upon his head a hand

Whereof the head now apprehends his foot.

"Light in Rome, Law in Rome, and Liberty

O' the soul in Rome—the free Church, the free State!

Stamp out the nature that's best typified

By its embodiment in Peter's Dome,

The scorpion-body with the greedy pair

Of outstretched nippers, either colonnade

Agape for the advance of heads and hearts!"

There 's one cause for you! one and only one,

For I am vocal through the universe,

I' the workshop, manufactory, exchange

And market-place, seaport and custom-house

O' the frontier: listen if the echoes die—

"Unfettered commerce! Power to speak and hear,

And print and read! The universal vote!

Its rights for labor!" This, with much beside,

I spoke when I was voice and nothing more,

But altogether such an one as you

My censors. "Voice, and nothing more, indeed!"

Re-echoes round me: "that 's the censure, there 's

Involved the ruin of you soon or late!

Voice,—when its promise beat the empty air:

And nothing more,—when solid earth's your stage,

And we desiderate performance, deed

For word, the realizing all you dreamed

In the old days: now, for deed, we find at door

O' the council-chamber posted, mute as mouse,

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, sentry and safeguard

O' the graybeards all a-chuckle, cowl to cape,

Who challenge Judas,—that 's endearment's style,—

To stop their mouths or let escape grimace,

While they keep cursing Italy and him.

The power to speak, hear, print and read is ours?

Ay, we learn where and how, when clapped inside

A convict-transport bound for cool Cayenne!

The universal vote we have: its urn,

We also have where votes drop, fingered-o'er

By the universal Prefect. Say, Trade 's free

And Toil turned master out o' the slave it was:

What then? These feed man's stomach, but his soul

Craves finer fare, nor lives by bread alone,

As somebody says somewhere. Hence you stand

Proved and recorded either false or weak,

Faulty in promise or performance: which?"

Neither, I hope. Once pedestalled on earth,

To act not speak, I found earth was not air.

I saw that multitude of mine, and not

The nakedness and nullity of air

Fit only for a voice to float in free.

Such eyes I saw that craved the light alone,

Such mouths that wanted bread and nothing else,

Such hands that supplicated handiwork,

Men with the wives, and women with the babes,

Yet all these pleading just to live, not die!

Did I believe one whit less in belief,

Take truth for falsehood, wish the voice revoked

That told the truth to heaven for earth to hear?

No, this should be, and shall; but when and how?

At what expense to these who average

Your twenty years of life, my computists?

"Not bread alone," but bread before all else

For these: the bodily want serve first, said I;

If earth-space and the lifetime help not here,

Where is the good of body having been?

But, helping body, if we somewhat balk

The soul of finer fare, such food 's to find

Elsewhere and afterward—all indicates,

Even this selfsame fact that soul can starve

Yet body still exist its twenty years:

While, stint the body, there 's an end at once

O' the revel in the fancy that Rome 's free,

And superstition's fettered, and one prints

Whate'er one pleases, and who pleases reads

The same, and speaks out and is spoken to,

And divers hundred thousand fools may vote

A vote untampered with by one wise man,

And so elect Barabbas deputy

In lieu of his concurrent. I who trace

The purpose written on the face of things,

For my behoof and guidance—(whoso needs

No such sustainment, sees beneath my signs,

Proves, what I take for writing, penmanship,

Scribble and flourish with no sense for me

O' the sort I solemnly go spelling out,—

Let him! there 's certain work of mine to show

Alongside his work: which gives warranty

Of shrewder vision in the workman—judge!)

I who trace Providence without a break

I' the plan of things, drop plumb on this plain print

Of an intention with a view to good,

That man is made in sympathy with man

At outset of existence, so to speak;

But in dissociation, more and more,

Man from his fellow, as their lives advance

In culture; still humanity, that 's born

A mass, keeps flying off, fining away

Ever into a multitude of points,

And ends in isolation, each from each:

Peerless above i' the sky, the pinnacle,—

Absolute contact, fusion, all below

At the base of being. How comes this about?

This stamp of God characterizing man

And nothing else but man in the universe—

That, while he feels with man (to use man's speech)

I' the little things of life, its fleshly wants

Of food and rest and health and happiness,

Its simplest spirit-motions, loves and hates,

Hopes, fears, soul-cravings on the ignoblest scale,

O' the fellow-creature,—owns the bond at base,—

He tends to freedom and divergency

In the upward progress, plays the pinnacle

When life 's at greatest (grant again the phrase!

Because there 's neither great nor small in life).

"Consult thou for thy kind that have the eyes

To see, the mouths to eat, the hands to work,

Men with the wives, and women with the babes!"

Prompts Nature. "Care thou for thyself alone

I' the conduct of the mind God made thee with!

Think, as if man had never thought before!

Act, as if all creation hung attent

On the acting of such faculty as thine,

To take prime pattern from thy masterpiece!"

Nature prompts also: neither law obeyed

To the uttermost by any heart and soul

We know or have in record: both of them

Acknowledged blindly by whatever man

We ever knew or heard of in this world.

"Will you have why and wherefore, and the fact

Made plain as pikestaff?" modern Science asks.

"That mass man sprung from was a jelly-lump

Once on a time; he kept an after-course

Through fish and insect, reptile, bird and beast,

Till he attained to be an ape at last

Or last but one. And if this doctrine shock

In aught the natural pride" ... Friend, banish fear,

The natural humility replies.

Do you suppose, even I, poor potentate,

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, who once ruled the roast,—

I was born able at all points to ply

My tools? or did I have to learn my trade,

Practise as exile ere perform as prince?

The world knows something of my ups and downs:

But grant me time, give me the management

And manufacture of a model me,

Me fifty-fold, a prince without a flaw,—

Why, there 's no social grade, the sordidest,

My embryo potentate should blink and 'scape.

King, all the better he was cobbler once,

He should know, sitting on the throne, how tastes

Life to who sweeps the doorway. But life 's hard,

Occasion rare; you cut probation short,

And, being half-instructed, on the stage

You shuffle through your part as best you can,

And bless your stars, as I do. God takes time.

I like the thought he should have lodged me once

I' the hole, the cave, the hut, the tenement,

The mansion and the palace; made me learn

The feel o' the first, before I found myself

Loftier i' the last, not more emancipate;

From first to last of lodging, I was I,

And not at all the place that harbored me.

Do I refuse to follow farther yet

I' the backwardness, repine if tree and flower,

Mountain or streamlet were my dwelling-place

Before I gained enlargement, grew mollusc?

As well account that way for many a thrill

Of kinship, I confess to, with the powers

Called Nature: animate, inanimate,

In parts or in the whole, there 's something there

Man-like that somehow meets the man in me.

My pulse goes altogether with the heart

O' the Persian, that old Xerxes, when he stayed

His march to conquest of the world, a day

I' the desert, for the sake of one superb

Plane-tree which queened it there in solitude:

Giving her neck its necklace, and each arm

Its armlet, suiting soft waist, snowy side,

With cincture and apparel. Yes, I lodged

In those successive tenements; perchance

Taste yet the straitness of them while I stretch

Limb and enjoy new liberty the more.

And some abodes are lost or ruinous;

Some, patched-up and pieced-out, and so transformed

They still accommodate the traveller

His day of lifetime. Oh, you count the links,

Descry no bar of the unbroken man?

Yes,—and who welds a lump of ore, suppose

He likes to make a chain and not a bar,

And reach by link on link, link small, link large,

Out to the due length—why, there 's forethought still

Outside o' the series, forging at one end,

While at the other there 's—no matter what

The kind of critical intelligence

Believing that last link had last but one

For parent, and no link was, first of all,

Fitted to anvil, hammered into shape.

Else, I accept the doctrine, and deduce

This duty, that I recognize mankind,

In all its height and depth and length and breadth.

Mankind i' the main have little wants, not large:

I, being of will and power to help, i' the main,

Mankind, must help the least wants first. My friend,

That is, my foe, without such power and will,

May plausibly concentrate all he wields,

And do his best at helping some large want,

Exceptionally noble cause, that's seen

Subordinate enough from where I stand.

As he helps, I helped once, when like himself,

Unable to help better, work more wide;

And so would work with heart and hand to-day;

Did only computists confess a fault,

And multiply the single score by five,

Five only, give man's life its hundred years.

Change life, in me shall follow change to match!

Time were then, to work here, there, everywhere,

By turns and try experiment at ease!

Full time to mend as well as mar: why wait

The slow and sober uprise all around

O' the building? Let us run up, right to roof,

Some sudden marvel, piece of perfectness,

And testify what we intend the whole!

Is the world losing patience? "Wait!" say we:

"There 's time: no generation needs to die

Unsolaced; you 've a century in store!"

But, no: I sadly let the voices wing

Their way i' the upper vacancy, nor test

Truth on this solid as I promised once.

Well, and what is there to be sad about?

The world 's the world, life 's life, and nothing else.

'T is part of life, a property to prize,

That those o' the higher sort engaged i' the world,

Should fancy they can change its ill to good,

Wrong to right, ugliness to beauty: find

Enough success in fancy turning fact,

To keep the sanguine kind in countenance

And justify the hope that busies them:

Failure enough,—to who can follow change

Beyond their vision, see new good prove ill

I' the consequence, see blacks and whites of life

Shift square indeed, but leave the checkered face

Unchanged i' the main,—failure enough for such,

To bid ambition keep the whole from change,

As their best service. I hope naught beside.

No, my brave thinkers, whom I recognize,

Gladly, myself the first, as, in a sense,

All that our world 's worth, flower and fruit of man!

Such minds myself award supremacy

Over the common insignificance,

When only Mind 's in question,—Body bows

To quite another government, you know.

Be Kant crowned king o' the castle in the air!

Hans Slouch—his own, and children's mouths to feed

I' the hovel on the ground—wants meat, nor chews

"The Critique of Pure Reason" in exchange.

But, now,—suppose I could allow your claims

And quite change life to please you,—would it please?

Would life comport with change and still be life?

Ask, now, a doctor for a remedy:

There 's his prescription. Bid him point you out

Which of the five or six ingredients saves

The sick man. "Such the efficacity?

Then why not dare and do things in one dose

Simple and pure, all virtue, no alloy

Of the idle drop and powder?" What 's his word?

The efficacity, neat, were neutralized:

It wants dispersing and retarding,—nay,

Is put upon its mettle, plays its part

Precisely through such hindrance everywhere,

Finds some mysterious give and take i' the case.

Some gain by opposition, he foregoes

Should he unfetter the medicament.

So with this thought of yours that fain would work

Free in the world: it wants just what it finds—

The ignorance, stupidity, the hate,

Envy and malice and uncharitableness

That bar your passage, break the flow of you

Down from those happy heights where many a cloud

Combined to give you birth and bid you be

The royalest of rivers: on you glide

Silverly till you reach the summit-edge,

Then over, on to all that ignorance,

Stupidity, hate, envy, bluffs and blocks,

Posted to fret you into foam and noise.

What of it? Up you mount in minute mist,

And bridge the chasm that, crushed your quietude,

A spirit-rainbow, earthborn jewelry

Outsparkling the insipid firmament

Blue above Terni and its orange-trees.

Do not mistake me! You, too, have your rights!

Hans must not burn Kant's house above his head

Because he cannot understand Kant's book:

And still less must Hans' pastor burn Kant's self

Because Kant understands some books too well.

But, justice seen to on this little point,

Answer me, is it manly, is it sage

To stop and struggle with arrangements here

It took so many lives, so much of toil,

To tinker up into efficiency?

Can't you contrive to operate at once,—

Since time is short and art is long,—to show

Your quality i' the world, whate'er you boast,

Without this fractious call on folks to crush

The world together just to set you free,

Admire the capers you will cut perchance,

Nor mind the mischief to your neighbors?

"Age!Age and experience bring discouragement,"You taunt me: I maintain the opposite.Am I discouraged who—perceiving health,Strength, beauty, as they tempt the eye of soul,Are uncombinable with flesh and blood—Resolve to let my body live its best,And leave my soul what better yet may beOr not be, in this life or afterward?—In either fortune, wiser than who waitsTill magic art procure a miracle.In virtue of my very confidenceMankind ought to outgrow its babyhood;I prescribe rocking, deprecate rough hands,While thus the cradle holds it past mistake.Indeed, my task 's the harder—equableSustainment everywhere, all strain, no push—Whereby friends credit me with indolence,Apathy, hesitation. "Stand stock-stillIf able to move briskly? 'All a-strain'—So must we compliment your passiveness?Sound asleep, rather!"

"Age!

Age and experience bring discouragement,"

You taunt me: I maintain the opposite.

Am I discouraged who—perceiving health,

Strength, beauty, as they tempt the eye of soul,

Are uncombinable with flesh and blood—

Resolve to let my body live its best,

And leave my soul what better yet may be

Or not be, in this life or afterward?

—In either fortune, wiser than who waits

Till magic art procure a miracle.

In virtue of my very confidence

Mankind ought to outgrow its babyhood;

I prescribe rocking, deprecate rough hands,

While thus the cradle holds it past mistake.

Indeed, my task 's the harder—equable

Sustainment everywhere, all strain, no push—

Whereby friends credit me with indolence,

Apathy, hesitation. "Stand stock-still

If able to move briskly? 'All a-strain'—

So must we compliment your passiveness?

Sound asleep, rather!"

Just the judgment passedUpon a statue, luckless like myself,I saw at Rome once! 'T was some artist's whimTo cover all the accessories closeI' the group, and leave you only LaocoönWith neither sons nor serpents to denoteThe purpose of his gesture. Then a crowdWas called to try the question, criticiseWherefore such energy of legs and arms,Nay, eyeballs, starting from the socket. One—I give him leave to write my history—Only one said, "I think the gesture strivesAgainst some obstacle we cannot see."All the rest made their minds up. "'T is a yawnOf sheer fatigue subsiding to repose:The statue 's 'Somnolency' clear enough!"

Just the judgment passed

Upon a statue, luckless like myself,

I saw at Rome once! 'T was some artist's whim

To cover all the accessories close

I' the group, and leave you only Laocoön

With neither sons nor serpents to denote

The purpose of his gesture. Then a crowd

Was called to try the question, criticise

Wherefore such energy of legs and arms,

Nay, eyeballs, starting from the socket. One—

I give him leave to write my history—

Only one said, "I think the gesture strives

Against some obstacle we cannot see."

All the rest made their minds up. "'T is a yawn

Of sheer fatigue subsiding to repose:

The statue 's 'Somnolency' clear enough!"

There, my arch stranger-friend, my audience bothAnd arbitress, you have one half your wish,At least: you know the thing I tried to do!All, so far, to my praise and glory—allTold as befits the self-apologist,—Who ever promises a candid sweepAnd clearance of those errors miscalled crimesNone knows more, none laments so much as he,And ever rises from confession, provedA god whose fault was—trying to be man.Just so, fair judge,—if I read smile aright—I condescend to figure in your eyesAs biggest heart and best of Europe's friends,And hence my failure. God will estimateSuccess one day; and, in the mean time—you!

There, my arch stranger-friend, my audience both

And arbitress, you have one half your wish,

At least: you know the thing I tried to do!

All, so far, to my praise and glory—all

Told as befits the self-apologist,—

Who ever promises a candid sweep

And clearance of those errors miscalled crimes

None knows more, none laments so much as he,

And ever rises from confession, proved

A god whose fault was—trying to be man.

Just so, fair judge,—if I read smile aright—

I condescend to figure in your eyes

As biggest heart and best of Europe's friends,

And hence my failure. God will estimate

Success one day; and, in the mean time—you!

I daresay there 's some fancy of the sortFrolicking round this final puff I sendTo die up yonder in the ceiling-rose,—Some consolation-stakes, we losers win!A plague of the return to "I—I—IDid this, meant that, hoped, feared the other thing!"Autobiography, adieu! The restShall make amends, be pure blame, historyAnd falsehood: not the ineffective truth,But Thiers-and-Victor-Hugo exercise.Hear what I never was, but might have beenI' the better world where goes tobacco-smoke!Here lie the dozen volumes of my life:(Did I say "lie"? the pregnant word will serve.)Cut on to the concluding chapter, though!Because the little hours begin to strike.Hurry Thiers-Hugo to the labor's end!

I daresay there 's some fancy of the sort

Frolicking round this final puff I send

To die up yonder in the ceiling-rose,—

Some consolation-stakes, we losers win!

A plague of the return to "I—I—I

Did this, meant that, hoped, feared the other thing!"

Autobiography, adieu! The rest

Shall make amends, be pure blame, history

And falsehood: not the ineffective truth,

But Thiers-and-Victor-Hugo exercise.

Hear what I never was, but might have been

I' the better world where goes tobacco-smoke!

Here lie the dozen volumes of my life:

(Did I say "lie"? the pregnant word will serve.)

Cut on to the concluding chapter, though!

Because the little hours begin to strike.

Hurry Thiers-Hugo to the labor's end!

Something like this the unwritten chapter reads.

Exemplify the situation thus!Hohenstiel-Schwangau, being, no dispute,Absolute mistress, chose the Assembly, first,To serve her: chose this man, its PresidentAfterward, to serve also,—speciallyTo see that folk did service one and all.And now the proper term of years was out,When the Head-servant must vacate his place;And nothing lay so patent to the worldAs that his fellow-servants one and allWere—mildly to make mention—knaves or fools,Each of them with his promise flourished fullI' the face of you by word and impudence,Or filtered slyly out by nod and winkAnd nudge upon your sympathetic rib—That not one minute more did knave or foolMean to keep faith and serve as he had swornHohenstiel-Schwangau, once her Head away.Why should such swear except to get the chance,When time should ripen and confusion bloom,Of putting Hohenstielers-SchwangaueseTo the true use of human property—Restoring souls and bodies, this to Pope,And that to King, that other to his plannedPerfection of a Share-and-share-alike,That other still, to Empire absoluteIn shape of the Head-servant's very selfTransformed to Master whole and sole? each schemeDiscussible, concede one circumstance—That each scheme's parent were, beside himself,Hohenstiel-Schwangau, not her serving-manSworn to do service in the way she choseRather than his way: way superlative,Only,—by some infatuation,—hisAnd his and his and every one's but hersWho stuck to just the Assembly and the Head.I make no doubt the Head, too, had his dreamOf doing sudden duty swift and sureOn all that heap of untrustworthiness—Catching each vaunter of the villanyHe meant to perpetrate when time was ripe,Once the Head-servant fairly out of doors,—And, caging here a knave and there a fool,Cry, "Mistress of your servants, these and me,Hohenstiel-Schwangau! I, their trusty Head,Pounce on a pretty scheme concocting hereThat's stopped, extinguished by my vigilance.Your property is safe again: but mark!Safe in these hands, not yours, who lavish trustToo lightly. Leave my hands their charge awhile!I know your business better than yourself:Let me alone about it! Some fine day,Once we are rid of the embarrassment,You shall look up and see your longings crowned!"Such fancy might have tempted him be false,But this man chose truth and was wiser so.He recognized that for great minds i' the worldThere is no trial like the appropriate oneOf leaving little minds their libertyOf littleness to blunder on through life,Now aiming at right ends by foolish means,Now, at absurd achievement through the aidOf good and wise endeavor—to acquiesceIn folly's life-long privilege, though with powerTo do the little minds the good they need,Despite themselves, by just abolishingTheir right to play the part and fill the placeI' the scheme of things He schemed who made alikeGreat minds and little minds, saw use for each.Could the orb sweep those puny particlesIt just half-lights at distance, hardly leadsI' the leash—sweep out each speck of them from spaceThey anticise in with their days and nightsAnd whirlings round and dancings off, forsooth,And all that fruitless individual lifeOne cannot lend a beam to but they spoil—Sweep them into itself and so, one star,Preponderate henceforth i' the heritageOf heaven! No! in less senatorial phrase,The man endured to help, not save outrightThe multitude by substituting himFor them, his knowledge, will and way, for God's:Nor change the world, such as it is, and wasAnd will be, for some other, suiting allExcept the purpose of the maker. No!He saw that weakness, wickedness will be,And therefore should be: that the perfect man,As we account perfection—at most pureO' the special gold, whate'er the form it take,Head-work or heart-work, fined and thrice-refinedI' the crucible of life, whereto the powersOf the refiner, one and all, are flungTo feed the flame, he saw that e'en the block,Such perfect man holds out triumphant, breaksInto some poisonous ore, gold's opposite,At the very purest, so compensatingMan's Adversary—what if we believe?For earlier stern exclusion of his stuff.See the sage, with the hunger for the truth,And see his system that's all true, exceptThe one weak place that's stanchioned by a lie!The moralist, who walks with head erectI' the crystal clarity of air so long,Until a stumble, and the man's one mire!Philanthropy undoes the social knotWith axe-edge, makes love room 'twixt head and trunk:Religion—but, enough, the thing's too clear!Well, if these sparks break out i' the greenest tree,Our topmost of performance, yours and mine,What will be done i' the dry ineptitudeOf ordinary mankind, bark and bole,All seems ashamed of but their mother-earth?Therefore throughout Head's term of servitudeHe did the appointed service, and foreboreExtraneous action that were duty else,Done by some other servant, idle nowOr mischievous: no matter, each his own—Own task, and, in the end, own praise or blame!He suffered them strut, prate, and brag their best,Squabble at odds on every point save one,And there shake hands,—agree to trifle time,Obstruct advance with, each, his cricket-cry,"Wait till the Head be off the shoulders here!Then comes my King, my Pope, my Autocrat,My Socialist Republic to her own—To-wit, that property of only me,Hohenstiel-Schwangau who conceits herselfFree, forsooth, and expects I keep her so!"—Nay, suffered when, perceiving with dismayHead's silence paid no tribute to their noise,They turned on him. "Dumb menace in that mouth,Malice in that unstridulosity!He cannot but intend some stroke of stateShall signalize his passage into peaceOut of the creaking,—hinder transferenceO' the Hohenstielers-Schwangauese to king,Pope, autocrat, or socialist republic! That 'sExact the cause his lips unlocked would cry!Therefore be stirring: brave, beard, bully him!Dock, by the million, of its friendly joints,The electoral body short at once! who did,May do again, and undo us beside;Wrest from his hands the sword for self-defence,The right to parry any thrust in playWe peradventure please to meditate!"And so forth; creak, creak, creak: and ne'er a lineHis locked mouth oped the wider, till at lastO' the long degraded and insulting day,Sudden the clock told it was judgment-time.Then he addressed himself to speak indeedTo the fools, not knaves: they saw him walk straight downEach step of the eminence, as he first engaged,And stand at last o' the level,—all he swore."People, and not the people's varletry,This is the task you set myself and these!Thus I performed my part of it, and thusThey thwarted me throughout, here, here and here:Study each instance! yours the loss, not mine.What they intend now is demonstrableAs plainly: here's such man, and here's such modeOf making you some other than the thingYou, wisely or unwisely, choose to be,And only set him up to keep you so.Do you approve this? Yours the loss, not mine.Do you condemn it? There 's a remedy.Take me—who know your mind, and mean your good.With clearer brain and stouter arm than they,Or you, or haply anybody else—And make me master for the moment! ChooseWhat time, what power you trust me with: I tooWill choose as frankly ere I trust myselfWith time and power: they must be adequateTo the end and aim, since mine the loss, with yours,If means be wanting; once their worth approved,Grant them, and I shall forthwith operate—Ponder it well!—to the extremist stretchO' the power you trust me: if with unsuccess,God wills it, and there 's nobody to blame."

Exemplify the situation thus!

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, being, no dispute,

Absolute mistress, chose the Assembly, first,

To serve her: chose this man, its President

Afterward, to serve also,—specially

To see that folk did service one and all.

And now the proper term of years was out,

When the Head-servant must vacate his place;

And nothing lay so patent to the world

As that his fellow-servants one and all

Were—mildly to make mention—knaves or fools,

Each of them with his promise flourished full

I' the face of you by word and impudence,

Or filtered slyly out by nod and wink

And nudge upon your sympathetic rib—

That not one minute more did knave or fool

Mean to keep faith and serve as he had sworn

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, once her Head away.

Why should such swear except to get the chance,

When time should ripen and confusion bloom,

Of putting Hohenstielers-Schwangauese

To the true use of human property—

Restoring souls and bodies, this to Pope,

And that to King, that other to his planned

Perfection of a Share-and-share-alike,

That other still, to Empire absolute

In shape of the Head-servant's very self

Transformed to Master whole and sole? each scheme

Discussible, concede one circumstance—

That each scheme's parent were, beside himself,

Hohenstiel-Schwangau, not her serving-man

Sworn to do service in the way she chose

Rather than his way: way superlative,

Only,—by some infatuation,—his

And his and his and every one's but hers

Who stuck to just the Assembly and the Head.

I make no doubt the Head, too, had his dream

Of doing sudden duty swift and sure

On all that heap of untrustworthiness—

Catching each vaunter of the villany

He meant to perpetrate when time was ripe,

Once the Head-servant fairly out of doors,—

And, caging here a knave and there a fool,

Cry, "Mistress of your servants, these and me,

Hohenstiel-Schwangau! I, their trusty Head,

Pounce on a pretty scheme concocting here

That's stopped, extinguished by my vigilance.

Your property is safe again: but mark!

Safe in these hands, not yours, who lavish trust

Too lightly. Leave my hands their charge awhile!

I know your business better than yourself:

Let me alone about it! Some fine day,

Once we are rid of the embarrassment,

You shall look up and see your longings crowned!"

Such fancy might have tempted him be false,

But this man chose truth and was wiser so.

He recognized that for great minds i' the world

There is no trial like the appropriate one

Of leaving little minds their liberty

Of littleness to blunder on through life,

Now aiming at right ends by foolish means,

Now, at absurd achievement through the aid

Of good and wise endeavor—to acquiesce

In folly's life-long privilege, though with power

To do the little minds the good they need,

Despite themselves, by just abolishing

Their right to play the part and fill the place

I' the scheme of things He schemed who made alike

Great minds and little minds, saw use for each.

Could the orb sweep those puny particles

It just half-lights at distance, hardly leads

I' the leash—sweep out each speck of them from space

They anticise in with their days and nights

And whirlings round and dancings off, forsooth,

And all that fruitless individual life

One cannot lend a beam to but they spoil—

Sweep them into itself and so, one star,

Preponderate henceforth i' the heritage

Of heaven! No! in less senatorial phrase,

The man endured to help, not save outright

The multitude by substituting him

For them, his knowledge, will and way, for God's:

Nor change the world, such as it is, and was

And will be, for some other, suiting all

Except the purpose of the maker. No!

He saw that weakness, wickedness will be,

And therefore should be: that the perfect man,

As we account perfection—at most pure

O' the special gold, whate'er the form it take,

Head-work or heart-work, fined and thrice-refined

I' the crucible of life, whereto the powers

Of the refiner, one and all, are flung

To feed the flame, he saw that e'en the block,

Such perfect man holds out triumphant, breaks

Into some poisonous ore, gold's opposite,

At the very purest, so compensating

Man's Adversary—what if we believe?

For earlier stern exclusion of his stuff.

See the sage, with the hunger for the truth,

And see his system that's all true, except

The one weak place that's stanchioned by a lie!

The moralist, who walks with head erect

I' the crystal clarity of air so long,

Until a stumble, and the man's one mire!

Philanthropy undoes the social knot

With axe-edge, makes love room 'twixt head and trunk:

Religion—but, enough, the thing's too clear!

Well, if these sparks break out i' the greenest tree,

Our topmost of performance, yours and mine,

What will be done i' the dry ineptitude

Of ordinary mankind, bark and bole,

All seems ashamed of but their mother-earth?

Therefore throughout Head's term of servitude

He did the appointed service, and forebore

Extraneous action that were duty else,

Done by some other servant, idle now

Or mischievous: no matter, each his own—

Own task, and, in the end, own praise or blame!

He suffered them strut, prate, and brag their best,

Squabble at odds on every point save one,

And there shake hands,—agree to trifle time,

Obstruct advance with, each, his cricket-cry,

"Wait till the Head be off the shoulders here!

Then comes my King, my Pope, my Autocrat,

My Socialist Republic to her own—

To-wit, that property of only me,

Hohenstiel-Schwangau who conceits herself

Free, forsooth, and expects I keep her so!"

—Nay, suffered when, perceiving with dismay

Head's silence paid no tribute to their noise,

They turned on him. "Dumb menace in that mouth,

Malice in that unstridulosity!

He cannot but intend some stroke of state

Shall signalize his passage into peace

Out of the creaking,—hinder transference

O' the Hohenstielers-Schwangauese to king,

Pope, autocrat, or socialist republic! That 's

Exact the cause his lips unlocked would cry!

Therefore be stirring: brave, beard, bully him!

Dock, by the million, of its friendly joints,

The electoral body short at once! who did,

May do again, and undo us beside;

Wrest from his hands the sword for self-defence,

The right to parry any thrust in play

We peradventure please to meditate!"

And so forth; creak, creak, creak: and ne'er a line

His locked mouth oped the wider, till at last

O' the long degraded and insulting day,

Sudden the clock told it was judgment-time.

Then he addressed himself to speak indeed

To the fools, not knaves: they saw him walk straight down

Each step of the eminence, as he first engaged,

And stand at last o' the level,—all he swore.

"People, and not the people's varletry,

This is the task you set myself and these!

Thus I performed my part of it, and thus

They thwarted me throughout, here, here and here:

Study each instance! yours the loss, not mine.

What they intend now is demonstrable

As plainly: here's such man, and here's such mode

Of making you some other than the thing

You, wisely or unwisely, choose to be,

And only set him up to keep you so.

Do you approve this? Yours the loss, not mine.

Do you condemn it? There 's a remedy.

Take me—who know your mind, and mean your good.

With clearer brain and stouter arm than they,

Or you, or haply anybody else—

And make me master for the moment! Choose

What time, what power you trust me with: I too

Will choose as frankly ere I trust myself

With time and power: they must be adequate

To the end and aim, since mine the loss, with yours,

If means be wanting; once their worth approved,

Grant them, and I shall forthwith operate—

Ponder it well!—to the extremist stretch

O' the power you trust me: if with unsuccess,

God wills it, and there 's nobody to blame."

Whereon the people answered with a shout,"The trusty one! no tricksters any more!"How could they other? He was in his place.

Whereon the people answered with a shout,

"The trusty one! no tricksters any more!"

How could they other? He was in his place.

What followed? Just what he foresaw, what provedThe soundness of both judgments,—his, o' the knavesAnd fools, each trickster with his dupe,—and theirs,The people's, in what head and arm could help.There was uprising, masks dropped, flags unfurled,Weapons outflourished in the wind, my faith!Heavily did he let his fist fall plumbOn each perturber of the public peace,No matter whose the wagging head it broke—From bald-pate craft and greed and impudenceOf night-hawk at first chance to prowl and preyFor glory and a little gain beside,Passing for eagle in the dusk of the age,—To florid head-top, foamy patriotismAnd tribunitial daring, breast laid bareThrough confidence in rectitude, with handOn private pistol in the pocket: theseAnd all the dupes of these, who lent themselvesAs dust and feather do, to help offenceO' the wind that whirls them at you, then subsidesIn safety somewhere, leaving filth afloat,Annoyance you may brush from eyes and beard,—These he stopped: bade the wind's spite howl or whineIts worst outside the building, wind conceivesMeant to be pulled together and becomeIts natural playground so. What foolishnessOf dust or feather proved importunateAnd fell 'twixt thumb and finger, found them gripeTo detriment of bulk and buoyancy.Then followed silence and submission. Next,The inevitable comment came on workAnd work's cost: he was censured as profuseOf human life and liberty: too swiftAnd thorough his procedure, who had laggedAt the outset, lost the opportunityThrough timid scruples as to right and wrong."There 's no such certain mark of a small mind"(So did Sagacity explain the fault)"As when it needs must square away and sinkTo its own small dimensions, private scaleOf right and wrong,—humanity i' the large,The right and wrong of the universe, forsooth!This man addressed himself to guard and guideHohenstiel-Schwangau. When the case demandsHe frustrate villany in the egg, unhatched,With easy stamp and minimum of pangE'en to the punished reptile, 'There 's my oathRestrains my foot,' objects our guide and guard,'I must leave guardianship and guidance now:Rather than stretch one handbreadth of the law,I am bound to see it break from end to end.First show me death i' the body politic:Then prescribe pill and potion, what may pleaseHohenstiel-Schwangau! all is for her sake:'T was she ordained my service should be so.What if the event demonstrate her unwise,If she unwill the thing she willed before?I hold to the letter and obey the bondAnd leave her to perdition loyally.'Whence followed thrice the expenditure we blameOf human life and liberty: for wantO' the by-blow, came deliberate butcher's-work!"

What followed? Just what he foresaw, what proved

The soundness of both judgments,—his, o' the knaves

And fools, each trickster with his dupe,—and theirs,

The people's, in what head and arm could help.

There was uprising, masks dropped, flags unfurled,

Weapons outflourished in the wind, my faith!

Heavily did he let his fist fall plumb

On each perturber of the public peace,

No matter whose the wagging head it broke—

From bald-pate craft and greed and impudence

Of night-hawk at first chance to prowl and prey

For glory and a little gain beside,

Passing for eagle in the dusk of the age,—

To florid head-top, foamy patriotism

And tribunitial daring, breast laid bare

Through confidence in rectitude, with hand

On private pistol in the pocket: these

And all the dupes of these, who lent themselves

As dust and feather do, to help offence

O' the wind that whirls them at you, then subsides

In safety somewhere, leaving filth afloat,

Annoyance you may brush from eyes and beard,—

These he stopped: bade the wind's spite howl or whine

Its worst outside the building, wind conceives

Meant to be pulled together and become

Its natural playground so. What foolishness

Of dust or feather proved importunate

And fell 'twixt thumb and finger, found them gripe

To detriment of bulk and buoyancy.

Then followed silence and submission. Next,

The inevitable comment came on work

And work's cost: he was censured as profuse

Of human life and liberty: too swift

And thorough his procedure, who had lagged

At the outset, lost the opportunity

Through timid scruples as to right and wrong.

"There 's no such certain mark of a small mind"

(So did Sagacity explain the fault)

"As when it needs must square away and sink

To its own small dimensions, private scale

Of right and wrong,—humanity i' the large,

The right and wrong of the universe, forsooth!

This man addressed himself to guard and guide

Hohenstiel-Schwangau. When the case demands

He frustrate villany in the egg, unhatched,

With easy stamp and minimum of pang

E'en to the punished reptile, 'There 's my oath

Restrains my foot,' objects our guide and guard,

'I must leave guardianship and guidance now:

Rather than stretch one handbreadth of the law,

I am bound to see it break from end to end.

First show me death i' the body politic:

Then prescribe pill and potion, what may please

Hohenstiel-Schwangau! all is for her sake:

'T was she ordained my service should be so.

What if the event demonstrate her unwise,

If she unwill the thing she willed before?

I hold to the letter and obey the bond

And leave her to perdition loyally.'

Whence followed thrice the expenditure we blame

Of human life and liberty: for want

O' the by-blow, came deliberate butcher's-work!"

"Elsewhere go carry your complaint!" bade he."Least, largest, there 's one law for all the minds,Here or above: be true at any price!'T is just o' the great scale, that such happy strokeOf falsehood would be found a failure. TruthStill stands unshaken at her base by me,Reigns paramount i' the world, for the large goodO' the long late generations,—I and youForgotten like this buried foolishness!Not so the good I rooted in its grave."

"Elsewhere go carry your complaint!" bade he.

"Least, largest, there 's one law for all the minds,

Here or above: be true at any price!

'T is just o' the great scale, that such happy stroke

Of falsehood would be found a failure. Truth

Still stands unshaken at her base by me,

Reigns paramount i' the world, for the large good

O' the long late generations,—I and you

Forgotten like this buried foolishness!

Not so the good I rooted in its grave."

This is why he refused to break his oath,Rather appealed to the people, gained the powerTo act as he thought best, then used it, onceFor all, no matter what the consequenceTo knaves and fools. As thus began his sway,So, through its twenty years, one rule of rightSufficed him: govern for the many first,The poor mean multitude, all mouths and eyes:Bid the few, better favored in the brain,Be patient, nor presume on privilege,Help him or else be quiet,—never craveThat he help them,—increase, forsooth, the gulfYawning so terribly 'twixt mind and mindI' the world here, which his purpose was to blockAt bottom, were it by an inch, and bridge,If by a filament, no more, at top.Equalize things a little! And the wayHe took to work that purpose out, was plainEnough to intellect and honestyAnd—superstition, style it if you please,So long as you allow there was no lackO' the quality imperative in man—Reverence. You see deeper? thus saw he,And by the light he saw, must walk: how elseWas he to do his part? a man's, with mightAnd main, and not a faintest touch of fear,Sure he was in the hand of God who comesBefore and after, with a work to doWhich no man helps nor hinders. Thus the man,—So timid when the business was to touchThe uncertain order of humanity,Imperil, for a problematic cureOf grievance on the surface, any goodI' the deep of things, dim yet discernible,—This same man, so irresolute before,Show him a true excrescence to cut sheer,A devil's graft on God's foundation-stock,Then—no complaint of indecision more!He wrenched out the whole canker, root and branch,Deaf to who cried that earth would tumble inAt its four corners if he touched a twig.Witness that lie of lies, arch-infamy,When the Republic, with her life involvedIn just this law—"Each people rules itselfIts own way, not as any stranger please"—Turned, and for first proof she was living, badeHohenstiel-Schwangau fasten on the throatOf the first neighbor that claimed benefitO' the law herself established: "HohenstielFor Hohenstielers! Rome, by parityOf reasoning, for Romans? That 's a jestWants proper treatment,—lancet—puncture suitsThe proud flesh: Rome ape Hohenstiel forsooth!"And so the siege and slaughter and successWhereof we nothing doubt that HohenstielWill have to pay the price, in God's good time.Which does not always fall on SaturdayWhen the world looks for wages. Anyhow,He found this infamy triumphant. Well:Sagacity suggested, make this speech!"The work was none of mine: suppose wrong wait,Stand over for redressing? Mine for me,My predecessors' work on their own head!Meantime, there 's plain advantage, should we leaveThings as we find them. Keep Rome manacledHand and foot: no fear of unruliness!Her foes consent to even seem our friendsSo long, no longer. Then, there 's glory gotBy boldness and bravado to the world:The disconcerted world must grin and bearThe old saucy writing,—'Grunt thereat who may,So shall things be, for such my pleasure is—Hohenstiel-Schwangau's.' How that reads in Rome,I' the capitol where Brennus broke his pate,And lends a flourish to our journalists!"Only, it was nor read nor flourished of,Since, not a moment did such glory stayExcision of the canker! Out it came,Root and branch, with much roaring, and some blood,And plentiful abuse of him from friendAnd foe. Who cared? Not Nature, who assuagedThe pain and set the patient on his legsPromptly: the better! had it been the worse,'T is Nature you must try conclusions with,Not he, since nursing canker kills the sickFor certain, while to cut may cure, at least."Ah," groaned a second time Sagacity,"Again the little mind, precipitate,Rash, rude, when even in the right, as here!The great mind knows the power of gentleness,Only tries force because persuasion fails.Had this man, by prelusive trumpet-blast,Signified, 'Truth and Justice mean to come,Nay, fast approach your threshold! Ere they knock,See that the house be set in order, sweptAnd garnished, windows shut, and doors thrown wide!The free State comes to visit the free Church:Receive her! or ... or ... never mind what else!'Thus moral suasion heralding brute force,How had he seen the old abuses die,And new life kindle here, there, everywhere,Roused simply by that mild yet potent spell—Beyond or beat of drum or stroke of sword—Public opinion!"

This is why he refused to break his oath,

Rather appealed to the people, gained the power

To act as he thought best, then used it, once

For all, no matter what the consequence

To knaves and fools. As thus began his sway,

So, through its twenty years, one rule of right

Sufficed him: govern for the many first,

The poor mean multitude, all mouths and eyes:

Bid the few, better favored in the brain,

Be patient, nor presume on privilege,

Help him or else be quiet,—never crave

That he help them,—increase, forsooth, the gulf

Yawning so terribly 'twixt mind and mind

I' the world here, which his purpose was to block

At bottom, were it by an inch, and bridge,

If by a filament, no more, at top.

Equalize things a little! And the way

He took to work that purpose out, was plain

Enough to intellect and honesty

And—superstition, style it if you please,

So long as you allow there was no lack

O' the quality imperative in man—

Reverence. You see deeper? thus saw he,

And by the light he saw, must walk: how else

Was he to do his part? a man's, with might

And main, and not a faintest touch of fear,

Sure he was in the hand of God who comes

Before and after, with a work to do

Which no man helps nor hinders. Thus the man,—

So timid when the business was to touch

The uncertain order of humanity,

Imperil, for a problematic cure

Of grievance on the surface, any good

I' the deep of things, dim yet discernible,—

This same man, so irresolute before,

Show him a true excrescence to cut sheer,

A devil's graft on God's foundation-stock,

Then—no complaint of indecision more!

He wrenched out the whole canker, root and branch,

Deaf to who cried that earth would tumble in

At its four corners if he touched a twig.

Witness that lie of lies, arch-infamy,

When the Republic, with her life involved

In just this law—"Each people rules itself

Its own way, not as any stranger please"—

Turned, and for first proof she was living, bade

Hohenstiel-Schwangau fasten on the throat

Of the first neighbor that claimed benefit

O' the law herself established: "Hohenstiel

For Hohenstielers! Rome, by parity

Of reasoning, for Romans? That 's a jest

Wants proper treatment,—lancet—puncture suits

The proud flesh: Rome ape Hohenstiel forsooth!"

And so the siege and slaughter and success

Whereof we nothing doubt that Hohenstiel

Will have to pay the price, in God's good time.

Which does not always fall on Saturday

When the world looks for wages. Anyhow,

He found this infamy triumphant. Well:

Sagacity suggested, make this speech!

"The work was none of mine: suppose wrong wait,

Stand over for redressing? Mine for me,

My predecessors' work on their own head!

Meantime, there 's plain advantage, should we leave

Things as we find them. Keep Rome manacled

Hand and foot: no fear of unruliness!

Her foes consent to even seem our friends

So long, no longer. Then, there 's glory got

By boldness and bravado to the world:

The disconcerted world must grin and bear

The old saucy writing,—'Grunt thereat who may,

So shall things be, for such my pleasure is—

Hohenstiel-Schwangau's.' How that reads in Rome,

I' the capitol where Brennus broke his pate,

And lends a flourish to our journalists!"

Only, it was nor read nor flourished of,

Since, not a moment did such glory stay

Excision of the canker! Out it came,

Root and branch, with much roaring, and some blood,

And plentiful abuse of him from friend

And foe. Who cared? Not Nature, who assuaged

The pain and set the patient on his legs

Promptly: the better! had it been the worse,

'T is Nature you must try conclusions with,

Not he, since nursing canker kills the sick

For certain, while to cut may cure, at least.

"Ah," groaned a second time Sagacity,

"Again the little mind, precipitate,

Rash, rude, when even in the right, as here!

The great mind knows the power of gentleness,

Only tries force because persuasion fails.

Had this man, by prelusive trumpet-blast,

Signified, 'Truth and Justice mean to come,

Nay, fast approach your threshold! Ere they knock,

See that the house be set in order, swept

And garnished, windows shut, and doors thrown wide!

The free State comes to visit the free Church:

Receive her! or ... or ... never mind what else!'

Thus moral suasion heralding brute force,

How had he seen the old abuses die,

And new life kindle here, there, everywhere,

Roused simply by that mild yet potent spell—

Beyond or beat of drum or stroke of sword—

Public opinion!"

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