IAy, this same midnight, by this chair of mine,Come and review thy counsels: art thou stillStanch to their teaching?—not as fools opineIts purport might be, but as subtler skillCould, through turbidity, the loaded lineOf logic casting, sound deep, deeper, tillIt touched a quietude and reached a shrineAnd recognized harmoniously combineEvil with good, and hailed truth's triumph.—thine,Sage dead long since, Bernard de Mandeville!IIOnly, 't is no fresh knowledge that I crave,Fuller truth yet, new gainings from the grave;Here we alive must needs deal fairly, turnTo what account Man may Man's portion, learnMan's proper play with truth in part, beforeEntrusted with the whole. I ask no moreThan smiling witness that I do my bestWith doubtful doctrine: afterwards the rest!So, silent face me while I think and speak!A full disclosure? Such would outrage law.Law deals the same with soul and body: seekFull truth my soul may, when some babe, I sawA new-born weakling, starts up strong—not weak—Man every whit, absolved from earning awe,Pride, rapture, if the soul attains to wreakIts will on flesh, at last can thrust, lift, draw,As mind bids muscle—mind which long has striven,Painfully urging body's impotenceTo effort whereby—once law's barrier riven,Life's rule abolished—body might dispenseWith infancy's probation, straight be given—Not by foiled darings, fond attempts back-driven,Fine faults of growth, brave sins which saint when shriven—To stand full-statured in magnificence.IIINo: as with body so deals law with soulThat 's stung to strength through weakness, strives for goodThrough evil,—earth its race-ground, heaven its goal,Presumably: so far I understoodThy teaching long ago. But what means this—Objected by a mouth which yesterdayWas magisterial in antithesisTo half the truths we hold, or trust we may,Though tremblingly the while? "No sign"—groaned he—"No stirring of God's finger to denoteHe wills that right should have supremacyOn earth, not wrong! How helpful could we quoteBut one poor instance when he interposedPromptly and surely and beyond mistakeBetween oppression and its victim, closedAccounts with sin for once, and bade us wakeFrom our long dream that justice bears no sword,Or else forgets whereto its sharpness serves!So might we safely mock at what unnervesFaith now, be spared the sapping fear's increaseThat haply evil's strife with good shall ceaseNever on earth. Nay, after earth, comes peaceBorn out of life-long battle? Man's lip curvesWith scorn: there, also, what if justice swervesFrom dealing doom, sets free by no swift strokeRight fettered here by wrong, but leaves life's yoke—Death should loose man from—fresh laid, past release?"IVBernard de Mandeville, confute for meThis parlous friend who captured or set freeThunderbolts at his pleasure, yet would drawBack, panic-stricken by some puny strawThy gold-rimmed amber-headed cane had whiskedOut of his pathway if the object riskedEncounter, 'scaped thy kick from buckled shoe!As when folk heard thee in old days pooh-poohAddison's tye-wig preachment, grant this friend—(Whose groan I hear, with guffaw at the endDisposing of mock-melancholy)—grantHis bilious mood one potion, ministrantOf homely wisdom, healthy wit! For, hear!"With power and will, let preference appearBy intervention ever and aye, help goodWhen evil's mastery is understoodIn some plain outrage, and triumphant wrongTramples weak right to nothingness: nay, longEre such sad consummation brings despairTo right's adherents, ah, what help it wereIf wrong lay strangled in the birth—each headOf the hatched monster promptly crushed, insteadOf spared to gather venom! We requireNo great experience that the inch-long worm,Free of our heel, would grow to vomit fire,And one day plague the world in dragon form.So should wrong merely peep abroad to meetWrong's due quietus, leave our world's way safeFor honest walking."VSage, once more repeatInstruction! 'T is a sore to soothe not chafe.Ah, Fabulist, what luck, could I contriveTo coax from thee another "Grumbling Hive"!My friend himself wrote fables short and sweet:Ask him—"Suppose the Gardener of Man's groundPlants for a purpose, side by side with good,Evil—(and that he does so—look around!What does the field show?)—were it understoodThat purposely the noxious plant was foundVexing the virtuous, poison close to food,If, at first stealing-forth of life in stalkAnd leaflet-promise, quick his spud should balkEvil from budding foliage, bearing fruit?Such timely treatment of the offending rootMight strike the simple as wise husbandry,But swift sure extirpation would scarce suitShrewder observers. Seed once sown thrives: whyFrustrate its product, miss the qualityWhich sower binds himself to count upon?Had seed fulfilled the destined purpose, goneUnhindered up to harvest—what know IBut proof were gained that every growth of goodSprang consequent on evil's neighborhood?"So said your shrewdness: true—so did not sayThat other sort of theorists who heldMere unintelligence prepared the wayFor either seed's upsprouting: you repelledTheir notion that both kinds could sow themselves.True! but admit 't is understanding delvesAnd drops each germ, what else but folly thwartsThe doer's settled purpose? Let the sageConcede a use to evil, though there startsFull many a burgeon thence, to disengageWith thumb and finger lest it spoil the yieldToo much of good's main tribute! But our mainTough-tendoned mandrake-monster—purge the fieldOf him for once and all? It follows plainWho set him there to grow beholds repealedHis primal law: his ordinance proves vain:And what beseems a king who cannot reign,But to drop sceptre valid arm should wield?VI"Still there 's a parable"—retorts my friend—"Shows agriculture with a difference!What of the crop and weeds which solely blendBecause, once planted, none may pluck them thence?The Gardener contrived thus? Vain pretence!An enemy it was who unawaresRuined the wheat by interspersing tares.Where 's our desiderated forethought? Where 'sKnowledge, where power and will in evidence?'T is Man's-play merely! Craft foils rectitude,Malignity defeats beneficence.And grant, at very last of all, the feud'Twixt good and evil ends, strange thoughts intrudeThough good be garnered safely, and good's foeBundled for burning. Thoughts steal: 'Even so—Why grant tares leave to thus o'ertop, o'ertowerTheir field-mate, boast the stalk and flaunt the flower,Triumph one sunny minute? Knowledge, power,And will thus worked?' Man's fancy makes the fault!Man, with the narrow mind, must cram insideHis finite God's infinitude,—earth's vaultHe bids comprise the heavenly far and wide,Since Man may claim a right to understandWhat passes understanding. So, succinctAnd trimly set in order, to be scannedAnd scrutinized, lo—the divine lies linkedFast to the human, free to move as movesIts proper match: awhile they keep the grooves,Discreetly side by side together pace,Till sudden comes a stumble incidentLikely enough to Man's weak-footed race,And he discovers—wings in rudiment,Such as he boasts, which full-grown, free-distentWould lift him skyward, fail of flight while pentWithin humanity's restricted space.Abjure each fond attempt to representThe formless, the illimitable! TraceNo outline, try no hint of human faceOr form or hand!"VIIFriend, here 's a tracing meantTo help a guess at truth you never knew.Bend but those eyes now, using mind's eye too,And note—sufficient for all purposes—The ground-plan—map you long have yearned for—yes,Make out in markings—more what artist can?—Goethe's Estate in Weimar,—just a plan!Ais the House, andBthe Garden-gate,AndCthe Grass-plot—you 've the whole estateLetter by letter, down toYthe Pond,AndZthe Pigsty. Do you look beyondThe algebraic signs, and captions say"IsAthe House? But where 's the Roof toA,Where 's Door, where 's Window? Needs must House have such!"Ay, that were folly. Why so very muchMore foolish than our mortal purblind wayOf seeking in the symbol no mere pointTo guide our gaze through what were else inane,But things—their solid selves? "Is, joint by joint,Orion man-like,—as these dots explainHis constellation? Flesh composed of suns—How can such be?" exclaim the simple ones.Look through the sign to the thing signified—Shown nowise, point by point at best descried,Each an orb's topmost sparkle: all besideIts shine is shadow: turn the orb one jot—Up flies the new flash to reveal 't was notThe whole sphere late flamboyant in your ken!VIII"What need of symbolizing? Fitlier menWould take on tongue mere facts—few, faint and far,Still facts not fancies: quite enough they are,That Power, that Knowledge, and that Will,—add thenImmensity, Eternity: these jarNowise with our permitted thought and speech.Why human attributes?"A myth may teach:Only, who better would expound it thusMust be Euripides, not Æschylus.IXBoundingly up through Night's wall dense and dark,Embattled crags and clouds, outbroke the SunAbove the conscious earth, and one by oneHer heights and depths absorbed to the last sparkHis fluid glory, from the far fine ridgeOf mountain-granite which, transformed to gold,Laughed first the thanks back, to the vale's dusk foldOn fold of vapor-swathing, like a bridgeShattered beneath some giant's stamp. Night wistHer work done and betook herself in mistTo marsh and hollow, there to bide her timeBlindly in acquiescence. EverywhereDid earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime,Thrilling her to the heart of things: since thereNo ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew,No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grewGlad through the inrush—glad nor more nor lessThan, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness,Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread,The universal world of creatures bredBy Sun's munificence, alike gave praise—All creatures but one only: gaze for gaze,Joyless and thankless, who—all scowling can—Protests against the innumerous praises? Man,Sullen and silent.Stand thou forth then, stateThy wrong, thou sole aggrieved—disconsolate—While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gayAnd glad acknowledges the bounteous day!XMan speaks now: "What avails Sun's earth-felt thrillTo me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant—They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skillHe interfuses fly, worm, brute, untilEach favored object pays life's ministrantBy pressing, in obedience to his will,Up to completion of the task prescribed,So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibedSuch influence also, stood and stand complete—The perfect Man,—head, body, hands and feet,True to the pattern: but does that suffice?How of my superadded mind which needs—Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleadsFor—more than knowledge that by some deviceSun quickens matter: mind is nobly fainTo realize the marvel, make—for senseAs mind—the unseen visible, condense—Myself—Sun's all-pervading influenceSo as to serve the needs of mind, explainWhat now perplexes. Let the oak increaseHis corrugated strength on strength, the palmLift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,—Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,—The eagle, like some skyey derelict,Drift in the blue, suspended, glorying,—The lion lord it by the desert-spring,—What know or care they of the power which prickedNothingness to perfection? I, instead,When all-developed still am found a thingAll-incomplete: for what though flesh had forceTranscending theirs—hands able to unringThe tightened snake's coil, eyes that could out-courseThe eagle's soaring, voice whereat the kingOf carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see,Touch, understand, by mind inside of me,The outside mind—whose quickening I attainTo recognize—I only. All in vainWould mind address itself to render plainThe nature of the essence. Drag what lurksBehind the operation—that which worksLatently everywhere by outward proof—Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloofI solely crave that one of all the beamsWhich do Sun's work in darkness, at my willShould operate—myself for once have skillTo realize the energy which streamsFlooding the universe. Above, around,Beneath—why mocks that mind my own thus foundSimply of service, when the world grows dark,To half-surmise—were Sun's use understood,I might demonstrate him supplying food,Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one sparkMyself may deal with—make it thaw my bloodAnd prompt my steps, were truer to the markOf mind's requirement than a half-surmiseThat somehow secretly is operant,A power all matter feels, mind only triesTo comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' MysteriesAt source why probe into? Enough: display,Make demonstrable, how, by night as day,Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all 's informedEqually by Sun's efflux!—source from whenceIf just one spark I drew, full evidenceWere mine of fire ineffably enthroned—Sun's self made palpable to Man!"XIThus moanedMan till Prometheus helped him,—as we learn,—Offered an artifice whereby he drewSun's rays into a focus,—plain and true,The very Sun in little: made fire burnAnd henceforth do Man service—glass-conglobedThough to a pin-point circle—all the sameComprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobedOf that else-unconceived essential flameBorne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye striveAchingly to companion as it mayThe supersubtle effluence, and contriveTo follow beam and beam upon their wayHand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint—confessedFrustrate, eluded by unknown unguessedInfinitude of action? Idle quest!Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descryThe spectrum—mind, infer immensity!Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed—Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not IMore than yourself: so, good my friend, keep stillTrustful with—me? with thee, sage Mandeville!
IAy, this same midnight, by this chair of mine,Come and review thy counsels: art thou stillStanch to their teaching?—not as fools opineIts purport might be, but as subtler skillCould, through turbidity, the loaded lineOf logic casting, sound deep, deeper, tillIt touched a quietude and reached a shrineAnd recognized harmoniously combineEvil with good, and hailed truth's triumph.—thine,Sage dead long since, Bernard de Mandeville!IIOnly, 't is no fresh knowledge that I crave,Fuller truth yet, new gainings from the grave;Here we alive must needs deal fairly, turnTo what account Man may Man's portion, learnMan's proper play with truth in part, beforeEntrusted with the whole. I ask no moreThan smiling witness that I do my bestWith doubtful doctrine: afterwards the rest!So, silent face me while I think and speak!A full disclosure? Such would outrage law.Law deals the same with soul and body: seekFull truth my soul may, when some babe, I sawA new-born weakling, starts up strong—not weak—Man every whit, absolved from earning awe,Pride, rapture, if the soul attains to wreakIts will on flesh, at last can thrust, lift, draw,As mind bids muscle—mind which long has striven,Painfully urging body's impotenceTo effort whereby—once law's barrier riven,Life's rule abolished—body might dispenseWith infancy's probation, straight be given—Not by foiled darings, fond attempts back-driven,Fine faults of growth, brave sins which saint when shriven—To stand full-statured in magnificence.IIINo: as with body so deals law with soulThat 's stung to strength through weakness, strives for goodThrough evil,—earth its race-ground, heaven its goal,Presumably: so far I understoodThy teaching long ago. But what means this—Objected by a mouth which yesterdayWas magisterial in antithesisTo half the truths we hold, or trust we may,Though tremblingly the while? "No sign"—groaned he—"No stirring of God's finger to denoteHe wills that right should have supremacyOn earth, not wrong! How helpful could we quoteBut one poor instance when he interposedPromptly and surely and beyond mistakeBetween oppression and its victim, closedAccounts with sin for once, and bade us wakeFrom our long dream that justice bears no sword,Or else forgets whereto its sharpness serves!So might we safely mock at what unnervesFaith now, be spared the sapping fear's increaseThat haply evil's strife with good shall ceaseNever on earth. Nay, after earth, comes peaceBorn out of life-long battle? Man's lip curvesWith scorn: there, also, what if justice swervesFrom dealing doom, sets free by no swift strokeRight fettered here by wrong, but leaves life's yoke—Death should loose man from—fresh laid, past release?"IVBernard de Mandeville, confute for meThis parlous friend who captured or set freeThunderbolts at his pleasure, yet would drawBack, panic-stricken by some puny strawThy gold-rimmed amber-headed cane had whiskedOut of his pathway if the object riskedEncounter, 'scaped thy kick from buckled shoe!As when folk heard thee in old days pooh-poohAddison's tye-wig preachment, grant this friend—(Whose groan I hear, with guffaw at the endDisposing of mock-melancholy)—grantHis bilious mood one potion, ministrantOf homely wisdom, healthy wit! For, hear!"With power and will, let preference appearBy intervention ever and aye, help goodWhen evil's mastery is understoodIn some plain outrage, and triumphant wrongTramples weak right to nothingness: nay, longEre such sad consummation brings despairTo right's adherents, ah, what help it wereIf wrong lay strangled in the birth—each headOf the hatched monster promptly crushed, insteadOf spared to gather venom! We requireNo great experience that the inch-long worm,Free of our heel, would grow to vomit fire,And one day plague the world in dragon form.So should wrong merely peep abroad to meetWrong's due quietus, leave our world's way safeFor honest walking."VSage, once more repeatInstruction! 'T is a sore to soothe not chafe.Ah, Fabulist, what luck, could I contriveTo coax from thee another "Grumbling Hive"!My friend himself wrote fables short and sweet:Ask him—"Suppose the Gardener of Man's groundPlants for a purpose, side by side with good,Evil—(and that he does so—look around!What does the field show?)—were it understoodThat purposely the noxious plant was foundVexing the virtuous, poison close to food,If, at first stealing-forth of life in stalkAnd leaflet-promise, quick his spud should balkEvil from budding foliage, bearing fruit?Such timely treatment of the offending rootMight strike the simple as wise husbandry,But swift sure extirpation would scarce suitShrewder observers. Seed once sown thrives: whyFrustrate its product, miss the qualityWhich sower binds himself to count upon?Had seed fulfilled the destined purpose, goneUnhindered up to harvest—what know IBut proof were gained that every growth of goodSprang consequent on evil's neighborhood?"So said your shrewdness: true—so did not sayThat other sort of theorists who heldMere unintelligence prepared the wayFor either seed's upsprouting: you repelledTheir notion that both kinds could sow themselves.True! but admit 't is understanding delvesAnd drops each germ, what else but folly thwartsThe doer's settled purpose? Let the sageConcede a use to evil, though there startsFull many a burgeon thence, to disengageWith thumb and finger lest it spoil the yieldToo much of good's main tribute! But our mainTough-tendoned mandrake-monster—purge the fieldOf him for once and all? It follows plainWho set him there to grow beholds repealedHis primal law: his ordinance proves vain:And what beseems a king who cannot reign,But to drop sceptre valid arm should wield?VI"Still there 's a parable"—retorts my friend—"Shows agriculture with a difference!What of the crop and weeds which solely blendBecause, once planted, none may pluck them thence?The Gardener contrived thus? Vain pretence!An enemy it was who unawaresRuined the wheat by interspersing tares.Where 's our desiderated forethought? Where 'sKnowledge, where power and will in evidence?'T is Man's-play merely! Craft foils rectitude,Malignity defeats beneficence.And grant, at very last of all, the feud'Twixt good and evil ends, strange thoughts intrudeThough good be garnered safely, and good's foeBundled for burning. Thoughts steal: 'Even so—Why grant tares leave to thus o'ertop, o'ertowerTheir field-mate, boast the stalk and flaunt the flower,Triumph one sunny minute? Knowledge, power,And will thus worked?' Man's fancy makes the fault!Man, with the narrow mind, must cram insideHis finite God's infinitude,—earth's vaultHe bids comprise the heavenly far and wide,Since Man may claim a right to understandWhat passes understanding. So, succinctAnd trimly set in order, to be scannedAnd scrutinized, lo—the divine lies linkedFast to the human, free to move as movesIts proper match: awhile they keep the grooves,Discreetly side by side together pace,Till sudden comes a stumble incidentLikely enough to Man's weak-footed race,And he discovers—wings in rudiment,Such as he boasts, which full-grown, free-distentWould lift him skyward, fail of flight while pentWithin humanity's restricted space.Abjure each fond attempt to representThe formless, the illimitable! TraceNo outline, try no hint of human faceOr form or hand!"VIIFriend, here 's a tracing meantTo help a guess at truth you never knew.Bend but those eyes now, using mind's eye too,And note—sufficient for all purposes—The ground-plan—map you long have yearned for—yes,Make out in markings—more what artist can?—Goethe's Estate in Weimar,—just a plan!Ais the House, andBthe Garden-gate,AndCthe Grass-plot—you 've the whole estateLetter by letter, down toYthe Pond,AndZthe Pigsty. Do you look beyondThe algebraic signs, and captions say"IsAthe House? But where 's the Roof toA,Where 's Door, where 's Window? Needs must House have such!"Ay, that were folly. Why so very muchMore foolish than our mortal purblind wayOf seeking in the symbol no mere pointTo guide our gaze through what were else inane,But things—their solid selves? "Is, joint by joint,Orion man-like,—as these dots explainHis constellation? Flesh composed of suns—How can such be?" exclaim the simple ones.Look through the sign to the thing signified—Shown nowise, point by point at best descried,Each an orb's topmost sparkle: all besideIts shine is shadow: turn the orb one jot—Up flies the new flash to reveal 't was notThe whole sphere late flamboyant in your ken!VIII"What need of symbolizing? Fitlier menWould take on tongue mere facts—few, faint and far,Still facts not fancies: quite enough they are,That Power, that Knowledge, and that Will,—add thenImmensity, Eternity: these jarNowise with our permitted thought and speech.Why human attributes?"A myth may teach:Only, who better would expound it thusMust be Euripides, not Æschylus.IXBoundingly up through Night's wall dense and dark,Embattled crags and clouds, outbroke the SunAbove the conscious earth, and one by oneHer heights and depths absorbed to the last sparkHis fluid glory, from the far fine ridgeOf mountain-granite which, transformed to gold,Laughed first the thanks back, to the vale's dusk foldOn fold of vapor-swathing, like a bridgeShattered beneath some giant's stamp. Night wistHer work done and betook herself in mistTo marsh and hollow, there to bide her timeBlindly in acquiescence. EverywhereDid earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime,Thrilling her to the heart of things: since thereNo ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew,No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grewGlad through the inrush—glad nor more nor lessThan, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness,Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread,The universal world of creatures bredBy Sun's munificence, alike gave praise—All creatures but one only: gaze for gaze,Joyless and thankless, who—all scowling can—Protests against the innumerous praises? Man,Sullen and silent.Stand thou forth then, stateThy wrong, thou sole aggrieved—disconsolate—While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gayAnd glad acknowledges the bounteous day!XMan speaks now: "What avails Sun's earth-felt thrillTo me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant—They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skillHe interfuses fly, worm, brute, untilEach favored object pays life's ministrantBy pressing, in obedience to his will,Up to completion of the task prescribed,So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibedSuch influence also, stood and stand complete—The perfect Man,—head, body, hands and feet,True to the pattern: but does that suffice?How of my superadded mind which needs—Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleadsFor—more than knowledge that by some deviceSun quickens matter: mind is nobly fainTo realize the marvel, make—for senseAs mind—the unseen visible, condense—Myself—Sun's all-pervading influenceSo as to serve the needs of mind, explainWhat now perplexes. Let the oak increaseHis corrugated strength on strength, the palmLift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,—Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,—The eagle, like some skyey derelict,Drift in the blue, suspended, glorying,—The lion lord it by the desert-spring,—What know or care they of the power which prickedNothingness to perfection? I, instead,When all-developed still am found a thingAll-incomplete: for what though flesh had forceTranscending theirs—hands able to unringThe tightened snake's coil, eyes that could out-courseThe eagle's soaring, voice whereat the kingOf carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see,Touch, understand, by mind inside of me,The outside mind—whose quickening I attainTo recognize—I only. All in vainWould mind address itself to render plainThe nature of the essence. Drag what lurksBehind the operation—that which worksLatently everywhere by outward proof—Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloofI solely crave that one of all the beamsWhich do Sun's work in darkness, at my willShould operate—myself for once have skillTo realize the energy which streamsFlooding the universe. Above, around,Beneath—why mocks that mind my own thus foundSimply of service, when the world grows dark,To half-surmise—were Sun's use understood,I might demonstrate him supplying food,Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one sparkMyself may deal with—make it thaw my bloodAnd prompt my steps, were truer to the markOf mind's requirement than a half-surmiseThat somehow secretly is operant,A power all matter feels, mind only triesTo comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' MysteriesAt source why probe into? Enough: display,Make demonstrable, how, by night as day,Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all 's informedEqually by Sun's efflux!—source from whenceIf just one spark I drew, full evidenceWere mine of fire ineffably enthroned—Sun's self made palpable to Man!"XIThus moanedMan till Prometheus helped him,—as we learn,—Offered an artifice whereby he drewSun's rays into a focus,—plain and true,The very Sun in little: made fire burnAnd henceforth do Man service—glass-conglobedThough to a pin-point circle—all the sameComprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobedOf that else-unconceived essential flameBorne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye striveAchingly to companion as it mayThe supersubtle effluence, and contriveTo follow beam and beam upon their wayHand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint—confessedFrustrate, eluded by unknown unguessedInfinitude of action? Idle quest!Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descryThe spectrum—mind, infer immensity!Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed—Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not IMore than yourself: so, good my friend, keep stillTrustful with—me? with thee, sage Mandeville!
I
I
Ay, this same midnight, by this chair of mine,Come and review thy counsels: art thou stillStanch to their teaching?—not as fools opineIts purport might be, but as subtler skillCould, through turbidity, the loaded lineOf logic casting, sound deep, deeper, tillIt touched a quietude and reached a shrineAnd recognized harmoniously combineEvil with good, and hailed truth's triumph.—thine,Sage dead long since, Bernard de Mandeville!
Ay, this same midnight, by this chair of mine,
Come and review thy counsels: art thou still
Stanch to their teaching?—not as fools opine
Its purport might be, but as subtler skill
Could, through turbidity, the loaded line
Of logic casting, sound deep, deeper, till
It touched a quietude and reached a shrine
And recognized harmoniously combine
Evil with good, and hailed truth's triumph.—thine,
Sage dead long since, Bernard de Mandeville!
II
II
Only, 't is no fresh knowledge that I crave,Fuller truth yet, new gainings from the grave;Here we alive must needs deal fairly, turnTo what account Man may Man's portion, learnMan's proper play with truth in part, beforeEntrusted with the whole. I ask no moreThan smiling witness that I do my bestWith doubtful doctrine: afterwards the rest!So, silent face me while I think and speak!A full disclosure? Such would outrage law.Law deals the same with soul and body: seekFull truth my soul may, when some babe, I sawA new-born weakling, starts up strong—not weak—Man every whit, absolved from earning awe,Pride, rapture, if the soul attains to wreakIts will on flesh, at last can thrust, lift, draw,As mind bids muscle—mind which long has striven,Painfully urging body's impotenceTo effort whereby—once law's barrier riven,Life's rule abolished—body might dispenseWith infancy's probation, straight be given—Not by foiled darings, fond attempts back-driven,Fine faults of growth, brave sins which saint when shriven—To stand full-statured in magnificence.
Only, 't is no fresh knowledge that I crave,
Fuller truth yet, new gainings from the grave;
Here we alive must needs deal fairly, turn
To what account Man may Man's portion, learn
Man's proper play with truth in part, before
Entrusted with the whole. I ask no more
Than smiling witness that I do my best
With doubtful doctrine: afterwards the rest!
So, silent face me while I think and speak!
A full disclosure? Such would outrage law.
Law deals the same with soul and body: seek
Full truth my soul may, when some babe, I saw
A new-born weakling, starts up strong—not weak—
Man every whit, absolved from earning awe,
Pride, rapture, if the soul attains to wreak
Its will on flesh, at last can thrust, lift, draw,
As mind bids muscle—mind which long has striven,
Painfully urging body's impotence
To effort whereby—once law's barrier riven,
Life's rule abolished—body might dispense
With infancy's probation, straight be given
—Not by foiled darings, fond attempts back-driven,
Fine faults of growth, brave sins which saint when shriven—
To stand full-statured in magnificence.
III
III
No: as with body so deals law with soulThat 's stung to strength through weakness, strives for goodThrough evil,—earth its race-ground, heaven its goal,Presumably: so far I understoodThy teaching long ago. But what means this—Objected by a mouth which yesterdayWas magisterial in antithesisTo half the truths we hold, or trust we may,Though tremblingly the while? "No sign"—groaned he—"No stirring of God's finger to denoteHe wills that right should have supremacyOn earth, not wrong! How helpful could we quoteBut one poor instance when he interposedPromptly and surely and beyond mistakeBetween oppression and its victim, closedAccounts with sin for once, and bade us wakeFrom our long dream that justice bears no sword,Or else forgets whereto its sharpness serves!So might we safely mock at what unnervesFaith now, be spared the sapping fear's increaseThat haply evil's strife with good shall ceaseNever on earth. Nay, after earth, comes peaceBorn out of life-long battle? Man's lip curvesWith scorn: there, also, what if justice swervesFrom dealing doom, sets free by no swift strokeRight fettered here by wrong, but leaves life's yoke—Death should loose man from—fresh laid, past release?"
No: as with body so deals law with soul
That 's stung to strength through weakness, strives for good
Through evil,—earth its race-ground, heaven its goal,
Presumably: so far I understood
Thy teaching long ago. But what means this
—Objected by a mouth which yesterday
Was magisterial in antithesis
To half the truths we hold, or trust we may,
Though tremblingly the while? "No sign"—groaned he—
"No stirring of God's finger to denote
He wills that right should have supremacy
On earth, not wrong! How helpful could we quote
But one poor instance when he interposed
Promptly and surely and beyond mistake
Between oppression and its victim, closed
Accounts with sin for once, and bade us wake
From our long dream that justice bears no sword,
Or else forgets whereto its sharpness serves!
So might we safely mock at what unnerves
Faith now, be spared the sapping fear's increase
That haply evil's strife with good shall cease
Never on earth. Nay, after earth, comes peace
Born out of life-long battle? Man's lip curves
With scorn: there, also, what if justice swerves
From dealing doom, sets free by no swift stroke
Right fettered here by wrong, but leaves life's yoke—
Death should loose man from—fresh laid, past release?"
IV
IV
Bernard de Mandeville, confute for meThis parlous friend who captured or set freeThunderbolts at his pleasure, yet would drawBack, panic-stricken by some puny strawThy gold-rimmed amber-headed cane had whiskedOut of his pathway if the object riskedEncounter, 'scaped thy kick from buckled shoe!As when folk heard thee in old days pooh-poohAddison's tye-wig preachment, grant this friend—(Whose groan I hear, with guffaw at the endDisposing of mock-melancholy)—grantHis bilious mood one potion, ministrantOf homely wisdom, healthy wit! For, hear!"With power and will, let preference appearBy intervention ever and aye, help goodWhen evil's mastery is understoodIn some plain outrage, and triumphant wrongTramples weak right to nothingness: nay, longEre such sad consummation brings despairTo right's adherents, ah, what help it wereIf wrong lay strangled in the birth—each headOf the hatched monster promptly crushed, insteadOf spared to gather venom! We requireNo great experience that the inch-long worm,Free of our heel, would grow to vomit fire,And one day plague the world in dragon form.So should wrong merely peep abroad to meetWrong's due quietus, leave our world's way safeFor honest walking."
Bernard de Mandeville, confute for me
This parlous friend who captured or set free
Thunderbolts at his pleasure, yet would draw
Back, panic-stricken by some puny straw
Thy gold-rimmed amber-headed cane had whisked
Out of his pathway if the object risked
Encounter, 'scaped thy kick from buckled shoe!
As when folk heard thee in old days pooh-pooh
Addison's tye-wig preachment, grant this friend—
(Whose groan I hear, with guffaw at the end
Disposing of mock-melancholy)—grant
His bilious mood one potion, ministrant
Of homely wisdom, healthy wit! For, hear!
"With power and will, let preference appear
By intervention ever and aye, help good
When evil's mastery is understood
In some plain outrage, and triumphant wrong
Tramples weak right to nothingness: nay, long
Ere such sad consummation brings despair
To right's adherents, ah, what help it were
If wrong lay strangled in the birth—each head
Of the hatched monster promptly crushed, instead
Of spared to gather venom! We require
No great experience that the inch-long worm,
Free of our heel, would grow to vomit fire,
And one day plague the world in dragon form.
So should wrong merely peep abroad to meet
Wrong's due quietus, leave our world's way safe
For honest walking."
V
V
Sage, once more repeatInstruction! 'T is a sore to soothe not chafe.Ah, Fabulist, what luck, could I contriveTo coax from thee another "Grumbling Hive"!My friend himself wrote fables short and sweet:Ask him—"Suppose the Gardener of Man's groundPlants for a purpose, side by side with good,Evil—(and that he does so—look around!What does the field show?)—were it understoodThat purposely the noxious plant was foundVexing the virtuous, poison close to food,If, at first stealing-forth of life in stalkAnd leaflet-promise, quick his spud should balkEvil from budding foliage, bearing fruit?Such timely treatment of the offending rootMight strike the simple as wise husbandry,But swift sure extirpation would scarce suitShrewder observers. Seed once sown thrives: whyFrustrate its product, miss the qualityWhich sower binds himself to count upon?Had seed fulfilled the destined purpose, goneUnhindered up to harvest—what know IBut proof were gained that every growth of goodSprang consequent on evil's neighborhood?"So said your shrewdness: true—so did not sayThat other sort of theorists who heldMere unintelligence prepared the wayFor either seed's upsprouting: you repelledTheir notion that both kinds could sow themselves.True! but admit 't is understanding delvesAnd drops each germ, what else but folly thwartsThe doer's settled purpose? Let the sageConcede a use to evil, though there startsFull many a burgeon thence, to disengageWith thumb and finger lest it spoil the yieldToo much of good's main tribute! But our mainTough-tendoned mandrake-monster—purge the fieldOf him for once and all? It follows plainWho set him there to grow beholds repealedHis primal law: his ordinance proves vain:And what beseems a king who cannot reign,But to drop sceptre valid arm should wield?
Sage, once more repeat
Instruction! 'T is a sore to soothe not chafe.
Ah, Fabulist, what luck, could I contrive
To coax from thee another "Grumbling Hive"!
My friend himself wrote fables short and sweet:
Ask him—"Suppose the Gardener of Man's ground
Plants for a purpose, side by side with good,
Evil—(and that he does so—look around!
What does the field show?)—were it understood
That purposely the noxious plant was found
Vexing the virtuous, poison close to food,
If, at first stealing-forth of life in stalk
And leaflet-promise, quick his spud should balk
Evil from budding foliage, bearing fruit?
Such timely treatment of the offending root
Might strike the simple as wise husbandry,
But swift sure extirpation would scarce suit
Shrewder observers. Seed once sown thrives: why
Frustrate its product, miss the quality
Which sower binds himself to count upon?
Had seed fulfilled the destined purpose, gone
Unhindered up to harvest—what know I
But proof were gained that every growth of good
Sprang consequent on evil's neighborhood?"
So said your shrewdness: true—so did not say
That other sort of theorists who held
Mere unintelligence prepared the way
For either seed's upsprouting: you repelled
Their notion that both kinds could sow themselves.
True! but admit 't is understanding delves
And drops each germ, what else but folly thwarts
The doer's settled purpose? Let the sage
Concede a use to evil, though there starts
Full many a burgeon thence, to disengage
With thumb and finger lest it spoil the yield
Too much of good's main tribute! But our main
Tough-tendoned mandrake-monster—purge the field
Of him for once and all? It follows plain
Who set him there to grow beholds repealed
His primal law: his ordinance proves vain:
And what beseems a king who cannot reign,
But to drop sceptre valid arm should wield?
VI
VI
"Still there 's a parable"—retorts my friend—"Shows agriculture with a difference!What of the crop and weeds which solely blendBecause, once planted, none may pluck them thence?The Gardener contrived thus? Vain pretence!An enemy it was who unawaresRuined the wheat by interspersing tares.Where 's our desiderated forethought? Where 'sKnowledge, where power and will in evidence?'T is Man's-play merely! Craft foils rectitude,Malignity defeats beneficence.And grant, at very last of all, the feud'Twixt good and evil ends, strange thoughts intrudeThough good be garnered safely, and good's foeBundled for burning. Thoughts steal: 'Even so—Why grant tares leave to thus o'ertop, o'ertowerTheir field-mate, boast the stalk and flaunt the flower,Triumph one sunny minute? Knowledge, power,And will thus worked?' Man's fancy makes the fault!Man, with the narrow mind, must cram insideHis finite God's infinitude,—earth's vaultHe bids comprise the heavenly far and wide,Since Man may claim a right to understandWhat passes understanding. So, succinctAnd trimly set in order, to be scannedAnd scrutinized, lo—the divine lies linkedFast to the human, free to move as movesIts proper match: awhile they keep the grooves,Discreetly side by side together pace,Till sudden comes a stumble incidentLikely enough to Man's weak-footed race,And he discovers—wings in rudiment,Such as he boasts, which full-grown, free-distentWould lift him skyward, fail of flight while pentWithin humanity's restricted space.Abjure each fond attempt to representThe formless, the illimitable! TraceNo outline, try no hint of human faceOr form or hand!"
"Still there 's a parable"—retorts my friend—
"Shows agriculture with a difference!
What of the crop and weeds which solely blend
Because, once planted, none may pluck them thence?
The Gardener contrived thus? Vain pretence!
An enemy it was who unawares
Ruined the wheat by interspersing tares.
Where 's our desiderated forethought? Where 's
Knowledge, where power and will in evidence?
'T is Man's-play merely! Craft foils rectitude,
Malignity defeats beneficence.
And grant, at very last of all, the feud
'Twixt good and evil ends, strange thoughts intrude
Though good be garnered safely, and good's foe
Bundled for burning. Thoughts steal: 'Even so—
Why grant tares leave to thus o'ertop, o'ertower
Their field-mate, boast the stalk and flaunt the flower,
Triumph one sunny minute? Knowledge, power,
And will thus worked?' Man's fancy makes the fault!
Man, with the narrow mind, must cram inside
His finite God's infinitude,—earth's vault
He bids comprise the heavenly far and wide,
Since Man may claim a right to understand
What passes understanding. So, succinct
And trimly set in order, to be scanned
And scrutinized, lo—the divine lies linked
Fast to the human, free to move as moves
Its proper match: awhile they keep the grooves,
Discreetly side by side together pace,
Till sudden comes a stumble incident
Likely enough to Man's weak-footed race,
And he discovers—wings in rudiment,
Such as he boasts, which full-grown, free-distent
Would lift him skyward, fail of flight while pent
Within humanity's restricted space.
Abjure each fond attempt to represent
The formless, the illimitable! Trace
No outline, try no hint of human face
Or form or hand!"
VII
VII
Friend, here 's a tracing meantTo help a guess at truth you never knew.Bend but those eyes now, using mind's eye too,And note—sufficient for all purposes—The ground-plan—map you long have yearned for—yes,Make out in markings—more what artist can?—Goethe's Estate in Weimar,—just a plan!Ais the House, andBthe Garden-gate,AndCthe Grass-plot—you 've the whole estateLetter by letter, down toYthe Pond,AndZthe Pigsty. Do you look beyondThe algebraic signs, and captions say"IsAthe House? But where 's the Roof toA,Where 's Door, where 's Window? Needs must House have such!"Ay, that were folly. Why so very muchMore foolish than our mortal purblind wayOf seeking in the symbol no mere pointTo guide our gaze through what were else inane,But things—their solid selves? "Is, joint by joint,Orion man-like,—as these dots explainHis constellation? Flesh composed of suns—How can such be?" exclaim the simple ones.Look through the sign to the thing signified—Shown nowise, point by point at best descried,Each an orb's topmost sparkle: all besideIts shine is shadow: turn the orb one jot—Up flies the new flash to reveal 't was notThe whole sphere late flamboyant in your ken!
Friend, here 's a tracing meant
To help a guess at truth you never knew.
Bend but those eyes now, using mind's eye too,
And note—sufficient for all purposes—
The ground-plan—map you long have yearned for—yes,
Make out in markings—more what artist can?—
Goethe's Estate in Weimar,—just a plan!
Ais the House, andBthe Garden-gate,
AndCthe Grass-plot—you 've the whole estate
Letter by letter, down toYthe Pond,
AndZthe Pigsty. Do you look beyond
The algebraic signs, and captions say
"IsAthe House? But where 's the Roof toA,
Where 's Door, where 's Window? Needs must House have such!"
Ay, that were folly. Why so very much
More foolish than our mortal purblind way
Of seeking in the symbol no mere point
To guide our gaze through what were else inane,
But things—their solid selves? "Is, joint by joint,
Orion man-like,—as these dots explain
His constellation? Flesh composed of suns—
How can such be?" exclaim the simple ones.
Look through the sign to the thing signified—
Shown nowise, point by point at best descried,
Each an orb's topmost sparkle: all beside
Its shine is shadow: turn the orb one jot—
Up flies the new flash to reveal 't was not
The whole sphere late flamboyant in your ken!
VIII
VIII
"What need of symbolizing? Fitlier menWould take on tongue mere facts—few, faint and far,Still facts not fancies: quite enough they are,That Power, that Knowledge, and that Will,—add thenImmensity, Eternity: these jarNowise with our permitted thought and speech.Why human attributes?"
"What need of symbolizing? Fitlier men
Would take on tongue mere facts—few, faint and far,
Still facts not fancies: quite enough they are,
That Power, that Knowledge, and that Will,—add then
Immensity, Eternity: these jar
Nowise with our permitted thought and speech.
Why human attributes?"
A myth may teach:Only, who better would expound it thusMust be Euripides, not Æschylus.
A myth may teach:
Only, who better would expound it thus
Must be Euripides, not Æschylus.
IX
IX
Boundingly up through Night's wall dense and dark,Embattled crags and clouds, outbroke the SunAbove the conscious earth, and one by oneHer heights and depths absorbed to the last sparkHis fluid glory, from the far fine ridgeOf mountain-granite which, transformed to gold,Laughed first the thanks back, to the vale's dusk foldOn fold of vapor-swathing, like a bridgeShattered beneath some giant's stamp. Night wistHer work done and betook herself in mistTo marsh and hollow, there to bide her timeBlindly in acquiescence. EverywhereDid earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime,Thrilling her to the heart of things: since thereNo ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew,No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grewGlad through the inrush—glad nor more nor lessThan, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness,Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread,The universal world of creatures bredBy Sun's munificence, alike gave praise—All creatures but one only: gaze for gaze,Joyless and thankless, who—all scowling can—Protests against the innumerous praises? Man,Sullen and silent.
Boundingly up through Night's wall dense and dark,
Embattled crags and clouds, outbroke the Sun
Above the conscious earth, and one by one
Her heights and depths absorbed to the last spark
His fluid glory, from the far fine ridge
Of mountain-granite which, transformed to gold,
Laughed first the thanks back, to the vale's dusk fold
On fold of vapor-swathing, like a bridge
Shattered beneath some giant's stamp. Night wist
Her work done and betook herself in mist
To marsh and hollow, there to bide her time
Blindly in acquiescence. Everywhere
Did earth acknowledge Sun's embrace sublime,
Thrilling her to the heart of things: since there
No ore ran liquid, no spar branched anew,
No arrowy crystal gleamed, but straightway grew
Glad through the inrush—glad nor more nor less
Than, 'neath his gaze, forest and wilderness,
Hill, dale, land, sea, the whole vast stretch and spread,
The universal world of creatures bred
By Sun's munificence, alike gave praise—
All creatures but one only: gaze for gaze,
Joyless and thankless, who—all scowling can—
Protests against the innumerous praises? Man,
Sullen and silent.
Stand thou forth then, stateThy wrong, thou sole aggrieved—disconsolate—While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gayAnd glad acknowledges the bounteous day!
Stand thou forth then, state
Thy wrong, thou sole aggrieved—disconsolate—
While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gay
And glad acknowledges the bounteous day!
X
X
Man speaks now: "What avails Sun's earth-felt thrillTo me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant—They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skillHe interfuses fly, worm, brute, untilEach favored object pays life's ministrantBy pressing, in obedience to his will,Up to completion of the task prescribed,So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibedSuch influence also, stood and stand complete—The perfect Man,—head, body, hands and feet,True to the pattern: but does that suffice?How of my superadded mind which needs—Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleadsFor—more than knowledge that by some deviceSun quickens matter: mind is nobly fainTo realize the marvel, make—for senseAs mind—the unseen visible, condense—Myself—Sun's all-pervading influenceSo as to serve the needs of mind, explainWhat now perplexes. Let the oak increaseHis corrugated strength on strength, the palmLift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,—Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,—The eagle, like some skyey derelict,Drift in the blue, suspended, glorying,—The lion lord it by the desert-spring,—What know or care they of the power which prickedNothingness to perfection? I, instead,When all-developed still am found a thingAll-incomplete: for what though flesh had forceTranscending theirs—hands able to unringThe tightened snake's coil, eyes that could out-courseThe eagle's soaring, voice whereat the kingOf carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see,Touch, understand, by mind inside of me,The outside mind—whose quickening I attainTo recognize—I only. All in vainWould mind address itself to render plainThe nature of the essence. Drag what lurksBehind the operation—that which worksLatently everywhere by outward proof—Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloofI solely crave that one of all the beamsWhich do Sun's work in darkness, at my willShould operate—myself for once have skillTo realize the energy which streamsFlooding the universe. Above, around,Beneath—why mocks that mind my own thus foundSimply of service, when the world grows dark,To half-surmise—were Sun's use understood,I might demonstrate him supplying food,Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one sparkMyself may deal with—make it thaw my bloodAnd prompt my steps, were truer to the markOf mind's requirement than a half-surmiseThat somehow secretly is operant,A power all matter feels, mind only triesTo comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' MysteriesAt source why probe into? Enough: display,Make demonstrable, how, by night as day,Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all 's informedEqually by Sun's efflux!—source from whenceIf just one spark I drew, full evidenceWere mine of fire ineffably enthroned—Sun's self made palpable to Man!"
Man speaks now: "What avails Sun's earth-felt thrill
To me? Sun penetrates the ore, the plant—
They feel and grow: perchance with subtler skill
He interfuses fly, worm, brute, until
Each favored object pays life's ministrant
By pressing, in obedience to his will,
Up to completion of the task prescribed,
So stands and stays a type. Myself imbibed
Such influence also, stood and stand complete—
The perfect Man,—head, body, hands and feet,
True to the pattern: but does that suffice?
How of my superadded mind which needs
—Not to be, simply, but to do, and pleads
For—more than knowledge that by some device
Sun quickens matter: mind is nobly fain
To realize the marvel, make—for sense
As mind—the unseen visible, condense
—Myself—Sun's all-pervading influence
So as to serve the needs of mind, explain
What now perplexes. Let the oak increase
His corrugated strength on strength, the palm
Lift joint by joint her fan-fruit, ball and balm,—
Let the coiled serpent bask in bloated peace,—
The eagle, like some skyey derelict,
Drift in the blue, suspended, glorying,—
The lion lord it by the desert-spring,—
What know or care they of the power which pricked
Nothingness to perfection? I, instead,
When all-developed still am found a thing
All-incomplete: for what though flesh had force
Transcending theirs—hands able to unring
The tightened snake's coil, eyes that could out-course
The eagle's soaring, voice whereat the king
Of carnage couched discrowned? Mind seeks to see,
Touch, understand, by mind inside of me,
The outside mind—whose quickening I attain
To recognize—I only. All in vain
Would mind address itself to render plain
The nature of the essence. Drag what lurks
Behind the operation—that which works
Latently everywhere by outward proof—
Drag that mind forth to face mine? No! aloof
I solely crave that one of all the beams
Which do Sun's work in darkness, at my will
Should operate—myself for once have skill
To realize the energy which streams
Flooding the universe. Above, around,
Beneath—why mocks that mind my own thus found
Simply of service, when the world grows dark,
To half-surmise—were Sun's use understood,
I might demonstrate him supplying food,
Warmth, life, no less the while? To grant one spark
Myself may deal with—make it thaw my blood
And prompt my steps, were truer to the mark
Of mind's requirement than a half-surmise
That somehow secretly is operant,
A power all matter feels, mind only tries
To comprehend! Once more—no idle vaunt
'Man comprehends the Sun's self!' Mysteries
At source why probe into? Enough: display,
Make demonstrable, how, by night as day,
Earth's centre and sky's outspan, all 's informed
Equally by Sun's efflux!—source from whence
If just one spark I drew, full evidence
Were mine of fire ineffably enthroned—
Sun's self made palpable to Man!"
XI
XI
Thus moanedMan till Prometheus helped him,—as we learn,—Offered an artifice whereby he drewSun's rays into a focus,—plain and true,The very Sun in little: made fire burnAnd henceforth do Man service—glass-conglobedThough to a pin-point circle—all the sameComprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobedOf that else-unconceived essential flameBorne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye striveAchingly to companion as it mayThe supersubtle effluence, and contriveTo follow beam and beam upon their wayHand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint—confessedFrustrate, eluded by unknown unguessedInfinitude of action? Idle quest!Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descryThe spectrum—mind, infer immensity!Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed—Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not IMore than yourself: so, good my friend, keep stillTrustful with—me? with thee, sage Mandeville!
Thus moaned
Man till Prometheus helped him,—as we learn,—
Offered an artifice whereby he drew
Sun's rays into a focus,—plain and true,
The very Sun in little: made fire burn
And henceforth do Man service—glass-conglobed
Though to a pin-point circle—all the same
Comprising the Sun's self, but Sun disrobed
Of that else-unconceived essential flame
Borne by no naked sight. Shall mind's eye strive
Achingly to companion as it may
The supersubtle effluence, and contrive
To follow beam and beam upon their way
Hand-breadth by hand-breadth, till sense faint—confessed
Frustrate, eluded by unknown unguessed
Infinitude of action? Idle quest!
Rather ask aid from optics. Sense, descry
The spectrum—mind, infer immensity!
Little? In little, light, warmth, life are blessed—
Which, in the large, who sees to bless? Not I
More than yourself: so, good my friend, keep still
Trustful with—me? with thee, sage Mandeville!
IDon, the divinest women that have walkedOur world were scarce those saints of whom we talked.My saint, for instance—worship if you will!'T is pity poets need historians' skill:What legendary 's worth a chronicle?IICome, now! A great lord once upon a timeVisited—oh a king, of kings the prime,To sign a treaty such as never was:For the king's minister had brought to passThat this same duke—so style him—must engageTwo of his dukedoms as an heritageAfter his death to this exorbitantCraver of kingship. "Let who lacks go scant,Who owns much, give the more to!" Why rebuke?So bids the devil, so obeys the duke.IIINow, as it happened, at his sister's house—Duchess herself—indeed the very spouseOf the king's uncle,—while the deed of giftWhereby our duke should cut his rights adriftWas drawing, getting ripe to sign and seal—What does the frozen heart but uncongealAnd, shaming his transcendent kin and kith,Whom do the duke's eyes make acquaintance with?A girl. "What, sister, may this wonder be?""Nobody! Good as beautiful is she,With gifts that match her goodness, no faint flawI' the white: she were the pearl you think you saw,But that she is—what corresponds to white?Some other stone, the true pearl's opposite,As cheap as pearls are costly. She 's—now, guessHer parentage! Once—twice—thrice? Foiled, confess!Drugs, duke, her father deals in—faugh, the scents!—Manna and senna—such medicamentsFor payment he compounds you. Stay—stay—stay!I 'll have no rude speech wrong her! Whither away,The hot-head? Ah, the scapegrace! She deservesRespect—compassion, rather! right it servesMy folly, trusting secrets to a fool!Already at it, is he? She keeps cool—Helped by her fan's spread. Well, our state atonesFor thus much license, and words break no bones!"(Hearts, though, sometimes.)IVNext morn 't was "Reason, rate,Rave, sister, on till doomsday! Sure as fate,I wed that woman—what a woman isNow that I know, who never knew till this!"So swore the duke. "I wed her: once again—Rave, rate, and reason—spend your breath in vain!"VAt once was made a contract firm and fast,Published the banns were, only marriage, last,Required completion when the Church's riteShould bless and bid depart, make happy quiteThe coupled man and wife forevermore:Which rite was soon to follow. Just before—All things at all but end—the folk o' the brideFlocked to a summons. Pomp the duke defied:"Of ceremony—so much as empowers,Naught that exceeds, suits best a tie like ours"—He smiled—"all else were mere futility.We vow, God hears us: God and you and I—Let the world keep at distance! This is whyWe choose the simplest forms that serve to bindLover and lover of the human kind,No care of what degree—of kings or clowns—Come blood and breeding. Courtly smiles and frownsMiss of their mark, would idly soothe or strikeMy style and yours—in one style merged alike—God's man and woman merely. Long ago'T was rounded in my ears 'Duke, wherefore slowTo use a privilege? Needs must one who reignsPay reigning's due: since statecraft so ordains—Wed for the commonweal's sake! law prescribesOne wife: but to submission license bribesUnruly nature: mistresses accept—Well, at discretion!' Prove I so ineptA scholar, thus instructed? Dearest, beWife and all mistresses in one to me,Now, henceforth, and forever!" So smiled he.VIGood: but the minister, the crafty one,Got ear of what was doing—all but done—Not sooner, though, than the king's very self,Warned by the sister on how sheer a shelfRoyalty's ship was like to split. "I barThe abomination! Mix with muck my star?Shall earth behold prodigiously enorbedAn upstart marsh-born meteor sun-absorbed?Nuptial me no such nuptials!" "Past dispute,Majesty speaks with wisdom absolute,"Admired the minister: "yet, all the same,I would we may not—while we play his game,The ducal meteor's—also lose our own.The solar monarch's: we relieve your throneOf an ungracious presence, like enough:Balked of his project he departs in huff,And so cuts short—dare I remind the king?—Our not so unsuccessful bargaining.The contract for eventual heritageHappens topari passureach the stageAttained by just this other contract,—eachUnfixed by signature though fast in speech.Off goes the duke in dudgeon—off withalGo with him his two dukedoms past recall.You save a fool from tasting folly's fruit,Obtain small thanks thereby, and lose to bootSagacity's reward. The jest is grim:The man will mulct you—for amercing him?Nay, for ... permit a poor similitude!A witless wight in some fantastic moodWould drown himself: you plunge into the wave,Pluck forth the undeserving: he, you save,Pulls you clean under also for your pains.Sire, little need that I should tax my brainsTo help your inspiration!" "Let him sink!Always contriving"—hints the royal wink—"To keep ourselves dry while we claim his clothes."VIINext day, the appointed day for plighting trothsAt eve,—so little time to lose, you see,Before the Church should weld, indissolublyBond into bond, wed these who, side by side,Sit each by other, bold groom, blushing bride,—At the preliminary banquet, gracedBy all the lady's kinsfolk come in hasteTo share her triumph,—lo, a thunderclap!"Who importunes now?" "Such is my mishap—In the king's name! No need that any stirExcept this lady!" bids the minister:"With her I claim a word apart, no more:For who gainsays—a guard is at the door.Hold, duke! Submit you, lady, as I bowTo him whose mouthpiece speaks his pleasure now!It well may happen I no whit arrestYour marriage: be it so,—we hope the best!By your leave, gentles! Lady, pray you, hence!Duke, with my soul and body's deference!"VIIIDoors shut, mouth opens and persuasion flowsCopiously forth. "What flesh shall dare opposeThe king's command? The matter in debate—How plain it is! Yourself shall arbitrate,Determine. Since the duke affects to rateHis prize in you beyond all goods of earth,Accounts as naught old gains of rank and birth,Ancestral obligation, recent fame,(We know his feats)—nay, ventures to disclaimOur will and pleasure almost—by report—Waives in your favor dukeliness, in short,—We—('t is the king speaks)—who might forthwith staySuch suicidal purpose, brush awayA bad example shame would else record,—Lean to indulgence rather. At his wordWe take the duke: allow him to completeThe cession of his dukedoms, leave our feetTheir footstool when his own head, safe in vault,Sleeps sound. Nay, would the duke repair his faultHandsomely, and our forfeited esteemRecover,—what if wisely he redeemThe past,—in earnest of good faith, at onceGive us such jurisdiction for the nonceAs may suffice—prevent occasion slip—And constitute our actual ownership?Concede this—straightway be the marriage blessedBy warrant of this paper! Things at rest,This paper duly signed, down drops the bar,To-morrow you become—from what you are,The druggist's daughter—not the duke's mere spouse,But the king's own adopted: heart and houseOpen to you—the idol of a court'Which heaven might copy'—sing our poet-sort.In this emergency, on you dependsThe issue: plead what bliss the king intends!Should the duke frown, should arguments and prayers,Nay, tears if need be, prove in vain,—who cares?We leave the duke to his obduracy,Companionless,—you, madam, follow meWithout, where divers of the body-guardWait signal to enforce the king's awardOf strict seclusion: over you at leastVibratingly the sceptre threats increasedPrecipitation! How avert its crash?"IX"Re-enter, sir! A hand that 's calm, not rash,Averts it!" quietly the lady said."Yourself shall witness."At the table's headWhere, mid the hushed guests, still the duke sat gluedIn blank bewilderment, his spouse pursuedHer speech to end—syllabled quietude.X"Duke, I, your duchess of a day, could takeThe hand you proffered me for love's sole sake,Conscious my love matched yours; as you, myselfWould waive, when need were, all but love—from pelfTo potency. What fortune brings aboutHaply in some far future, finds me out,Faces me on a sudden here and now.The better! Read—if beating heart allow—Read this, and bid me rend to rags the shame!I and your conscience—hear and grant our claim!Never dare alienate God's gift you holdSimply in trust for him! Choose muck for gold?Could you so stumble in your choice, cajoledBy what I count my least of worthiness—The youth, the beauty,—you renounce them—yes,With all that's most too: love as well you lose,Slain by what slays in you the honor! Choose!Dear—yet my husband—dare I love you yet?"XIHow the duke's wrath o'erboiled,—words, words, and yetMore words,—I spare you such fool's fever-fret.They were not of one sort at all, one size,As souls go—he and she. 'T is said, the eyesOf all the lookers-on let tears fall fast.The minister was mollified at last:"Take a day,—two days even, ere through prideYou perish,—two days' counsel—then decide!"XII"If I shall save his honor and my soul?Husband,—this one last time,—you tear the scroll?Farewell, duke! Sir, I follow in your train!"XIIISo she went forth: they never met again,The duke and she. The world paid compliment(Is it worth noting?) when, next day, she sentCertain gifts back—"jewelry fit to deckWhom you call wife." I know not round what neckThey took, to sparkling, in good time—weeks thence.XIVOf all which was the pleasant consequence,So much and no more—that a fervid youth,Big-hearted boy,—but ten years old, in truth—Laid this to heart and loved, as boyhood can,The unduchessed lady: boy and lad grew man:He loved as man perchance may: did meanwhileGood soldier-service, managed to beguileThe years, no few, until he found a chance:Then, as at trumpet-summons to advance,Outbroke the love that stood at arms so long,Brooked no withstanding longer. They were wed.Whereon from camp and court alike he fled,Renounced the sun-king, dropped off into night,Evermore lost, a ruined satellite:And, oh, the exquisite deliciousnessThat lapped him in obscurity! You guessSuch joy is fugitive: she died full soon.He did his best to die—as sun, so moonLeft him, turned dusk to darkness absolute.Failing of death—why, saintship seemed to suit:Yes, your sort, Don! He trembled on the vergeOf monkhood: trick of cowl and taste of scourgeHe tried: then, kicked not at the pricks perverse,But took again, for better or for worse,The old way in the world, and, much the sameMan o' the outside, fairly played life's game.XV"Now, Saint Scholastica, what time she faredIn Paynimrie, behold, a lion glaredRight in her path! Her waist she promptly stripsOf girdle, binds his teeth within his lips,And, leashed all lamblike, to the Soldan's courtLeads him." Ay, many a legend of the sortDo you praiseworthily authenticate:Spare me the rest. This much of no debateAdmits: my lady flourished in grand daysWhen to be duchess was to dance the haysUp, down, across the heaven amid its host:While to be hailed the sun's own self almost—So close the kinship—was—was—Saint, for this.Be yours the feet I stoop to—kneel and kiss!So human? Then the mouth too, if you will!Thanks to no legend but a chronicle.XVIOne leans to like the duke, too: up we 'll patchSome sort of saintship for him—not to matchHers—but man's best and woman's worst amountSo nearly to the same thing, that we countIn man a miracle of faithfulnessIf, while unfaithful somewhat, he lay stressOn the main fact that love, when love indeed,Is wholly solely love from first to last—Truth—all the rest a lie. Too likely, fastEnough that necklace went to grace the throat—Let 's say, of such a dancer as makes doatThe senses when the soul is satisfied—Trogalia, say the Greeks—a sweetmeat triedApprovingly by sated tongue and teeth,Once body's proper meal consigned beneathSuch unconsidered munching.XVIIFancy's flightMakes me a listener when, some sleepless night,The duke reviewed his memories, and aghastFound that the Present intercepts the PastWith such effect as when a cloud enwrapsThe moon and, moon-suf£used, plays moon perhapsTo who walks under, till comes, late or soon,A stumble: up he looks, and lo, the moonCalm, clear, convincingly herself once more!How could he 'scape the cloud that thrust betweenHim and effulgence? Speak, fool—duke, I mean!XVIII"Who bade you come, brisk-marching bold she-shape,A terror with those black-balled worlds of eyes,That black hair bristling solid-built from napeTo crown its coils about? O dread surmise!Take, tread on, trample under past escapeYour capture, spoil and trophy! Do—deviseInsults for one who, fallen once, ne'er shall rise!"Mock on, triumphant o'er the prostrate shame!Laugh 'Here lies he among the false to Love—Love's loyal liegeman once: the very sameWho, scorning his weak fellows, towered aboveInconstancy: yet why his faith defame?Our eagle's victor was at least no dove,No dwarfish knight picked up our giant's glove—"'When, putting prowess to the proof, faith urgedHer champion to the challenge: had it chancedThat merely virtue, wisdom, beauty—mergedAll in one woman—merely these advancedTheir claim to conquest,—hardly had he purgedHis mind of memories, dearnesses enhancedRather than harmed by death, nor, disentranced,"'Promptly had he abjured the old pretenceTo prove his kind's superior—first to lastDisplay erect on his heart's eminenceAn altar to the never-dying Past.For such feat faith might boast fit play of fenceAnd easily disarm the iconoclastCalled virtue, wisdom, beauty: impudence"'Fought in their stead, and how could faith but fall?There came a bold she-shape brisk-marching, bentNo inch of her imperious stature, tallAs some war-engine from whose top was sentOne shattering volley out of eye's black ball,And prone lay faith's defender!' Mockery spent?Malice discharged in full? In that event,"My queenly impudence, I cover close,I wrap me round with love of your black hair,Black eyes, black every wicked inch of thoseLimbs' war-tower tallness: so much truth lives there'Neath the dead heap of lies. And yet—who knows?What if such things are? No less, such things were,Then was the man your match whom now you dare"Treat as existent still. A second truth!They held—this heap of lies you rightly scorn—A man who had approved himself in youthMore than a match for—you? for sea-foam bornVenus herself: you conquer him forsooth?'T is me his ghost: he died since left and lorn,As needs must Samson when his hair is shorn."Some day, and soon, be sure himself will rise,Called into life by her who long agoLeft his soul whiling time in flesh-disguise.Ghosts tired of waiting can play tricks, you know!Tread, trample me—such sport we ghosts devise,Waiting the morn-star's reappearance—thoughYou think we vanish scared by the cock's crow."
IDon, the divinest women that have walkedOur world were scarce those saints of whom we talked.My saint, for instance—worship if you will!'T is pity poets need historians' skill:What legendary 's worth a chronicle?IICome, now! A great lord once upon a timeVisited—oh a king, of kings the prime,To sign a treaty such as never was:For the king's minister had brought to passThat this same duke—so style him—must engageTwo of his dukedoms as an heritageAfter his death to this exorbitantCraver of kingship. "Let who lacks go scant,Who owns much, give the more to!" Why rebuke?So bids the devil, so obeys the duke.IIINow, as it happened, at his sister's house—Duchess herself—indeed the very spouseOf the king's uncle,—while the deed of giftWhereby our duke should cut his rights adriftWas drawing, getting ripe to sign and seal—What does the frozen heart but uncongealAnd, shaming his transcendent kin and kith,Whom do the duke's eyes make acquaintance with?A girl. "What, sister, may this wonder be?""Nobody! Good as beautiful is she,With gifts that match her goodness, no faint flawI' the white: she were the pearl you think you saw,But that she is—what corresponds to white?Some other stone, the true pearl's opposite,As cheap as pearls are costly. She 's—now, guessHer parentage! Once—twice—thrice? Foiled, confess!Drugs, duke, her father deals in—faugh, the scents!—Manna and senna—such medicamentsFor payment he compounds you. Stay—stay—stay!I 'll have no rude speech wrong her! Whither away,The hot-head? Ah, the scapegrace! She deservesRespect—compassion, rather! right it servesMy folly, trusting secrets to a fool!Already at it, is he? She keeps cool—Helped by her fan's spread. Well, our state atonesFor thus much license, and words break no bones!"(Hearts, though, sometimes.)IVNext morn 't was "Reason, rate,Rave, sister, on till doomsday! Sure as fate,I wed that woman—what a woman isNow that I know, who never knew till this!"So swore the duke. "I wed her: once again—Rave, rate, and reason—spend your breath in vain!"VAt once was made a contract firm and fast,Published the banns were, only marriage, last,Required completion when the Church's riteShould bless and bid depart, make happy quiteThe coupled man and wife forevermore:Which rite was soon to follow. Just before—All things at all but end—the folk o' the brideFlocked to a summons. Pomp the duke defied:"Of ceremony—so much as empowers,Naught that exceeds, suits best a tie like ours"—He smiled—"all else were mere futility.We vow, God hears us: God and you and I—Let the world keep at distance! This is whyWe choose the simplest forms that serve to bindLover and lover of the human kind,No care of what degree—of kings or clowns—Come blood and breeding. Courtly smiles and frownsMiss of their mark, would idly soothe or strikeMy style and yours—in one style merged alike—God's man and woman merely. Long ago'T was rounded in my ears 'Duke, wherefore slowTo use a privilege? Needs must one who reignsPay reigning's due: since statecraft so ordains—Wed for the commonweal's sake! law prescribesOne wife: but to submission license bribesUnruly nature: mistresses accept—Well, at discretion!' Prove I so ineptA scholar, thus instructed? Dearest, beWife and all mistresses in one to me,Now, henceforth, and forever!" So smiled he.VIGood: but the minister, the crafty one,Got ear of what was doing—all but done—Not sooner, though, than the king's very self,Warned by the sister on how sheer a shelfRoyalty's ship was like to split. "I barThe abomination! Mix with muck my star?Shall earth behold prodigiously enorbedAn upstart marsh-born meteor sun-absorbed?Nuptial me no such nuptials!" "Past dispute,Majesty speaks with wisdom absolute,"Admired the minister: "yet, all the same,I would we may not—while we play his game,The ducal meteor's—also lose our own.The solar monarch's: we relieve your throneOf an ungracious presence, like enough:Balked of his project he departs in huff,And so cuts short—dare I remind the king?—Our not so unsuccessful bargaining.The contract for eventual heritageHappens topari passureach the stageAttained by just this other contract,—eachUnfixed by signature though fast in speech.Off goes the duke in dudgeon—off withalGo with him his two dukedoms past recall.You save a fool from tasting folly's fruit,Obtain small thanks thereby, and lose to bootSagacity's reward. The jest is grim:The man will mulct you—for amercing him?Nay, for ... permit a poor similitude!A witless wight in some fantastic moodWould drown himself: you plunge into the wave,Pluck forth the undeserving: he, you save,Pulls you clean under also for your pains.Sire, little need that I should tax my brainsTo help your inspiration!" "Let him sink!Always contriving"—hints the royal wink—"To keep ourselves dry while we claim his clothes."VIINext day, the appointed day for plighting trothsAt eve,—so little time to lose, you see,Before the Church should weld, indissolublyBond into bond, wed these who, side by side,Sit each by other, bold groom, blushing bride,—At the preliminary banquet, gracedBy all the lady's kinsfolk come in hasteTo share her triumph,—lo, a thunderclap!"Who importunes now?" "Such is my mishap—In the king's name! No need that any stirExcept this lady!" bids the minister:"With her I claim a word apart, no more:For who gainsays—a guard is at the door.Hold, duke! Submit you, lady, as I bowTo him whose mouthpiece speaks his pleasure now!It well may happen I no whit arrestYour marriage: be it so,—we hope the best!By your leave, gentles! Lady, pray you, hence!Duke, with my soul and body's deference!"VIIIDoors shut, mouth opens and persuasion flowsCopiously forth. "What flesh shall dare opposeThe king's command? The matter in debate—How plain it is! Yourself shall arbitrate,Determine. Since the duke affects to rateHis prize in you beyond all goods of earth,Accounts as naught old gains of rank and birth,Ancestral obligation, recent fame,(We know his feats)—nay, ventures to disclaimOur will and pleasure almost—by report—Waives in your favor dukeliness, in short,—We—('t is the king speaks)—who might forthwith staySuch suicidal purpose, brush awayA bad example shame would else record,—Lean to indulgence rather. At his wordWe take the duke: allow him to completeThe cession of his dukedoms, leave our feetTheir footstool when his own head, safe in vault,Sleeps sound. Nay, would the duke repair his faultHandsomely, and our forfeited esteemRecover,—what if wisely he redeemThe past,—in earnest of good faith, at onceGive us such jurisdiction for the nonceAs may suffice—prevent occasion slip—And constitute our actual ownership?Concede this—straightway be the marriage blessedBy warrant of this paper! Things at rest,This paper duly signed, down drops the bar,To-morrow you become—from what you are,The druggist's daughter—not the duke's mere spouse,But the king's own adopted: heart and houseOpen to you—the idol of a court'Which heaven might copy'—sing our poet-sort.In this emergency, on you dependsThe issue: plead what bliss the king intends!Should the duke frown, should arguments and prayers,Nay, tears if need be, prove in vain,—who cares?We leave the duke to his obduracy,Companionless,—you, madam, follow meWithout, where divers of the body-guardWait signal to enforce the king's awardOf strict seclusion: over you at leastVibratingly the sceptre threats increasedPrecipitation! How avert its crash?"IX"Re-enter, sir! A hand that 's calm, not rash,Averts it!" quietly the lady said."Yourself shall witness."At the table's headWhere, mid the hushed guests, still the duke sat gluedIn blank bewilderment, his spouse pursuedHer speech to end—syllabled quietude.X"Duke, I, your duchess of a day, could takeThe hand you proffered me for love's sole sake,Conscious my love matched yours; as you, myselfWould waive, when need were, all but love—from pelfTo potency. What fortune brings aboutHaply in some far future, finds me out,Faces me on a sudden here and now.The better! Read—if beating heart allow—Read this, and bid me rend to rags the shame!I and your conscience—hear and grant our claim!Never dare alienate God's gift you holdSimply in trust for him! Choose muck for gold?Could you so stumble in your choice, cajoledBy what I count my least of worthiness—The youth, the beauty,—you renounce them—yes,With all that's most too: love as well you lose,Slain by what slays in you the honor! Choose!Dear—yet my husband—dare I love you yet?"XIHow the duke's wrath o'erboiled,—words, words, and yetMore words,—I spare you such fool's fever-fret.They were not of one sort at all, one size,As souls go—he and she. 'T is said, the eyesOf all the lookers-on let tears fall fast.The minister was mollified at last:"Take a day,—two days even, ere through prideYou perish,—two days' counsel—then decide!"XII"If I shall save his honor and my soul?Husband,—this one last time,—you tear the scroll?Farewell, duke! Sir, I follow in your train!"XIIISo she went forth: they never met again,The duke and she. The world paid compliment(Is it worth noting?) when, next day, she sentCertain gifts back—"jewelry fit to deckWhom you call wife." I know not round what neckThey took, to sparkling, in good time—weeks thence.XIVOf all which was the pleasant consequence,So much and no more—that a fervid youth,Big-hearted boy,—but ten years old, in truth—Laid this to heart and loved, as boyhood can,The unduchessed lady: boy and lad grew man:He loved as man perchance may: did meanwhileGood soldier-service, managed to beguileThe years, no few, until he found a chance:Then, as at trumpet-summons to advance,Outbroke the love that stood at arms so long,Brooked no withstanding longer. They were wed.Whereon from camp and court alike he fled,Renounced the sun-king, dropped off into night,Evermore lost, a ruined satellite:And, oh, the exquisite deliciousnessThat lapped him in obscurity! You guessSuch joy is fugitive: she died full soon.He did his best to die—as sun, so moonLeft him, turned dusk to darkness absolute.Failing of death—why, saintship seemed to suit:Yes, your sort, Don! He trembled on the vergeOf monkhood: trick of cowl and taste of scourgeHe tried: then, kicked not at the pricks perverse,But took again, for better or for worse,The old way in the world, and, much the sameMan o' the outside, fairly played life's game.XV"Now, Saint Scholastica, what time she faredIn Paynimrie, behold, a lion glaredRight in her path! Her waist she promptly stripsOf girdle, binds his teeth within his lips,And, leashed all lamblike, to the Soldan's courtLeads him." Ay, many a legend of the sortDo you praiseworthily authenticate:Spare me the rest. This much of no debateAdmits: my lady flourished in grand daysWhen to be duchess was to dance the haysUp, down, across the heaven amid its host:While to be hailed the sun's own self almost—So close the kinship—was—was—Saint, for this.Be yours the feet I stoop to—kneel and kiss!So human? Then the mouth too, if you will!Thanks to no legend but a chronicle.XVIOne leans to like the duke, too: up we 'll patchSome sort of saintship for him—not to matchHers—but man's best and woman's worst amountSo nearly to the same thing, that we countIn man a miracle of faithfulnessIf, while unfaithful somewhat, he lay stressOn the main fact that love, when love indeed,Is wholly solely love from first to last—Truth—all the rest a lie. Too likely, fastEnough that necklace went to grace the throat—Let 's say, of such a dancer as makes doatThe senses when the soul is satisfied—Trogalia, say the Greeks—a sweetmeat triedApprovingly by sated tongue and teeth,Once body's proper meal consigned beneathSuch unconsidered munching.XVIIFancy's flightMakes me a listener when, some sleepless night,The duke reviewed his memories, and aghastFound that the Present intercepts the PastWith such effect as when a cloud enwrapsThe moon and, moon-suf£used, plays moon perhapsTo who walks under, till comes, late or soon,A stumble: up he looks, and lo, the moonCalm, clear, convincingly herself once more!How could he 'scape the cloud that thrust betweenHim and effulgence? Speak, fool—duke, I mean!XVIII"Who bade you come, brisk-marching bold she-shape,A terror with those black-balled worlds of eyes,That black hair bristling solid-built from napeTo crown its coils about? O dread surmise!Take, tread on, trample under past escapeYour capture, spoil and trophy! Do—deviseInsults for one who, fallen once, ne'er shall rise!"Mock on, triumphant o'er the prostrate shame!Laugh 'Here lies he among the false to Love—Love's loyal liegeman once: the very sameWho, scorning his weak fellows, towered aboveInconstancy: yet why his faith defame?Our eagle's victor was at least no dove,No dwarfish knight picked up our giant's glove—"'When, putting prowess to the proof, faith urgedHer champion to the challenge: had it chancedThat merely virtue, wisdom, beauty—mergedAll in one woman—merely these advancedTheir claim to conquest,—hardly had he purgedHis mind of memories, dearnesses enhancedRather than harmed by death, nor, disentranced,"'Promptly had he abjured the old pretenceTo prove his kind's superior—first to lastDisplay erect on his heart's eminenceAn altar to the never-dying Past.For such feat faith might boast fit play of fenceAnd easily disarm the iconoclastCalled virtue, wisdom, beauty: impudence"'Fought in their stead, and how could faith but fall?There came a bold she-shape brisk-marching, bentNo inch of her imperious stature, tallAs some war-engine from whose top was sentOne shattering volley out of eye's black ball,And prone lay faith's defender!' Mockery spent?Malice discharged in full? In that event,"My queenly impudence, I cover close,I wrap me round with love of your black hair,Black eyes, black every wicked inch of thoseLimbs' war-tower tallness: so much truth lives there'Neath the dead heap of lies. And yet—who knows?What if such things are? No less, such things were,Then was the man your match whom now you dare"Treat as existent still. A second truth!They held—this heap of lies you rightly scorn—A man who had approved himself in youthMore than a match for—you? for sea-foam bornVenus herself: you conquer him forsooth?'T is me his ghost: he died since left and lorn,As needs must Samson when his hair is shorn."Some day, and soon, be sure himself will rise,Called into life by her who long agoLeft his soul whiling time in flesh-disguise.Ghosts tired of waiting can play tricks, you know!Tread, trample me—such sport we ghosts devise,Waiting the morn-star's reappearance—thoughYou think we vanish scared by the cock's crow."
I
I
Don, the divinest women that have walkedOur world were scarce those saints of whom we talked.My saint, for instance—worship if you will!'T is pity poets need historians' skill:What legendary 's worth a chronicle?
Don, the divinest women that have walked
Our world were scarce those saints of whom we talked.
My saint, for instance—worship if you will!
'T is pity poets need historians' skill:
What legendary 's worth a chronicle?
II
II
Come, now! A great lord once upon a timeVisited—oh a king, of kings the prime,To sign a treaty such as never was:For the king's minister had brought to passThat this same duke—so style him—must engageTwo of his dukedoms as an heritageAfter his death to this exorbitantCraver of kingship. "Let who lacks go scant,Who owns much, give the more to!" Why rebuke?So bids the devil, so obeys the duke.
Come, now! A great lord once upon a time
Visited—oh a king, of kings the prime,
To sign a treaty such as never was:
For the king's minister had brought to pass
That this same duke—so style him—must engage
Two of his dukedoms as an heritage
After his death to this exorbitant
Craver of kingship. "Let who lacks go scant,
Who owns much, give the more to!" Why rebuke?
So bids the devil, so obeys the duke.
III
III
Now, as it happened, at his sister's house—Duchess herself—indeed the very spouseOf the king's uncle,—while the deed of giftWhereby our duke should cut his rights adriftWas drawing, getting ripe to sign and seal—What does the frozen heart but uncongealAnd, shaming his transcendent kin and kith,Whom do the duke's eyes make acquaintance with?A girl. "What, sister, may this wonder be?""Nobody! Good as beautiful is she,With gifts that match her goodness, no faint flawI' the white: she were the pearl you think you saw,But that she is—what corresponds to white?Some other stone, the true pearl's opposite,As cheap as pearls are costly. She 's—now, guessHer parentage! Once—twice—thrice? Foiled, confess!Drugs, duke, her father deals in—faugh, the scents!—Manna and senna—such medicamentsFor payment he compounds you. Stay—stay—stay!I 'll have no rude speech wrong her! Whither away,The hot-head? Ah, the scapegrace! She deservesRespect—compassion, rather! right it servesMy folly, trusting secrets to a fool!Already at it, is he? She keeps cool—Helped by her fan's spread. Well, our state atonesFor thus much license, and words break no bones!"(Hearts, though, sometimes.)
Now, as it happened, at his sister's house
—Duchess herself—indeed the very spouse
Of the king's uncle,—while the deed of gift
Whereby our duke should cut his rights adrift
Was drawing, getting ripe to sign and seal—
What does the frozen heart but uncongeal
And, shaming his transcendent kin and kith,
Whom do the duke's eyes make acquaintance with?
A girl. "What, sister, may this wonder be?"
"Nobody! Good as beautiful is she,
With gifts that match her goodness, no faint flaw
I' the white: she were the pearl you think you saw,
But that she is—what corresponds to white?
Some other stone, the true pearl's opposite,
As cheap as pearls are costly. She 's—now, guess
Her parentage! Once—twice—thrice? Foiled, confess!
Drugs, duke, her father deals in—faugh, the scents!—
Manna and senna—such medicaments
For payment he compounds you. Stay—stay—stay!
I 'll have no rude speech wrong her! Whither away,
The hot-head? Ah, the scapegrace! She deserves
Respect—compassion, rather! right it serves
My folly, trusting secrets to a fool!
Already at it, is he? She keeps cool—
Helped by her fan's spread. Well, our state atones
For thus much license, and words break no bones!"
(Hearts, though, sometimes.)
IV
IV
Next morn 't was "Reason, rate,Rave, sister, on till doomsday! Sure as fate,I wed that woman—what a woman isNow that I know, who never knew till this!"So swore the duke. "I wed her: once again—Rave, rate, and reason—spend your breath in vain!"
Next morn 't was "Reason, rate,
Rave, sister, on till doomsday! Sure as fate,
I wed that woman—what a woman is
Now that I know, who never knew till this!"
So swore the duke. "I wed her: once again—
Rave, rate, and reason—spend your breath in vain!"
V
V
At once was made a contract firm and fast,Published the banns were, only marriage, last,Required completion when the Church's riteShould bless and bid depart, make happy quiteThe coupled man and wife forevermore:Which rite was soon to follow. Just before—All things at all but end—the folk o' the brideFlocked to a summons. Pomp the duke defied:"Of ceremony—so much as empowers,Naught that exceeds, suits best a tie like ours"—He smiled—"all else were mere futility.We vow, God hears us: God and you and I—Let the world keep at distance! This is whyWe choose the simplest forms that serve to bindLover and lover of the human kind,No care of what degree—of kings or clowns—Come blood and breeding. Courtly smiles and frownsMiss of their mark, would idly soothe or strikeMy style and yours—in one style merged alike—God's man and woman merely. Long ago'T was rounded in my ears 'Duke, wherefore slowTo use a privilege? Needs must one who reignsPay reigning's due: since statecraft so ordains—Wed for the commonweal's sake! law prescribesOne wife: but to submission license bribesUnruly nature: mistresses accept—Well, at discretion!' Prove I so ineptA scholar, thus instructed? Dearest, beWife and all mistresses in one to me,Now, henceforth, and forever!" So smiled he.
At once was made a contract firm and fast,
Published the banns were, only marriage, last,
Required completion when the Church's rite
Should bless and bid depart, make happy quite
The coupled man and wife forevermore:
Which rite was soon to follow. Just before—
All things at all but end—the folk o' the bride
Flocked to a summons. Pomp the duke defied:
"Of ceremony—so much as empowers,
Naught that exceeds, suits best a tie like ours"—
He smiled—"all else were mere futility.
We vow, God hears us: God and you and I—
Let the world keep at distance! This is why
We choose the simplest forms that serve to bind
Lover and lover of the human kind,
No care of what degree—of kings or clowns—
Come blood and breeding. Courtly smiles and frowns
Miss of their mark, would idly soothe or strike
My style and yours—in one style merged alike—
God's man and woman merely. Long ago
'T was rounded in my ears 'Duke, wherefore slow
To use a privilege? Needs must one who reigns
Pay reigning's due: since statecraft so ordains—
Wed for the commonweal's sake! law prescribes
One wife: but to submission license bribes
Unruly nature: mistresses accept
—Well, at discretion!' Prove I so inept
A scholar, thus instructed? Dearest, be
Wife and all mistresses in one to me,
Now, henceforth, and forever!" So smiled he.
VI
VI
Good: but the minister, the crafty one,Got ear of what was doing—all but done—Not sooner, though, than the king's very self,Warned by the sister on how sheer a shelfRoyalty's ship was like to split. "I barThe abomination! Mix with muck my star?Shall earth behold prodigiously enorbedAn upstart marsh-born meteor sun-absorbed?Nuptial me no such nuptials!" "Past dispute,Majesty speaks with wisdom absolute,"Admired the minister: "yet, all the same,I would we may not—while we play his game,The ducal meteor's—also lose our own.The solar monarch's: we relieve your throneOf an ungracious presence, like enough:Balked of his project he departs in huff,And so cuts short—dare I remind the king?—Our not so unsuccessful bargaining.The contract for eventual heritageHappens topari passureach the stageAttained by just this other contract,—eachUnfixed by signature though fast in speech.Off goes the duke in dudgeon—off withalGo with him his two dukedoms past recall.You save a fool from tasting folly's fruit,Obtain small thanks thereby, and lose to bootSagacity's reward. The jest is grim:The man will mulct you—for amercing him?Nay, for ... permit a poor similitude!A witless wight in some fantastic moodWould drown himself: you plunge into the wave,Pluck forth the undeserving: he, you save,Pulls you clean under also for your pains.Sire, little need that I should tax my brainsTo help your inspiration!" "Let him sink!Always contriving"—hints the royal wink—"To keep ourselves dry while we claim his clothes."
Good: but the minister, the crafty one,
Got ear of what was doing—all but done—
Not sooner, though, than the king's very self,
Warned by the sister on how sheer a shelf
Royalty's ship was like to split. "I bar
The abomination! Mix with muck my star?
Shall earth behold prodigiously enorbed
An upstart marsh-born meteor sun-absorbed?
Nuptial me no such nuptials!" "Past dispute,
Majesty speaks with wisdom absolute,"
Admired the minister: "yet, all the same,
I would we may not—while we play his game,
The ducal meteor's—also lose our own.
The solar monarch's: we relieve your throne
Of an ungracious presence, like enough:
Balked of his project he departs in huff,
And so cuts short—dare I remind the king?—
Our not so unsuccessful bargaining.
The contract for eventual heritage
Happens topari passureach the stage
Attained by just this other contract,—each
Unfixed by signature though fast in speech.
Off goes the duke in dudgeon—off withal
Go with him his two dukedoms past recall.
You save a fool from tasting folly's fruit,
Obtain small thanks thereby, and lose to boot
Sagacity's reward. The jest is grim:
The man will mulct you—for amercing him?
Nay, for ... permit a poor similitude!
A witless wight in some fantastic mood
Would drown himself: you plunge into the wave,
Pluck forth the undeserving: he, you save,
Pulls you clean under also for your pains.
Sire, little need that I should tax my brains
To help your inspiration!" "Let him sink!
Always contriving"—hints the royal wink—
"To keep ourselves dry while we claim his clothes."
VII
VII
Next day, the appointed day for plighting trothsAt eve,—so little time to lose, you see,Before the Church should weld, indissolublyBond into bond, wed these who, side by side,Sit each by other, bold groom, blushing bride,—At the preliminary banquet, gracedBy all the lady's kinsfolk come in hasteTo share her triumph,—lo, a thunderclap!"Who importunes now?" "Such is my mishap—In the king's name! No need that any stirExcept this lady!" bids the minister:"With her I claim a word apart, no more:For who gainsays—a guard is at the door.Hold, duke! Submit you, lady, as I bowTo him whose mouthpiece speaks his pleasure now!It well may happen I no whit arrestYour marriage: be it so,—we hope the best!By your leave, gentles! Lady, pray you, hence!Duke, with my soul and body's deference!"
Next day, the appointed day for plighting troths
At eve,—so little time to lose, you see,
Before the Church should weld, indissolubly
Bond into bond, wed these who, side by side,
Sit each by other, bold groom, blushing bride,—
At the preliminary banquet, graced
By all the lady's kinsfolk come in haste
To share her triumph,—lo, a thunderclap!
"Who importunes now?" "Such is my mishap—
In the king's name! No need that any stir
Except this lady!" bids the minister:
"With her I claim a word apart, no more:
For who gainsays—a guard is at the door.
Hold, duke! Submit you, lady, as I bow
To him whose mouthpiece speaks his pleasure now!
It well may happen I no whit arrest
Your marriage: be it so,—we hope the best!
By your leave, gentles! Lady, pray you, hence!
Duke, with my soul and body's deference!"
VIII
VIII
Doors shut, mouth opens and persuasion flowsCopiously forth. "What flesh shall dare opposeThe king's command? The matter in debate—How plain it is! Yourself shall arbitrate,Determine. Since the duke affects to rateHis prize in you beyond all goods of earth,Accounts as naught old gains of rank and birth,Ancestral obligation, recent fame,(We know his feats)—nay, ventures to disclaimOur will and pleasure almost—by report—Waives in your favor dukeliness, in short,—We—('t is the king speaks)—who might forthwith staySuch suicidal purpose, brush awayA bad example shame would else record,—Lean to indulgence rather. At his wordWe take the duke: allow him to completeThe cession of his dukedoms, leave our feetTheir footstool when his own head, safe in vault,Sleeps sound. Nay, would the duke repair his faultHandsomely, and our forfeited esteemRecover,—what if wisely he redeemThe past,—in earnest of good faith, at onceGive us such jurisdiction for the nonceAs may suffice—prevent occasion slip—And constitute our actual ownership?Concede this—straightway be the marriage blessedBy warrant of this paper! Things at rest,This paper duly signed, down drops the bar,To-morrow you become—from what you are,The druggist's daughter—not the duke's mere spouse,But the king's own adopted: heart and houseOpen to you—the idol of a court'Which heaven might copy'—sing our poet-sort.In this emergency, on you dependsThe issue: plead what bliss the king intends!Should the duke frown, should arguments and prayers,Nay, tears if need be, prove in vain,—who cares?We leave the duke to his obduracy,Companionless,—you, madam, follow meWithout, where divers of the body-guardWait signal to enforce the king's awardOf strict seclusion: over you at leastVibratingly the sceptre threats increasedPrecipitation! How avert its crash?"
Doors shut, mouth opens and persuasion flows
Copiously forth. "What flesh shall dare oppose
The king's command? The matter in debate
—How plain it is! Yourself shall arbitrate,
Determine. Since the duke affects to rate
His prize in you beyond all goods of earth,
Accounts as naught old gains of rank and birth,
Ancestral obligation, recent fame,
(We know his feats)—nay, ventures to disclaim
Our will and pleasure almost—by report—
Waives in your favor dukeliness, in short,—
We—('t is the king speaks)—who might forthwith stay
Such suicidal purpose, brush away
A bad example shame would else record,—
Lean to indulgence rather. At his word
We take the duke: allow him to complete
The cession of his dukedoms, leave our feet
Their footstool when his own head, safe in vault,
Sleeps sound. Nay, would the duke repair his fault
Handsomely, and our forfeited esteem
Recover,—what if wisely he redeem
The past,—in earnest of good faith, at once
Give us such jurisdiction for the nonce
As may suffice—prevent occasion slip—
And constitute our actual ownership?
Concede this—straightway be the marriage blessed
By warrant of this paper! Things at rest,
This paper duly signed, down drops the bar,
To-morrow you become—from what you are,
The druggist's daughter—not the duke's mere spouse,
But the king's own adopted: heart and house
Open to you—the idol of a court
'Which heaven might copy'—sing our poet-sort.
In this emergency, on you depends
The issue: plead what bliss the king intends!
Should the duke frown, should arguments and prayers,
Nay, tears if need be, prove in vain,—who cares?
We leave the duke to his obduracy,
Companionless,—you, madam, follow me
Without, where divers of the body-guard
Wait signal to enforce the king's award
Of strict seclusion: over you at least
Vibratingly the sceptre threats increased
Precipitation! How avert its crash?"
IX
IX
"Re-enter, sir! A hand that 's calm, not rash,Averts it!" quietly the lady said."Yourself shall witness."At the table's headWhere, mid the hushed guests, still the duke sat gluedIn blank bewilderment, his spouse pursuedHer speech to end—syllabled quietude.
"Re-enter, sir! A hand that 's calm, not rash,
Averts it!" quietly the lady said.
"Yourself shall witness."
At the table's head
Where, mid the hushed guests, still the duke sat glued
In blank bewilderment, his spouse pursued
Her speech to end—syllabled quietude.
X
X
"Duke, I, your duchess of a day, could takeThe hand you proffered me for love's sole sake,Conscious my love matched yours; as you, myselfWould waive, when need were, all but love—from pelfTo potency. What fortune brings aboutHaply in some far future, finds me out,Faces me on a sudden here and now.The better! Read—if beating heart allow—Read this, and bid me rend to rags the shame!I and your conscience—hear and grant our claim!Never dare alienate God's gift you holdSimply in trust for him! Choose muck for gold?Could you so stumble in your choice, cajoledBy what I count my least of worthiness—The youth, the beauty,—you renounce them—yes,With all that's most too: love as well you lose,Slain by what slays in you the honor! Choose!Dear—yet my husband—dare I love you yet?"
"Duke, I, your duchess of a day, could take
The hand you proffered me for love's sole sake,
Conscious my love matched yours; as you, myself
Would waive, when need were, all but love—from pelf
To potency. What fortune brings about
Haply in some far future, finds me out,
Faces me on a sudden here and now.
The better! Read—if beating heart allow—
Read this, and bid me rend to rags the shame!
I and your conscience—hear and grant our claim!
Never dare alienate God's gift you hold
Simply in trust for him! Choose muck for gold?
Could you so stumble in your choice, cajoled
By what I count my least of worthiness
—The youth, the beauty,—you renounce them—yes,
With all that's most too: love as well you lose,
Slain by what slays in you the honor! Choose!
Dear—yet my husband—dare I love you yet?"
XI
XI
How the duke's wrath o'erboiled,—words, words, and yetMore words,—I spare you such fool's fever-fret.They were not of one sort at all, one size,As souls go—he and she. 'T is said, the eyesOf all the lookers-on let tears fall fast.The minister was mollified at last:"Take a day,—two days even, ere through prideYou perish,—two days' counsel—then decide!"
How the duke's wrath o'erboiled,—words, words, and yet
More words,—I spare you such fool's fever-fret.
They were not of one sort at all, one size,
As souls go—he and she. 'T is said, the eyes
Of all the lookers-on let tears fall fast.
The minister was mollified at last:
"Take a day,—two days even, ere through pride
You perish,—two days' counsel—then decide!"
XII
XII
"If I shall save his honor and my soul?Husband,—this one last time,—you tear the scroll?Farewell, duke! Sir, I follow in your train!"
"If I shall save his honor and my soul?
Husband,—this one last time,—you tear the scroll?
Farewell, duke! Sir, I follow in your train!"
XIII
XIII
So she went forth: they never met again,The duke and she. The world paid compliment(Is it worth noting?) when, next day, she sentCertain gifts back—"jewelry fit to deckWhom you call wife." I know not round what neckThey took, to sparkling, in good time—weeks thence.
So she went forth: they never met again,
The duke and she. The world paid compliment
(Is it worth noting?) when, next day, she sent
Certain gifts back—"jewelry fit to deck
Whom you call wife." I know not round what neck
They took, to sparkling, in good time—weeks thence.
XIV
XIV
Of all which was the pleasant consequence,So much and no more—that a fervid youth,Big-hearted boy,—but ten years old, in truth—Laid this to heart and loved, as boyhood can,The unduchessed lady: boy and lad grew man:He loved as man perchance may: did meanwhileGood soldier-service, managed to beguileThe years, no few, until he found a chance:Then, as at trumpet-summons to advance,Outbroke the love that stood at arms so long,Brooked no withstanding longer. They were wed.Whereon from camp and court alike he fled,Renounced the sun-king, dropped off into night,Evermore lost, a ruined satellite:And, oh, the exquisite deliciousnessThat lapped him in obscurity! You guessSuch joy is fugitive: she died full soon.He did his best to die—as sun, so moonLeft him, turned dusk to darkness absolute.Failing of death—why, saintship seemed to suit:Yes, your sort, Don! He trembled on the vergeOf monkhood: trick of cowl and taste of scourgeHe tried: then, kicked not at the pricks perverse,But took again, for better or for worse,The old way in the world, and, much the sameMan o' the outside, fairly played life's game.
Of all which was the pleasant consequence,
So much and no more—that a fervid youth,
Big-hearted boy,—but ten years old, in truth—
Laid this to heart and loved, as boyhood can,
The unduchessed lady: boy and lad grew man:
He loved as man perchance may: did meanwhile
Good soldier-service, managed to beguile
The years, no few, until he found a chance:
Then, as at trumpet-summons to advance,
Outbroke the love that stood at arms so long,
Brooked no withstanding longer. They were wed.
Whereon from camp and court alike he fled,
Renounced the sun-king, dropped off into night,
Evermore lost, a ruined satellite:
And, oh, the exquisite deliciousness
That lapped him in obscurity! You guess
Such joy is fugitive: she died full soon.
He did his best to die—as sun, so moon
Left him, turned dusk to darkness absolute.
Failing of death—why, saintship seemed to suit:
Yes, your sort, Don! He trembled on the verge
Of monkhood: trick of cowl and taste of scourge
He tried: then, kicked not at the pricks perverse,
But took again, for better or for worse,
The old way in the world, and, much the same
Man o' the outside, fairly played life's game.
XV
XV
"Now, Saint Scholastica, what time she faredIn Paynimrie, behold, a lion glaredRight in her path! Her waist she promptly stripsOf girdle, binds his teeth within his lips,And, leashed all lamblike, to the Soldan's courtLeads him." Ay, many a legend of the sortDo you praiseworthily authenticate:Spare me the rest. This much of no debateAdmits: my lady flourished in grand daysWhen to be duchess was to dance the haysUp, down, across the heaven amid its host:While to be hailed the sun's own self almost—So close the kinship—was—was—
"Now, Saint Scholastica, what time she fared
In Paynimrie, behold, a lion glared
Right in her path! Her waist she promptly strips
Of girdle, binds his teeth within his lips,
And, leashed all lamblike, to the Soldan's court
Leads him." Ay, many a legend of the sort
Do you praiseworthily authenticate:
Spare me the rest. This much of no debate
Admits: my lady flourished in grand days
When to be duchess was to dance the hays
Up, down, across the heaven amid its host:
While to be hailed the sun's own self almost—
So close the kinship—was—was—
Saint, for this.Be yours the feet I stoop to—kneel and kiss!So human? Then the mouth too, if you will!Thanks to no legend but a chronicle.
Saint, for this.
Be yours the feet I stoop to—kneel and kiss!
So human? Then the mouth too, if you will!
Thanks to no legend but a chronicle.
XVI
XVI
One leans to like the duke, too: up we 'll patchSome sort of saintship for him—not to matchHers—but man's best and woman's worst amountSo nearly to the same thing, that we countIn man a miracle of faithfulnessIf, while unfaithful somewhat, he lay stressOn the main fact that love, when love indeed,Is wholly solely love from first to last—Truth—all the rest a lie. Too likely, fastEnough that necklace went to grace the throat—Let 's say, of such a dancer as makes doatThe senses when the soul is satisfied—Trogalia, say the Greeks—a sweetmeat triedApprovingly by sated tongue and teeth,Once body's proper meal consigned beneathSuch unconsidered munching.
One leans to like the duke, too: up we 'll patch
Some sort of saintship for him—not to match
Hers—but man's best and woman's worst amount
So nearly to the same thing, that we count
In man a miracle of faithfulness
If, while unfaithful somewhat, he lay stress
On the main fact that love, when love indeed,
Is wholly solely love from first to last—
Truth—all the rest a lie. Too likely, fast
Enough that necklace went to grace the throat
—Let 's say, of such a dancer as makes doat
The senses when the soul is satisfied—
Trogalia, say the Greeks—a sweetmeat tried
Approvingly by sated tongue and teeth,
Once body's proper meal consigned beneath
Such unconsidered munching.
XVII
XVII
Fancy's flightMakes me a listener when, some sleepless night,The duke reviewed his memories, and aghastFound that the Present intercepts the PastWith such effect as when a cloud enwrapsThe moon and, moon-suf£used, plays moon perhapsTo who walks under, till comes, late or soon,A stumble: up he looks, and lo, the moonCalm, clear, convincingly herself once more!How could he 'scape the cloud that thrust betweenHim and effulgence? Speak, fool—duke, I mean!
Fancy's flight
Makes me a listener when, some sleepless night,
The duke reviewed his memories, and aghast
Found that the Present intercepts the Past
With such effect as when a cloud enwraps
The moon and, moon-suf£used, plays moon perhaps
To who walks under, till comes, late or soon,
A stumble: up he looks, and lo, the moon
Calm, clear, convincingly herself once more!
How could he 'scape the cloud that thrust between
Him and effulgence? Speak, fool—duke, I mean!
XVIII
XVIII
"Who bade you come, brisk-marching bold she-shape,A terror with those black-balled worlds of eyes,That black hair bristling solid-built from napeTo crown its coils about? O dread surmise!Take, tread on, trample under past escapeYour capture, spoil and trophy! Do—deviseInsults for one who, fallen once, ne'er shall rise!
"Who bade you come, brisk-marching bold she-shape,
A terror with those black-balled worlds of eyes,
That black hair bristling solid-built from nape
To crown its coils about? O dread surmise!
Take, tread on, trample under past escape
Your capture, spoil and trophy! Do—devise
Insults for one who, fallen once, ne'er shall rise!
"Mock on, triumphant o'er the prostrate shame!Laugh 'Here lies he among the false to Love—Love's loyal liegeman once: the very sameWho, scorning his weak fellows, towered aboveInconstancy: yet why his faith defame?Our eagle's victor was at least no dove,No dwarfish knight picked up our giant's glove—
"Mock on, triumphant o'er the prostrate shame!
Laugh 'Here lies he among the false to Love—
Love's loyal liegeman once: the very same
Who, scorning his weak fellows, towered above
Inconstancy: yet why his faith defame?
Our eagle's victor was at least no dove,
No dwarfish knight picked up our giant's glove—
"'When, putting prowess to the proof, faith urgedHer champion to the challenge: had it chancedThat merely virtue, wisdom, beauty—mergedAll in one woman—merely these advancedTheir claim to conquest,—hardly had he purgedHis mind of memories, dearnesses enhancedRather than harmed by death, nor, disentranced,
"'When, putting prowess to the proof, faith urged
Her champion to the challenge: had it chanced
That merely virtue, wisdom, beauty—merged
All in one woman—merely these advanced
Their claim to conquest,—hardly had he purged
His mind of memories, dearnesses enhanced
Rather than harmed by death, nor, disentranced,
"'Promptly had he abjured the old pretenceTo prove his kind's superior—first to lastDisplay erect on his heart's eminenceAn altar to the never-dying Past.For such feat faith might boast fit play of fenceAnd easily disarm the iconoclastCalled virtue, wisdom, beauty: impudence
"'Promptly had he abjured the old pretence
To prove his kind's superior—first to last
Display erect on his heart's eminence
An altar to the never-dying Past.
For such feat faith might boast fit play of fence
And easily disarm the iconoclast
Called virtue, wisdom, beauty: impudence
"'Fought in their stead, and how could faith but fall?There came a bold she-shape brisk-marching, bentNo inch of her imperious stature, tallAs some war-engine from whose top was sentOne shattering volley out of eye's black ball,And prone lay faith's defender!' Mockery spent?Malice discharged in full? In that event,
"'Fought in their stead, and how could faith but fall?
There came a bold she-shape brisk-marching, bent
No inch of her imperious stature, tall
As some war-engine from whose top was sent
One shattering volley out of eye's black ball,
And prone lay faith's defender!' Mockery spent?
Malice discharged in full? In that event,
"My queenly impudence, I cover close,I wrap me round with love of your black hair,Black eyes, black every wicked inch of thoseLimbs' war-tower tallness: so much truth lives there'Neath the dead heap of lies. And yet—who knows?What if such things are? No less, such things were,Then was the man your match whom now you dare
"My queenly impudence, I cover close,
I wrap me round with love of your black hair,
Black eyes, black every wicked inch of those
Limbs' war-tower tallness: so much truth lives there
'Neath the dead heap of lies. And yet—who knows?
What if such things are? No less, such things were,
Then was the man your match whom now you dare
"Treat as existent still. A second truth!They held—this heap of lies you rightly scorn—A man who had approved himself in youthMore than a match for—you? for sea-foam bornVenus herself: you conquer him forsooth?'T is me his ghost: he died since left and lorn,As needs must Samson when his hair is shorn.
"Treat as existent still. A second truth!
They held—this heap of lies you rightly scorn—
A man who had approved himself in youth
More than a match for—you? for sea-foam born
Venus herself: you conquer him forsooth?
'T is me his ghost: he died since left and lorn,
As needs must Samson when his hair is shorn.
"Some day, and soon, be sure himself will rise,Called into life by her who long agoLeft his soul whiling time in flesh-disguise.Ghosts tired of waiting can play tricks, you know!Tread, trample me—such sport we ghosts devise,Waiting the morn-star's reappearance—thoughYou think we vanish scared by the cock's crow."
"Some day, and soon, be sure himself will rise,
Called into life by her who long ago
Left his soul whiling time in flesh-disguise.
Ghosts tired of waiting can play tricks, you know!
Tread, trample me—such sport we ghosts devise,
Waiting the morn-star's reappearance—though
You think we vanish scared by the cock's crow."
IIt seems as if ... or did the actual chanceStartle me and perplex? Let truth be said!How might this happen? Dreaming, blindfold ledBy visionary hand, did soul's advancePrecede my body's, gain inheritanceOf fact by fancy—so that when I readAt length with waking eyes your Song, insteadOf mere bewilderment, with me first glanceWas but full recognition that in tranceOr merely thought's adventure some old dayOf dim and done-with boyishness, or—well,Why might it not have been, the miracleBroke on me as I took my sober wayThrough veritable regions of our earthAnd made discovery, many a wondrous one?IIAnyhow, fact or fancy, such its birth:I was exploring some huge house, had goneThrough room and room complacently, no dearthAnywhere of the signs of decent taste,Adequate culture: wealth had run to wasteNowise, nor penury was proved by stint:All showed the Golden Mean without a hintOf brave extravagance that breaks the rule.The master of the mansion was no foolAssuredly, no genius just as sure!Safe mediocrity had scorned the lureOf now too much and now too little cost,And satisfied me sight was never lostOf moderate design's accomplishmentIn calm completeness. On and on I wentWith no more hope than fear of what came next,Till lo, I push a door, sudden upliftA hanging, enter, chance upon a shiftIndeed of scene! So—thus it is thou deck'stHigh heaven, our low earth's brick-and-mortar work?IIIIt was the Chapel. That a star, from murkWhich hid, should flashingly emerge at last,Were small surprise: but from broad day I passedInto a presence that turned shine to shade.There fronted me the Rafael Mother-Maid,Never to whom knelt votarist in shrineBy Nature's bounty helped, by Art's divineMore varied—beauty with magnificence—Than this: from floor to roof one evidenceOf how far earth may rival heaven. No nicheWhere glory was not prisoned to enrichMan's gaze with gold and gems, no space but glowedWith color, gleamed with carving—hues which owedTheir outburst to a brush the painter fedWith rainbow-substance—rare shapes never wedTo actual flesh and blood, which, brain-born once,Became the sculptor's dowry, Art's responseTo earth's despair. And all seemed old yet new:Youth,—in the marble's curve, the canvas' hue,Apparent,—wanted not the crowning thrillOf age the consecrator. Hands long stillHad worked here—could it be, what lent them skillRetained a power to supervise, protect,Enforce new lessons with the old, connectOur life with theirs? No merely modern touchTold me that here the artist, doing much,Elsewhere did more, perchance does better, lives—So needs must learn.IVWell, these provocativesHaving fulfilled their office, forth I wentBig with anticipation—well-nigh fear—Of what next room and next for startled eyesMight have in store, surprise beyond surprise.Next room and next and next—what followed here?Why, nothing! not one object to arrestMy passage—everywhere too manifestThe previous decent null and void of bestAnd worst, mere ordinary right and fit,Calm commonplace which neither missed, nor hitInch-high, inch-low, the placid mark proposed.VArmed with this instance, have I diagnosedYour case, my Christopher? The man was soundAnd sane at starting: all at once the groundGave way beneath his step, a certain smokeCurled up and caught him, or perhaps down brokeA fireball wrapping flesh and spirit bothIn conflagration. Then—as heaven were lothTo linger—let earth understand too wellHow heaven at need can operate—off fellThe flame-robe, and the untransfigured manResumed sobriety,—as he began,So did he end nor alter pace, not he!VINow, what I fain would know is—could it beThat he—whoe'er he was that furnished forthThe Chapel, making thus, from South to North,Rafael touch Leighton, MichelagnoloJoin Watts, was found but once combining soThe elder and the younger, taking standOn Art's supreme,—or that yourself who sangA Song where flute-breath silvers trumpet-clang,And stations you for once on either handWith Milton and with Keats, empowered to claimAffinity on just one point—(or blameOr praise my judgment, thus it fronts you full)—How came it you resume the void and null,Subside to insignificance,—live, die—Proved plainly two mere mortals who drew nighOne moment—that, to Art's best hierarchy,This, to the superhuman poet-pair?What if, in one point only, then and thereThe otherwise all-unapproachableAllowed impingement? Does the sphere pretendTo span the cube's breadth, cover end to endThe plane with its embrace? No, surely! Still,Contact is contact, sphere's touch no whit lessThan cube's superimposure. Such successBefell Smart only out of throngs betweenMilton and Keats that donned the singing-dress—Smart, solely of such songmen, pierced the screen'Twixt thing and word, lit language straight from soul,—Left no fine film-flake on the naked coalLive from the censer—shapely or uncouth,Fire-suffused through and through, one blaze of truthUndeadened by a lie,—(you have my mind)—For, think! this blaze outleapt with black behindAnd blank before, when Hayley and the rest ...But let the dead successors worst and bestBury their dead: with life be my concern—Yours with the fire-flame: what I fain would learnIs just—(suppose me haply ignorantDown to the common knowledge, doctors vaunt)Just this—why only once the fire-flame was:No matter if the marvel came to passThe way folk judged—if power too long suppressedBroke loose and maddened, as the vulgar guessedOr simply brain-disorder (doctors said),A turmoil of the particles disturbed,Brain's workaday performance in your head,Spurred spirit to wild action health had curbed,And so verse issued in a cataractWhence prose, before and after, unperturbedWas wont to wend its way. Concede the factThat here a poet was who always could—Never before did—never after would—Achieve the feat: how were such fact explained?VIIWas it that when, by rarest chance, there fellDisguise from Nature, so that Truth remainedNaked, and whoso saw for once could tellUs others of her majesty and mightIn large, her lovelinesses infiniteIn little,—straight you used the power wherewithSense, penetrating as through rind to pithEach object, thoroughly revealed might viewAnd comprehend the old things thus made new,So that while eye saw, soul to tongue could trustThing which struck word out, and once more adjustReal vision to right language, till heaven's vaultPompous with sunset, storm-stirred sea's assaultOn the swilled rock-ridge, earth's embosomed broodOf tree and flower and weed, with all the lifeThat flies or swims or crawls, in peace or strife,Above, below,—each had its note and nameFor Man to know by,—Man who, now—the sameAs erst in Eden, needs that all he seesBe named him ere he note by what degreesOf strength and beauty to its end DesignEver thus operates—(your thought and mine,No matter for the many dissident)—So did you sing your Song, so truth found ventIn words for once with you?VIIIThen—back was furledThe robe thus thrown aside, and straight the worldDarkened into the old oft-cataloguedRepository of things that sky, wave, land,Or show or hide, clear late, accretion-cloggedNow, just as long ago, by tellings andRe-tellings to satiety, which strikeMuffled upon the ear's drum. Very likeNone was so startled as yourself when friendsCame, hailed your fast-returning wits: "Health mendsImportantly, for—to be plain with you—This scribble on the wall was done—in lieuOf pen and paper—with—ha, ha!—your keyDenting it on the wainscot! Do you seeHow wise our caution was? Thus much we stoppedOf babble that had else grown print: and loppedFrom your trim bay-tree this unsightly bough—Smart's who translated Horace! Write us now" ...Why, what Smart did write—never afterwardOne line to show that he, who paced the sward,Had reached the zenith from his madhouse cell.IXWas it because you judged (I know full wellYou never had the fancy)—judged—as some—That who makes poetry must reproduceThus ever and thus only, as they come,Each strength, each beauty, everywhere diffuseThroughout creation, so that eye and ear,Seeing and hearing, straight shall recognize,At touch of just a trait, the strength appear,—Suggested by a line's lapse see ariseAll evident the beauty,—fresh surpriseStartling at fresh achievement? "So, indeed,Wallows the whale's bulk in the waste of brine,Nor otherwise its feather-tufts make fineWild Virgin's Bower when stars faint off to seed!"(My prose—your poetry I dare not give,Purpling too much my mere gray argument.)—Was it because you judged—when fugitiveWas glory found, and wholly gone and spentSuch power of startling up deaf ear, blind eye,At truth's appearance,—that you humbly bentThe head and, bidding vivid work good-by,Doffed lyric dress and trod the world once moreA drab-clothed decent proseman as before?Strengths, beauties, by one word's flash thus laid bare—That was effectual service: made awareOf strengths and beauties, Man but hears the text,Awaits your teaching. Nature? What comes next?Why all the strength and beauty?—to be shownThus in one word's flash, thenceforth let aloneBy Man who needs must deal with aught that 's knownNever so lately and so little? Friend,First give us knowledge, then appoint its use!Strength, beauty are the means: ignore their end?As well you stopped at proving how profuseStones, sticks, nay stubble lie to left and rightReady to help the builder,—careless quiteIf he should take, or leave the same to strewEarth idly,—as by word's flash bring in viewStrength, beauty, then bid who beholds the sameGo on beholding. Why gains unemployed?Nature was made to be by Man enjoyedFirst; followed duly by enjoyment's fruit,Instruction—haply leaving joy behind:And you, the instructor, would you slack pursuitOf the main prize, as poet help mankindJust to enjoy, there leave them? Play the fool,Abjuring a superior privilege?Please simply when your function is to rule—By thought incite to deed? From edge to edgeOf earth's round, strength and beauty everywherePullulate—and must you particularizeAll, each and every apparition? SpareYourself and us the trouble! Ears and eyesWant so much strength and beauty, and no lessNor more, to learn life's lesson by. Oh, yes—The other method 's favored in our day!The end ere the beginning: as you mayMaster the heavens before you study earth,Make you familiar with the meteor's birthEre you descend to scrutinize the rose!I say, o'erstep no least one of the rowsThat lead man from the bottom where he plantsFoot first of all, to life's last ladder-top:Arrived there, vain enough will seem the vauntsOf those who say—"We scale the skies, then dropTo earth—to find, how all things there are lothTo answer heavenly law: we understandThe meteor's course, and lo, the rose's growth—How other than should be by law's command!"Would not you tell such—"Friends, beware lest fumeOffuscate sense: learn earth first ere presumeTo teach heaven legislation. Law must beActive in earth or nowhere: earth you see,—Or there or not at all, Will, Power and LoveAdmit discovery,—as below, aboveSeek next law's confirmation! But reverseThe order, where 's the wonder things grow worseThan, by the law your fancy formulates,They should be? Cease from anger at the fatesWhich thwart themselves so madly. Live and learn,Not first learn and then live, is our concern.
IIt seems as if ... or did the actual chanceStartle me and perplex? Let truth be said!How might this happen? Dreaming, blindfold ledBy visionary hand, did soul's advancePrecede my body's, gain inheritanceOf fact by fancy—so that when I readAt length with waking eyes your Song, insteadOf mere bewilderment, with me first glanceWas but full recognition that in tranceOr merely thought's adventure some old dayOf dim and done-with boyishness, or—well,Why might it not have been, the miracleBroke on me as I took my sober wayThrough veritable regions of our earthAnd made discovery, many a wondrous one?IIAnyhow, fact or fancy, such its birth:I was exploring some huge house, had goneThrough room and room complacently, no dearthAnywhere of the signs of decent taste,Adequate culture: wealth had run to wasteNowise, nor penury was proved by stint:All showed the Golden Mean without a hintOf brave extravagance that breaks the rule.The master of the mansion was no foolAssuredly, no genius just as sure!Safe mediocrity had scorned the lureOf now too much and now too little cost,And satisfied me sight was never lostOf moderate design's accomplishmentIn calm completeness. On and on I wentWith no more hope than fear of what came next,Till lo, I push a door, sudden upliftA hanging, enter, chance upon a shiftIndeed of scene! So—thus it is thou deck'stHigh heaven, our low earth's brick-and-mortar work?IIIIt was the Chapel. That a star, from murkWhich hid, should flashingly emerge at last,Were small surprise: but from broad day I passedInto a presence that turned shine to shade.There fronted me the Rafael Mother-Maid,Never to whom knelt votarist in shrineBy Nature's bounty helped, by Art's divineMore varied—beauty with magnificence—Than this: from floor to roof one evidenceOf how far earth may rival heaven. No nicheWhere glory was not prisoned to enrichMan's gaze with gold and gems, no space but glowedWith color, gleamed with carving—hues which owedTheir outburst to a brush the painter fedWith rainbow-substance—rare shapes never wedTo actual flesh and blood, which, brain-born once,Became the sculptor's dowry, Art's responseTo earth's despair. And all seemed old yet new:Youth,—in the marble's curve, the canvas' hue,Apparent,—wanted not the crowning thrillOf age the consecrator. Hands long stillHad worked here—could it be, what lent them skillRetained a power to supervise, protect,Enforce new lessons with the old, connectOur life with theirs? No merely modern touchTold me that here the artist, doing much,Elsewhere did more, perchance does better, lives—So needs must learn.IVWell, these provocativesHaving fulfilled their office, forth I wentBig with anticipation—well-nigh fear—Of what next room and next for startled eyesMight have in store, surprise beyond surprise.Next room and next and next—what followed here?Why, nothing! not one object to arrestMy passage—everywhere too manifestThe previous decent null and void of bestAnd worst, mere ordinary right and fit,Calm commonplace which neither missed, nor hitInch-high, inch-low, the placid mark proposed.VArmed with this instance, have I diagnosedYour case, my Christopher? The man was soundAnd sane at starting: all at once the groundGave way beneath his step, a certain smokeCurled up and caught him, or perhaps down brokeA fireball wrapping flesh and spirit bothIn conflagration. Then—as heaven were lothTo linger—let earth understand too wellHow heaven at need can operate—off fellThe flame-robe, and the untransfigured manResumed sobriety,—as he began,So did he end nor alter pace, not he!VINow, what I fain would know is—could it beThat he—whoe'er he was that furnished forthThe Chapel, making thus, from South to North,Rafael touch Leighton, MichelagnoloJoin Watts, was found but once combining soThe elder and the younger, taking standOn Art's supreme,—or that yourself who sangA Song where flute-breath silvers trumpet-clang,And stations you for once on either handWith Milton and with Keats, empowered to claimAffinity on just one point—(or blameOr praise my judgment, thus it fronts you full)—How came it you resume the void and null,Subside to insignificance,—live, die—Proved plainly two mere mortals who drew nighOne moment—that, to Art's best hierarchy,This, to the superhuman poet-pair?What if, in one point only, then and thereThe otherwise all-unapproachableAllowed impingement? Does the sphere pretendTo span the cube's breadth, cover end to endThe plane with its embrace? No, surely! Still,Contact is contact, sphere's touch no whit lessThan cube's superimposure. Such successBefell Smart only out of throngs betweenMilton and Keats that donned the singing-dress—Smart, solely of such songmen, pierced the screen'Twixt thing and word, lit language straight from soul,—Left no fine film-flake on the naked coalLive from the censer—shapely or uncouth,Fire-suffused through and through, one blaze of truthUndeadened by a lie,—(you have my mind)—For, think! this blaze outleapt with black behindAnd blank before, when Hayley and the rest ...But let the dead successors worst and bestBury their dead: with life be my concern—Yours with the fire-flame: what I fain would learnIs just—(suppose me haply ignorantDown to the common knowledge, doctors vaunt)Just this—why only once the fire-flame was:No matter if the marvel came to passThe way folk judged—if power too long suppressedBroke loose and maddened, as the vulgar guessedOr simply brain-disorder (doctors said),A turmoil of the particles disturbed,Brain's workaday performance in your head,Spurred spirit to wild action health had curbed,And so verse issued in a cataractWhence prose, before and after, unperturbedWas wont to wend its way. Concede the factThat here a poet was who always could—Never before did—never after would—Achieve the feat: how were such fact explained?VIIWas it that when, by rarest chance, there fellDisguise from Nature, so that Truth remainedNaked, and whoso saw for once could tellUs others of her majesty and mightIn large, her lovelinesses infiniteIn little,—straight you used the power wherewithSense, penetrating as through rind to pithEach object, thoroughly revealed might viewAnd comprehend the old things thus made new,So that while eye saw, soul to tongue could trustThing which struck word out, and once more adjustReal vision to right language, till heaven's vaultPompous with sunset, storm-stirred sea's assaultOn the swilled rock-ridge, earth's embosomed broodOf tree and flower and weed, with all the lifeThat flies or swims or crawls, in peace or strife,Above, below,—each had its note and nameFor Man to know by,—Man who, now—the sameAs erst in Eden, needs that all he seesBe named him ere he note by what degreesOf strength and beauty to its end DesignEver thus operates—(your thought and mine,No matter for the many dissident)—So did you sing your Song, so truth found ventIn words for once with you?VIIIThen—back was furledThe robe thus thrown aside, and straight the worldDarkened into the old oft-cataloguedRepository of things that sky, wave, land,Or show or hide, clear late, accretion-cloggedNow, just as long ago, by tellings andRe-tellings to satiety, which strikeMuffled upon the ear's drum. Very likeNone was so startled as yourself when friendsCame, hailed your fast-returning wits: "Health mendsImportantly, for—to be plain with you—This scribble on the wall was done—in lieuOf pen and paper—with—ha, ha!—your keyDenting it on the wainscot! Do you seeHow wise our caution was? Thus much we stoppedOf babble that had else grown print: and loppedFrom your trim bay-tree this unsightly bough—Smart's who translated Horace! Write us now" ...Why, what Smart did write—never afterwardOne line to show that he, who paced the sward,Had reached the zenith from his madhouse cell.IXWas it because you judged (I know full wellYou never had the fancy)—judged—as some—That who makes poetry must reproduceThus ever and thus only, as they come,Each strength, each beauty, everywhere diffuseThroughout creation, so that eye and ear,Seeing and hearing, straight shall recognize,At touch of just a trait, the strength appear,—Suggested by a line's lapse see ariseAll evident the beauty,—fresh surpriseStartling at fresh achievement? "So, indeed,Wallows the whale's bulk in the waste of brine,Nor otherwise its feather-tufts make fineWild Virgin's Bower when stars faint off to seed!"(My prose—your poetry I dare not give,Purpling too much my mere gray argument.)—Was it because you judged—when fugitiveWas glory found, and wholly gone and spentSuch power of startling up deaf ear, blind eye,At truth's appearance,—that you humbly bentThe head and, bidding vivid work good-by,Doffed lyric dress and trod the world once moreA drab-clothed decent proseman as before?Strengths, beauties, by one word's flash thus laid bare—That was effectual service: made awareOf strengths and beauties, Man but hears the text,Awaits your teaching. Nature? What comes next?Why all the strength and beauty?—to be shownThus in one word's flash, thenceforth let aloneBy Man who needs must deal with aught that 's knownNever so lately and so little? Friend,First give us knowledge, then appoint its use!Strength, beauty are the means: ignore their end?As well you stopped at proving how profuseStones, sticks, nay stubble lie to left and rightReady to help the builder,—careless quiteIf he should take, or leave the same to strewEarth idly,—as by word's flash bring in viewStrength, beauty, then bid who beholds the sameGo on beholding. Why gains unemployed?Nature was made to be by Man enjoyedFirst; followed duly by enjoyment's fruit,Instruction—haply leaving joy behind:And you, the instructor, would you slack pursuitOf the main prize, as poet help mankindJust to enjoy, there leave them? Play the fool,Abjuring a superior privilege?Please simply when your function is to rule—By thought incite to deed? From edge to edgeOf earth's round, strength and beauty everywherePullulate—and must you particularizeAll, each and every apparition? SpareYourself and us the trouble! Ears and eyesWant so much strength and beauty, and no lessNor more, to learn life's lesson by. Oh, yes—The other method 's favored in our day!The end ere the beginning: as you mayMaster the heavens before you study earth,Make you familiar with the meteor's birthEre you descend to scrutinize the rose!I say, o'erstep no least one of the rowsThat lead man from the bottom where he plantsFoot first of all, to life's last ladder-top:Arrived there, vain enough will seem the vauntsOf those who say—"We scale the skies, then dropTo earth—to find, how all things there are lothTo answer heavenly law: we understandThe meteor's course, and lo, the rose's growth—How other than should be by law's command!"Would not you tell such—"Friends, beware lest fumeOffuscate sense: learn earth first ere presumeTo teach heaven legislation. Law must beActive in earth or nowhere: earth you see,—Or there or not at all, Will, Power and LoveAdmit discovery,—as below, aboveSeek next law's confirmation! But reverseThe order, where 's the wonder things grow worseThan, by the law your fancy formulates,They should be? Cease from anger at the fatesWhich thwart themselves so madly. Live and learn,Not first learn and then live, is our concern.
I
I
It seems as if ... or did the actual chanceStartle me and perplex? Let truth be said!How might this happen? Dreaming, blindfold ledBy visionary hand, did soul's advancePrecede my body's, gain inheritanceOf fact by fancy—so that when I readAt length with waking eyes your Song, insteadOf mere bewilderment, with me first glanceWas but full recognition that in tranceOr merely thought's adventure some old dayOf dim and done-with boyishness, or—well,Why might it not have been, the miracleBroke on me as I took my sober wayThrough veritable regions of our earthAnd made discovery, many a wondrous one?
It seems as if ... or did the actual chance
Startle me and perplex? Let truth be said!
How might this happen? Dreaming, blindfold led
By visionary hand, did soul's advance
Precede my body's, gain inheritance
Of fact by fancy—so that when I read
At length with waking eyes your Song, instead
Of mere bewilderment, with me first glance
Was but full recognition that in trance
Or merely thought's adventure some old day
Of dim and done-with boyishness, or—well,
Why might it not have been, the miracle
Broke on me as I took my sober way
Through veritable regions of our earth
And made discovery, many a wondrous one?
II
II
Anyhow, fact or fancy, such its birth:I was exploring some huge house, had goneThrough room and room complacently, no dearthAnywhere of the signs of decent taste,Adequate culture: wealth had run to wasteNowise, nor penury was proved by stint:All showed the Golden Mean without a hintOf brave extravagance that breaks the rule.The master of the mansion was no foolAssuredly, no genius just as sure!Safe mediocrity had scorned the lureOf now too much and now too little cost,And satisfied me sight was never lostOf moderate design's accomplishmentIn calm completeness. On and on I wentWith no more hope than fear of what came next,Till lo, I push a door, sudden upliftA hanging, enter, chance upon a shiftIndeed of scene! So—thus it is thou deck'stHigh heaven, our low earth's brick-and-mortar work?
Anyhow, fact or fancy, such its birth:
I was exploring some huge house, had gone
Through room and room complacently, no dearth
Anywhere of the signs of decent taste,
Adequate culture: wealth had run to waste
Nowise, nor penury was proved by stint:
All showed the Golden Mean without a hint
Of brave extravagance that breaks the rule.
The master of the mansion was no fool
Assuredly, no genius just as sure!
Safe mediocrity had scorned the lure
Of now too much and now too little cost,
And satisfied me sight was never lost
Of moderate design's accomplishment
In calm completeness. On and on I went
With no more hope than fear of what came next,
Till lo, I push a door, sudden uplift
A hanging, enter, chance upon a shift
Indeed of scene! So—thus it is thou deck'st
High heaven, our low earth's brick-and-mortar work?
III
III
It was the Chapel. That a star, from murkWhich hid, should flashingly emerge at last,Were small surprise: but from broad day I passedInto a presence that turned shine to shade.There fronted me the Rafael Mother-Maid,Never to whom knelt votarist in shrineBy Nature's bounty helped, by Art's divineMore varied—beauty with magnificence—Than this: from floor to roof one evidenceOf how far earth may rival heaven. No nicheWhere glory was not prisoned to enrichMan's gaze with gold and gems, no space but glowedWith color, gleamed with carving—hues which owedTheir outburst to a brush the painter fedWith rainbow-substance—rare shapes never wedTo actual flesh and blood, which, brain-born once,Became the sculptor's dowry, Art's responseTo earth's despair. And all seemed old yet new:Youth,—in the marble's curve, the canvas' hue,Apparent,—wanted not the crowning thrillOf age the consecrator. Hands long stillHad worked here—could it be, what lent them skillRetained a power to supervise, protect,Enforce new lessons with the old, connectOur life with theirs? No merely modern touchTold me that here the artist, doing much,Elsewhere did more, perchance does better, lives—So needs must learn.
It was the Chapel. That a star, from murk
Which hid, should flashingly emerge at last,
Were small surprise: but from broad day I passed
Into a presence that turned shine to shade.
There fronted me the Rafael Mother-Maid,
Never to whom knelt votarist in shrine
By Nature's bounty helped, by Art's divine
More varied—beauty with magnificence—
Than this: from floor to roof one evidence
Of how far earth may rival heaven. No niche
Where glory was not prisoned to enrich
Man's gaze with gold and gems, no space but glowed
With color, gleamed with carving—hues which owed
Their outburst to a brush the painter fed
With rainbow-substance—rare shapes never wed
To actual flesh and blood, which, brain-born once,
Became the sculptor's dowry, Art's response
To earth's despair. And all seemed old yet new:
Youth,—in the marble's curve, the canvas' hue,
Apparent,—wanted not the crowning thrill
Of age the consecrator. Hands long still
Had worked here—could it be, what lent them skill
Retained a power to supervise, protect,
Enforce new lessons with the old, connect
Our life with theirs? No merely modern touch
Told me that here the artist, doing much,
Elsewhere did more, perchance does better, lives—
So needs must learn.
IV
IV
Well, these provocativesHaving fulfilled their office, forth I wentBig with anticipation—well-nigh fear—Of what next room and next for startled eyesMight have in store, surprise beyond surprise.Next room and next and next—what followed here?Why, nothing! not one object to arrestMy passage—everywhere too manifestThe previous decent null and void of bestAnd worst, mere ordinary right and fit,Calm commonplace which neither missed, nor hitInch-high, inch-low, the placid mark proposed.
Well, these provocatives
Having fulfilled their office, forth I went
Big with anticipation—well-nigh fear—
Of what next room and next for startled eyes
Might have in store, surprise beyond surprise.
Next room and next and next—what followed here?
Why, nothing! not one object to arrest
My passage—everywhere too manifest
The previous decent null and void of best
And worst, mere ordinary right and fit,
Calm commonplace which neither missed, nor hit
Inch-high, inch-low, the placid mark proposed.
V
V
Armed with this instance, have I diagnosedYour case, my Christopher? The man was soundAnd sane at starting: all at once the groundGave way beneath his step, a certain smokeCurled up and caught him, or perhaps down brokeA fireball wrapping flesh and spirit bothIn conflagration. Then—as heaven were lothTo linger—let earth understand too wellHow heaven at need can operate—off fellThe flame-robe, and the untransfigured manResumed sobriety,—as he began,So did he end nor alter pace, not he!
Armed with this instance, have I diagnosed
Your case, my Christopher? The man was sound
And sane at starting: all at once the ground
Gave way beneath his step, a certain smoke
Curled up and caught him, or perhaps down broke
A fireball wrapping flesh and spirit both
In conflagration. Then—as heaven were loth
To linger—let earth understand too well
How heaven at need can operate—off fell
The flame-robe, and the untransfigured man
Resumed sobriety,—as he began,
So did he end nor alter pace, not he!
VI
VI
Now, what I fain would know is—could it beThat he—whoe'er he was that furnished forthThe Chapel, making thus, from South to North,Rafael touch Leighton, MichelagnoloJoin Watts, was found but once combining soThe elder and the younger, taking standOn Art's supreme,—or that yourself who sangA Song where flute-breath silvers trumpet-clang,And stations you for once on either handWith Milton and with Keats, empowered to claimAffinity on just one point—(or blameOr praise my judgment, thus it fronts you full)—How came it you resume the void and null,Subside to insignificance,—live, die—Proved plainly two mere mortals who drew nighOne moment—that, to Art's best hierarchy,This, to the superhuman poet-pair?What if, in one point only, then and thereThe otherwise all-unapproachableAllowed impingement? Does the sphere pretendTo span the cube's breadth, cover end to endThe plane with its embrace? No, surely! Still,Contact is contact, sphere's touch no whit lessThan cube's superimposure. Such successBefell Smart only out of throngs betweenMilton and Keats that donned the singing-dress—Smart, solely of such songmen, pierced the screen'Twixt thing and word, lit language straight from soul,—Left no fine film-flake on the naked coalLive from the censer—shapely or uncouth,Fire-suffused through and through, one blaze of truthUndeadened by a lie,—(you have my mind)—For, think! this blaze outleapt with black behindAnd blank before, when Hayley and the rest ...But let the dead successors worst and bestBury their dead: with life be my concern—Yours with the fire-flame: what I fain would learnIs just—(suppose me haply ignorantDown to the common knowledge, doctors vaunt)Just this—why only once the fire-flame was:No matter if the marvel came to passThe way folk judged—if power too long suppressedBroke loose and maddened, as the vulgar guessedOr simply brain-disorder (doctors said),A turmoil of the particles disturbed,Brain's workaday performance in your head,Spurred spirit to wild action health had curbed,And so verse issued in a cataractWhence prose, before and after, unperturbedWas wont to wend its way. Concede the factThat here a poet was who always could—Never before did—never after would—Achieve the feat: how were such fact explained?
Now, what I fain would know is—could it be
That he—whoe'er he was that furnished forth
The Chapel, making thus, from South to North,
Rafael touch Leighton, Michelagnolo
Join Watts, was found but once combining so
The elder and the younger, taking stand
On Art's supreme,—or that yourself who sang
A Song where flute-breath silvers trumpet-clang,
And stations you for once on either hand
With Milton and with Keats, empowered to claim
Affinity on just one point—(or blame
Or praise my judgment, thus it fronts you full)—
How came it you resume the void and null,
Subside to insignificance,—live, die
—Proved plainly two mere mortals who drew nigh
One moment—that, to Art's best hierarchy,
This, to the superhuman poet-pair?
What if, in one point only, then and there
The otherwise all-unapproachable
Allowed impingement? Does the sphere pretend
To span the cube's breadth, cover end to end
The plane with its embrace? No, surely! Still,
Contact is contact, sphere's touch no whit less
Than cube's superimposure. Such success
Befell Smart only out of throngs between
Milton and Keats that donned the singing-dress—
Smart, solely of such songmen, pierced the screen
'Twixt thing and word, lit language straight from soul,—
Left no fine film-flake on the naked coal
Live from the censer—shapely or uncouth,
Fire-suffused through and through, one blaze of truth
Undeadened by a lie,—(you have my mind)—
For, think! this blaze outleapt with black behind
And blank before, when Hayley and the rest ...
But let the dead successors worst and best
Bury their dead: with life be my concern—
Yours with the fire-flame: what I fain would learn
Is just—(suppose me haply ignorant
Down to the common knowledge, doctors vaunt)
Just this—why only once the fire-flame was:
No matter if the marvel came to pass
The way folk judged—if power too long suppressed
Broke loose and maddened, as the vulgar guessed
Or simply brain-disorder (doctors said),
A turmoil of the particles disturbed,
Brain's workaday performance in your head,
Spurred spirit to wild action health had curbed,
And so verse issued in a cataract
Whence prose, before and after, unperturbed
Was wont to wend its way. Concede the fact
That here a poet was who always could—
Never before did—never after would—
Achieve the feat: how were such fact explained?
VII
VII
Was it that when, by rarest chance, there fellDisguise from Nature, so that Truth remainedNaked, and whoso saw for once could tellUs others of her majesty and mightIn large, her lovelinesses infiniteIn little,—straight you used the power wherewithSense, penetrating as through rind to pithEach object, thoroughly revealed might viewAnd comprehend the old things thus made new,So that while eye saw, soul to tongue could trustThing which struck word out, and once more adjustReal vision to right language, till heaven's vaultPompous with sunset, storm-stirred sea's assaultOn the swilled rock-ridge, earth's embosomed broodOf tree and flower and weed, with all the lifeThat flies or swims or crawls, in peace or strife,Above, below,—each had its note and nameFor Man to know by,—Man who, now—the sameAs erst in Eden, needs that all he seesBe named him ere he note by what degreesOf strength and beauty to its end DesignEver thus operates—(your thought and mine,No matter for the many dissident)—So did you sing your Song, so truth found ventIn words for once with you?
Was it that when, by rarest chance, there fell
Disguise from Nature, so that Truth remained
Naked, and whoso saw for once could tell
Us others of her majesty and might
In large, her lovelinesses infinite
In little,—straight you used the power wherewith
Sense, penetrating as through rind to pith
Each object, thoroughly revealed might view
And comprehend the old things thus made new,
So that while eye saw, soul to tongue could trust
Thing which struck word out, and once more adjust
Real vision to right language, till heaven's vault
Pompous with sunset, storm-stirred sea's assault
On the swilled rock-ridge, earth's embosomed brood
Of tree and flower and weed, with all the life
That flies or swims or crawls, in peace or strife,
Above, below,—each had its note and name
For Man to know by,—Man who, now—the same
As erst in Eden, needs that all he sees
Be named him ere he note by what degrees
Of strength and beauty to its end Design
Ever thus operates—(your thought and mine,
No matter for the many dissident)—
So did you sing your Song, so truth found vent
In words for once with you?
VIII
VIII
Then—back was furledThe robe thus thrown aside, and straight the worldDarkened into the old oft-cataloguedRepository of things that sky, wave, land,Or show or hide, clear late, accretion-cloggedNow, just as long ago, by tellings andRe-tellings to satiety, which strikeMuffled upon the ear's drum. Very likeNone was so startled as yourself when friendsCame, hailed your fast-returning wits: "Health mendsImportantly, for—to be plain with you—This scribble on the wall was done—in lieuOf pen and paper—with—ha, ha!—your keyDenting it on the wainscot! Do you seeHow wise our caution was? Thus much we stoppedOf babble that had else grown print: and loppedFrom your trim bay-tree this unsightly bough—Smart's who translated Horace! Write us now" ...Why, what Smart did write—never afterwardOne line to show that he, who paced the sward,Had reached the zenith from his madhouse cell.
Then—back was furled
The robe thus thrown aside, and straight the world
Darkened into the old oft-catalogued
Repository of things that sky, wave, land,
Or show or hide, clear late, accretion-clogged
Now, just as long ago, by tellings and
Re-tellings to satiety, which strike
Muffled upon the ear's drum. Very like
None was so startled as yourself when friends
Came, hailed your fast-returning wits: "Health mends
Importantly, for—to be plain with you—
This scribble on the wall was done—in lieu
Of pen and paper—with—ha, ha!—your key
Denting it on the wainscot! Do you see
How wise our caution was? Thus much we stopped
Of babble that had else grown print: and lopped
From your trim bay-tree this unsightly bough—
Smart's who translated Horace! Write us now" ...
Why, what Smart did write—never afterward
One line to show that he, who paced the sward,
Had reached the zenith from his madhouse cell.
IX
IX
Was it because you judged (I know full wellYou never had the fancy)—judged—as some—That who makes poetry must reproduceThus ever and thus only, as they come,Each strength, each beauty, everywhere diffuseThroughout creation, so that eye and ear,Seeing and hearing, straight shall recognize,At touch of just a trait, the strength appear,—Suggested by a line's lapse see ariseAll evident the beauty,—fresh surpriseStartling at fresh achievement? "So, indeed,Wallows the whale's bulk in the waste of brine,Nor otherwise its feather-tufts make fineWild Virgin's Bower when stars faint off to seed!"(My prose—your poetry I dare not give,Purpling too much my mere gray argument.)—Was it because you judged—when fugitiveWas glory found, and wholly gone and spentSuch power of startling up deaf ear, blind eye,At truth's appearance,—that you humbly bentThe head and, bidding vivid work good-by,Doffed lyric dress and trod the world once moreA drab-clothed decent proseman as before?Strengths, beauties, by one word's flash thus laid bare—That was effectual service: made awareOf strengths and beauties, Man but hears the text,Awaits your teaching. Nature? What comes next?Why all the strength and beauty?—to be shownThus in one word's flash, thenceforth let aloneBy Man who needs must deal with aught that 's knownNever so lately and so little? Friend,First give us knowledge, then appoint its use!Strength, beauty are the means: ignore their end?As well you stopped at proving how profuseStones, sticks, nay stubble lie to left and rightReady to help the builder,—careless quiteIf he should take, or leave the same to strewEarth idly,—as by word's flash bring in viewStrength, beauty, then bid who beholds the sameGo on beholding. Why gains unemployed?Nature was made to be by Man enjoyedFirst; followed duly by enjoyment's fruit,Instruction—haply leaving joy behind:And you, the instructor, would you slack pursuitOf the main prize, as poet help mankindJust to enjoy, there leave them? Play the fool,Abjuring a superior privilege?Please simply when your function is to rule—By thought incite to deed? From edge to edgeOf earth's round, strength and beauty everywherePullulate—and must you particularizeAll, each and every apparition? SpareYourself and us the trouble! Ears and eyesWant so much strength and beauty, and no lessNor more, to learn life's lesson by. Oh, yes—The other method 's favored in our day!The end ere the beginning: as you mayMaster the heavens before you study earth,Make you familiar with the meteor's birthEre you descend to scrutinize the rose!I say, o'erstep no least one of the rowsThat lead man from the bottom where he plantsFoot first of all, to life's last ladder-top:Arrived there, vain enough will seem the vauntsOf those who say—"We scale the skies, then dropTo earth—to find, how all things there are lothTo answer heavenly law: we understandThe meteor's course, and lo, the rose's growth—How other than should be by law's command!"Would not you tell such—"Friends, beware lest fumeOffuscate sense: learn earth first ere presumeTo teach heaven legislation. Law must beActive in earth or nowhere: earth you see,—Or there or not at all, Will, Power and LoveAdmit discovery,—as below, aboveSeek next law's confirmation! But reverseThe order, where 's the wonder things grow worseThan, by the law your fancy formulates,They should be? Cease from anger at the fatesWhich thwart themselves so madly. Live and learn,Not first learn and then live, is our concern.
Was it because you judged (I know full well
You never had the fancy)—judged—as some—
That who makes poetry must reproduce
Thus ever and thus only, as they come,
Each strength, each beauty, everywhere diffuse
Throughout creation, so that eye and ear,
Seeing and hearing, straight shall recognize,
At touch of just a trait, the strength appear,—
Suggested by a line's lapse see arise
All evident the beauty,—fresh surprise
Startling at fresh achievement? "So, indeed,
Wallows the whale's bulk in the waste of brine,
Nor otherwise its feather-tufts make fine
Wild Virgin's Bower when stars faint off to seed!"
(My prose—your poetry I dare not give,
Purpling too much my mere gray argument.)
—Was it because you judged—when fugitive
Was glory found, and wholly gone and spent
Such power of startling up deaf ear, blind eye,
At truth's appearance,—that you humbly bent
The head and, bidding vivid work good-by,
Doffed lyric dress and trod the world once more
A drab-clothed decent proseman as before?
Strengths, beauties, by one word's flash thus laid bare
—That was effectual service: made aware
Of strengths and beauties, Man but hears the text,
Awaits your teaching. Nature? What comes next?
Why all the strength and beauty?—to be shown
Thus in one word's flash, thenceforth let alone
By Man who needs must deal with aught that 's known
Never so lately and so little? Friend,
First give us knowledge, then appoint its use!
Strength, beauty are the means: ignore their end?
As well you stopped at proving how profuse
Stones, sticks, nay stubble lie to left and right
Ready to help the builder,—careless quite
If he should take, or leave the same to strew
Earth idly,—as by word's flash bring in view
Strength, beauty, then bid who beholds the same
Go on beholding. Why gains unemployed?
Nature was made to be by Man enjoyed
First; followed duly by enjoyment's fruit,
Instruction—haply leaving joy behind:
And you, the instructor, would you slack pursuit
Of the main prize, as poet help mankind
Just to enjoy, there leave them? Play the fool,
Abjuring a superior privilege?
Please simply when your function is to rule—
By thought incite to deed? From edge to edge
Of earth's round, strength and beauty everywhere
Pullulate—and must you particularize
All, each and every apparition? Spare
Yourself and us the trouble! Ears and eyes
Want so much strength and beauty, and no less
Nor more, to learn life's lesson by. Oh, yes—
The other method 's favored in our day!
The end ere the beginning: as you may
Master the heavens before you study earth,
Make you familiar with the meteor's birth
Ere you descend to scrutinize the rose!
I say, o'erstep no least one of the rows
That lead man from the bottom where he plants
Foot first of all, to life's last ladder-top:
Arrived there, vain enough will seem the vaunts
Of those who say—"We scale the skies, then drop
To earth—to find, how all things there are loth
To answer heavenly law: we understand
The meteor's course, and lo, the rose's growth—
How other than should be by law's command!"
Would not you tell such—"Friends, beware lest fume
Offuscate sense: learn earth first ere presume
To teach heaven legislation. Law must be
Active in earth or nowhere: earth you see,—
Or there or not at all, Will, Power and Love
Admit discovery,—as below, above
Seek next law's confirmation! But reverse
The order, where 's the wonder things grow worse
Than, by the law your fancy formulates,
They should be? Cease from anger at the fates
Which thwart themselves so madly. Live and learn,
Not first learn and then live, is our concern.