Chapter XII: Part II: Dramatic Rendering of the Monologue (6)

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews--sons mine ... ah God, I know not! Well--
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
--Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
--Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close: that conflagration of my church
--What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find ... Ah God, I know not, I!...
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of _lapis lazuli_,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast ...
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father's globe on both his hands
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons? Black--
'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
And Moses with the tables ... but I know
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!
'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world--
And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
--That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line--
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie thro' centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
--Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
All _lapis_, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death--ye wish it--God, ye wish it! Stone--
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through--
And no more _lapis_ to delight the world!
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
--Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers--
Old Gandolf at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

SIBRANDUS SCHAFNABURGENSIS

Plague take all your pedants, say I!
He who wrote what I hold in my hand,
Centuries back was so good as to die,
Leaving this rubbish to cumber the land;
This, that was a book in its time,
Printed on paper and bound in leather,
Last month in the white of a matin-prime
Just when the birds sang all together.

Into the garden I brought it to read,
And under the arbute and laurustine
Read it, so help me grace in my need,
From title-page to closing line.
Chapter on chapter did I count,
As a curious traveller counts Stonehenge;
Added up the mortal amount;
And then proceeded to my revenge.

Yonder's a plum-tree, with a crevice
An owl would build in, were he but sage;
For a lap of moss like a fine pontlevis
In a castle of the middle age,
Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber;
Where he'd be private, there might he spend
Hours alone in his lady's chamber:
Into this crevice I dropped our friend.

Splash went he, as under he ducked,
--I knew at the bottom rain-drippings stagnate;
Next a handful of blossoms I plucked
To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate;
Then I went indoors, brought out a loaf,
Half a cheese, and a bottle of Chablis;
Lay on the grass and forgot the oaf
Over a jolly chapter of Rabelais.

Now, this morning, betwixt the moss
And gum that locked our friend in limbo,
A spider had spun his web across,
And sate in the midst with arms a-kimbo:
So, I took pity, for learning's sake,
And, _de profundis, accentibus laetis,
Cantate_! quoth I, as I got a rake,
And up I fished his delectable treatise.

Here you have it, dry in the sun,
With all the binding all of a blister,
And great blue spots where the ink has run,
And reddish streaks that wink and glister
O'er the page so beautifully yellow--
Oh, well have the droppings played their tricks!
Did he guess how toadstools grow, this fellow?
Here's one stuck in his chapter six!

How did he like it when the live creatures
Tickled and toused and browsed him all over,
And worm, slug, eft, with serious features,
Came in, each one, for his right of trover;
When the water-beetle with great blind deaf face
Made of her eggs the stately deposit,
And the newt borrowed just so much of the preface
As tiled in the top of his black wife's closet.

All that life, and fun, and romping,
All that frisking, and twisting, and coupling,
While slowly our poor friend's leaves were swamping,
And clasps were cracking, and covers suppling!
As if you had carried sour John Knox
To the play-house at Paris, Vienna, or Munich,
Fastened him into a front-row box,
And danced off the Ballet with trousers and tunic.

Come, old martyr! What, torment enough is it?
Back to my room shall you take your sweet self!
Good-by, mother-beetle; husband-eft, SUFFICIT!
See the snug niche I have made on my shelf:
A.'s book shall prop you up, B.'s shall cover you,
Here's C. to be grave with, or D. to be gay,
And with E. on each side, and F. right over you,
Dry-rot at ease till the Judgment-day!

ABT VOGLER

(AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORIZING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION)

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly,--alien of end and of aim,
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,--
Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,
And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princes he loved!

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,
This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!
Ah, one and all, how they helped would dispart now and now combine,
Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!
And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,
Burrow awhile, and build broad on the roots of things,
Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,
Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.

And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was;
Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest,
Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,
Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest,
For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,
When a great illumination surprises a festal night--
Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)
Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth;
Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth,
As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:
Novel splendors burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine,
Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,
For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.

Nay, more: for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,
Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast,
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,
Lured now to begin and live in a house to their liking at last;
Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone,
But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:
What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;
And what is--shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,
All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:
Had I written the same, made verse,--still, effect proceeds from cause;
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,
Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:--

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws, that made them, and lo, they are!
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought;
It is everywhere in the world--loud, soft, and all is said:
Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:
And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!

Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;
Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;
For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,
That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.
Never to be again! But many more of the kind
As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me?
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind
To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.

Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name?
Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands!
What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same?
Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands?
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more:
On earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist,--
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?
Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized?
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear;
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe:
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;
The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know.

Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:
I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,
Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor,--yes,
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,
Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep;
Which, hark! I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,
The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.

SAUL

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak,
Kiss my cheek, wish me well!" Then I wished it, and did kiss his cheek.
And he, "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent,
Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent
Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet,
Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet.
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days,
Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer or of praise,
To betoken that Saul and the Spirit have ended their strife,
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life.

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child, with his dew
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue
Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat
Were now raging to torture the desert!"

Then I, as was meet,
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet,
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped;
I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped;
Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone,
That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I prayed,
And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid,
But spoke, "Here is David, thy servant!" And no voice replied.
At the first I saw nought but the blackness; but soon I descried
A something more black than the blackness--the vast, the upright
Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight
Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all;--
Then a sunbeam, that burst thro' the tent-roof,--showed Saul.
He stood as erect as that tent-prop; both arms stretched out wide
On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side:
He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there,--as, caught in his pangs
And waiting his change, the king-serpent all heavily hangs,
Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come
With the spring-time,--so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind and dumb.

Then I tuned my harp,--took off the lilies we twine round its chords
Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide--those sunbeams like
swords!
And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one,
So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done.
They are white and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed
Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed;
And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star
Into eve and the blue far above us,--so blue and so far!

--Then the tune for which quails on the cornland will each leave his mate
To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate,
Till for boldness they fight one another: and then, what has weight
To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house--
There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse!--
God made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear,
To give sign, we and they are his children, one family here.

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, when hand
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great hearts
expand
And grow one in the sense of this world's life.--And then, the last song
When the dead man is praised on his journey--"Bear, bear him along
With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets! Are balm-seeds not here
To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier.
Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother!"--And then, the glad chaunt
Of the marriage,--first go the young maidens, next, she whom we vaunt
As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling.--And then, the great march
Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch
Nought can break; who shall harm them, our friends?--Then, the chorus
intoned
As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned.
But I stopped here--for here in the darkness, Saul groaned.

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart;
And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered,--and sparkles 'gan dart
From the jewels that woke in his turban at once with a start--
All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart.
So the head--but the body still moved not, still hung there erect.
And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked,
As I sang,--

"Oh, our manhood's prime vigor! No spirit feels waste,
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing, nor sinew unbraced.
Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock--
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree,--the cool silver shock
Of the plunge in a pool's living water,--the hunt of the bear,
And the sultriness showing the lion is crouched in his lair.
And the meal, the rich dates, yellowed over with gold dust divine,
And the locust's-flesh steeped in the pitcher; the full draught of wine,
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell
That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well.
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
All the heart and the soul and the senses, forever in joy!
Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou didst
guard
When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward?
Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung
The low song of the nearly-departed, and hear her faint tongue
Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one more attest,
I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and all was for best'?
Then they sung thro' their tears in strong triumph, not much,--but the
rest.
And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence grew
Such result as from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained true!
And the friends of thy boyhood--that boyhood of wonder and hope,
Present promise, and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope,--
Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch; a people is thine;
And all gifts which the world offers singly, on one head combine!
On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage, like the throe
That, a-work in the rock, helps its labor, and lets the gold go:
High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them,--all
Brought to blaze on the head of one creature--King Saul!"

And lo, with that leap of my spirit, heart, hand, harp, and voice,
Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice
Saul's fame in the light it was made for--as when, dare I say,
The Lord's army in rapture of service, strains through its array,
And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot--"Saul!" cried I and stopped,
And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung propped
By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name.
Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the aim,
And some mountain, the last to withstand her, that held, (he alone,
While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad bust of stone
A year's snow bound about for a breastplate,--leaves grasp of the sheet?
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet,
And there fronts you, stark, black but alive yet, your mountain of old,
With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold--
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest--all hail, there they are!
Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest
Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his crest
For their food in the ardors of summer! One long shudder thrilled
All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled,
At the King's self left standing before me, released and aware.
What was gone, what remained? All to traverse 'twixt hope and despair--
Death was past, life not come--so he waited. Awhile his right hand
Held the brow, helped the eyes left too vacant forthwith to remand
To their place what new objects should enter: 'twas Saul as before.
I looked up and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more
Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore
At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean--a sun's slow decline
Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine
Base with base to knit strength more intense: so, arm folded arm
O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.

What spell or what charm,
(For, awhile there was trouble within me) what next should I urge
To sustain him where song had restored him?--Song filled to the verge
His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields
Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty! Beyond on what fields,
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by?
He saith, "It is good;" still he drinks not--he lets me praise life,
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

Then fancies grew rife
Which had come long ago on the pastures, when round me the sheep
Fed in silence--above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep,
And I lay in my hollow, and mused on the world that might lie
'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky:
And I laughed--"Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks,
Let me people at least with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." And now these old
trains
Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so once more the string
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus--

"Yea, my king,"
I began--"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring
From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute:
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.
Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree,--how its stem trembled first
Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburst
The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect; yet more was to learn,
E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we
slight,
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight
Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and
branch
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall
stanch
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine.
Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine!
By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy
More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a boy.
Crush that life, and behold its wine running! each deed thou hast done
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the sun
Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tempests
efface,
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace
The results of his past summer-prime,--so, each ray of thy will,
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill
Thy whole people the countless, with ardor, till they too give forth
A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the south and the north
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past.
But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last.
As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height,
So with man--so his power and his beauty forever take flight.
No! again a long draught of my soul-wine! look forth o'er the years--
Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer's!
Is Saul dead? in the depth of the vale make his tomb--bid arise
A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till built to the skies.
Let it mark where the Great First King slumbers--whose fame would ye
know?
Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go
In great characters cut by the scribe,--Such was Saul, so he did;
With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid,--
For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend,
In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend
(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record
With the gold of the graver, Saul's story,--the statesman's great word
Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river's awave
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet winds rave:
So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part
In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art."

And behold while I sang.... But O Thou who didst grant me that day,
And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to essay,
Carry on and complete an adventure,--my Shield and my Sword
In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was my word,--
Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavor
And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as ever
On the new stretch of Heaven above me--till, Mighty to save,
Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance--God's throne from man's
grave!
Let me tell out my tale to its ending--my voice to my heart,
Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part,
As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep,
And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep!
For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves
The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves
Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine.

I say then,--my song
While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever more strong
Made a proffer of good to console him--he slowly resumed
His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed
His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes
Of his turban, and see--the huge sweat that his countenance bathes,
He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore,
And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before.
He is Saul, ye remember in glory,--ere error had bent
The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent
Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose,
To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose.
So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile
Of his armor and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there a while,
And so sat out my singing,--one arm round the tent-prop, to raise
His bent head, and the other hung slack--till I touched on the praise
I foresaw from all men in all times, to the man patient there,
And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 'ware
That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees
Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak-roots which please
To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know
If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow; thro' my hair
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind
power--
All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower,
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine--
And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign?
I yearned--"Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss,
I would add to that life of the past, both the future and this.
I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence,
As this moment,--had love but the warrant, love's heart to dispense!"

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more--no song more! outbroke--

"I have gone the whole round of Creation: I saw and I spoke!
I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain
And pronounced on the rest of his handwork--returned him again
His creation's approval or censure: I spoke as I saw.
I report, as a man may of God's work--all's love, yet all's law!
Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked
To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dew-drop was asked.
Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite care!
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success?
I but open my eyes,--and perfection, no more and no less,
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)
The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's All-Complete,
As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet!
Yet with all this abounding experience, this Deity known,
I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own.
There's one faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink,
I am fain to keep still in abeyance (I laugh as I think)
Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst
E'en the Giver in one gift.--Behold! I could love if I durst!
But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake
God's own speed in the one way of love: I abstain, for love's sake!
--What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small,
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appal?
In the least things, have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?
Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift,
That I doubt his own love can compete with it? here, the parts shift?
Here, the creature surpass the Creator, the end, what Began?--
Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man,
And dare doubt He alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power,
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower
Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole?
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest)
These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best?
Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height
This perfection,--succeed with life's day-spring, death's minute of
night?
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul, the mistake,
Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,--and bid him awake
From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set
Clear and safe in new light and new life,--a new harmony yet
To be run and continued, and ended--who knows?--or endure!
The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make sure.
By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss,
And the next world's reward and repose, by the struggle in this.

"I believe it! 'tis Thou, God, that givest, 'tis I who receive:
In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe.
All's one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer
As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air.
From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth:
_I_ will?--the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loath
To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare
Think but lightly of such impuissance? what stops my despair?
This;--'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do?
See the king--I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall through.
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,
To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would--knowing which,
I know that my service is perfect.--Oh, speak through me now!
Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst Thou--so wilt Thou!
So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost Crown--
And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that Salvation joins issue with death!
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most
weak.
'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee: a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever! a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.
There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right,
Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive--the aware--
I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there,
As a runner beset by the populace famished for news--
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews;
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot
Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not.
For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported--suppressed
All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,
Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.
Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth--
Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth;
In the gathered intensity brought to the gray of the hills;
In the shuddering forests' new awe; in the sudden wind-thrills;
In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still
Tho' averted, in wonder and dread; and the birds stiff and chill
That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe.
E'en the serpent that slid away silent,--he felt the new Law.
The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers;
The same worked in the heart of the cedar, and moved the vine-bowers.
And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low,
With their obstinate, all but hushed voices--"E'en so, it is so!"

INDEX

Titles of complete monologues are printed in _Italics_; authors of these in SMALL CAPITALS; subjects of lessons are printed in CAPITALS; ordinary topics in Roman.

Abrupt beginning, cause of Browning's obscurity, 81

_Abt Vogler_, 290;
theme in, 88-89

ACTION, 172-195
importance at opening, 172-173
precedence of, 173
significance of, in a monologue, 174
in Italian in England, 174
in Mrs. Caudle, 174
in Up at a Villa, 174-175
in A Tale, 175-176
caused by change in thinking and feeling, 175-176
by struggle for idea, 176
in quotations, 177-178
transitions and, 178
pivotal, shows attention and politeness, 181-186
locations of objects, 182-183
monologue must not be declaimed, 183
descriptive and manifestative, 187-189
in Old Boggs' Slarnt, Day, 188
in Vagabonds, Trowbridge, 190-193
dangers of, 194
attitude, importance of, 195

_Andrea del Sarto_, 265

_Appearances_, 265

ARGUMENT OF MONOLOGUE, 86-100
Illustrated by A Death in the Desert, 89
Illustrated by Bishop orders his Tomb, 91-94
(Poem, 285)
Illustrated by _Memorabilia_, 160-162

Art, function of, 7
dramatic, important, 11
forms of, not invented, necessary, 11-12
Browning on, 40
indirect, 63
composed of few elements, 87-88
theme of, 110
social, 258

At the Mermaid, 73-74
extract from, 74

Attention, key to dramatic, 181
shown by pivotal action, 182-186

Attitude, importance of, 195

Barrack-Room Ballads are monologues, 128

_Before Sedan_, Dobson, 84

Biglow Papers are monologues, 19

Bishop Blougram's Apology, listener in, 41-42

_Bishop orders his Tomb_, 285
listener in, 53
dramatic argument of, 91-94

BODY, ACTIONS OF MIND AND, 172-195

=BRET HARTE'S=, _In a Tunnel_, 173

_Bridge of Sighs_, =HOOD=, 209
metre of, 211

=BROWNING=
_Patriot, The_, 3
_Woman's Last Word, A_, 6
_Confessions_, 7
_Youth and Art_, 21
_Incident of the French Camp_, 33
_Rabbi Ben Ezra_, 36
_Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister_, 58
_Up at a Villa--Down in the City_, 65
A Grammarian's Funeral, 72
At the Mermaid, 74
_My Last Duchess_, 96
_Lost Mistress_, 106
_Tray_, 143
_One Way of Love_, 150
_Italian in England_, 152
_Wanting is--What?_ 157
_Memorabilia_, 160
_A Tale_, 164
_In a Year_, 201
_Lost Leader_, 212
_Evelyn Hope_, 216
_Appearances_, 265
_Andrea del Sarto_, 265
_Muleykeh_, 272
_Count Gismond_, 275
_By the Fireside_, 277
_Pheidippides_, 281
_Prospice_, 284
_Bishop orders his Tomb_, 285
_Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis_, 288
_Abt Vogler_, 290
_Saul_, 293
Why not appreciated, 1-2
Invented monologue, 1-2
his art form, 7
dramatic, 9-10
compared with Leigh Hunt, 25-26
influence of, 48
compared with Tennyson, 52
compared with Shakespeare, 55-61
soliloquies are monologues, 58-61
obscurity of, 71-81
master of monologue, 131-132
grotesque, element in, 229
variety of his themes, 263-264

=BURNS=, monologues in, 117-120
_O wert thou in the cauld blast_, 118

_By the Fireside_, 277

Caliban upon Setebos, character of, 24
speaker in, 24

Caudle, Mrs., _On the Umbrella_, 139

Character of speaker must be realized, 138

=CHESTERTON=, on personal element in story-telling, 86
on Clive and Muleykeh, 125
justifies Browning's grotesque language, 229

=CHURCHILL, J. W.=, rendering of Sam Lawson, 16

Cleon, monologue or letter, 18

Clive, illustrates person spoken of, 54
why a monologue, 126

_Confessions_, 7

Connection, importance of first words to the, 79-80

Consistency, law of, 235-237

Conversation, elements of, 159

_Count Gismond_, 275
speaker in, 16

=CUSHMAN, CHARLOTTE=, her rendering of monologue, 236-237

Definition of monologue, 7

Delivery
nature of, 134
important in monologue, 133-136
three languages in, complementary, 135-136

DIALECT, 222-230
must be dramatic, 222-223
in Riley, Burns, Tennyson, 223
not literal, 224-225
dramatic, 225-226
results from assimilation, 227
must express character, 228-229
part of grotesque, 229-230

_Didn't know Flynn_, =BRET HARTE=, 173

_Dieudonne_, Dr. Drummond, 225

=DOBSON, AUSTIN,=
_Before Sedan_, 84
change of situation in, 84-86

Dooley monologues, 42
Hennessey in, 42-43

Dowden, Edward, on static dramatic, 110-111
on Muleykeh, 111

Dramatic art, important, 11

Dramatic instinct, overlooked, 31
necessary in human life, 30
listener in, 31
definition of, 103-104
illustrated by, 103-113
static dramatic, 110-111
nature of, 111-112
interprets odd moments, 156

=DRAYTON, MICHAEL=
_Come, let us kiss and part_, 116

=DRUMMOND, DR.=
French Canadian dialect, 129
_Dieudonne_, 225

_Duchess, My Last_, 96

Epic spirit, nature of, 102
in Tennyson's Ulysses, 102-103, 123
in Sir Galahad, 124

_Evelyn Hope_, 216

Expression, vocal, necessity of, 133-146
nature of, in the monologue, 147-172

FAULTS IN RENDERING A MONOLOGUE, 241-247
staginess, 241
monotony, cause of, 241-242
tameness, 242
declamation, 242-243
indefiniteness, 243
exaggeration, 244
cause of, false, 244-246

=FIELD, EUGENE=, Monologues in, 44

_Fireside, By the_, 277

Flexibility
illustrated by A Tale, 164

Flight of the Duchess, as illustration of monologue, 108-109

FORM OF LITERATURE, THE MONOLOGUE AS A, 100-115
not invented, 11-12, 100-101
Monologue, one, 100-113

Foss, Sam Walter, monologues by, 48

Fra Lippo Lippi, connection in, 81-83

=FREYTAG'S= definition of drama, 103-104

Grammarian's Funeral, A, situation in, 72-73

Grigsby's Station, a monologue, 47

Grotesque, nature of, 226
dramatic, importance of, 30-31
illustrations of, 33-39

HEARER, THE, 30-64
implied in dramatic art, 30-31
in monologue, necessary, 32
illustrated by Rabbi Ben Ezra, 36
in Bishop Blougram, 41-42
by Dooley and Hennessey, 43
in Riley's Nothin' to Say, 46-47
in Tennyson's Lady Clara, 50

Herve Riel, metre in, 203

Higginson, Col. T. W., story of Carlyle, 226

HISTORY OF THE MONOLOGUE, 113-132
in early literature, 113-116
in Burns, 117-118

=HOOD, THOMAS=, _Bridge of Sighs_, 209

Hunt, Leigh, Browning's method differs from, 25-26

Imitation, danger of, in High Tide, 171

IMPORTANCE OF MONOLOGUE, 248-264
illustrated by Saul, 248-252;
by Job, 253
by Ninetieth Psalm, 253-254;
by Prophets, 255
has educational value, 255
speakers, 255-256
proves necessity of voice to literature, 256
gives new course in speaking, 256;
illustration, 257
prevents students of art from being
mechanical, 258
shows necessity of art, 261
of any length or theme, 262
requires an artist, 263
requires no expensive scenery, 262
has limitations, 262
its range, 264

_In a Tunnel_, =BRET HARTE=, 173

_In a Year_, 201

_Incident of the French Camp_, 33

Inflection, function of, 151
importance of, 149-150, 157

Interpreter of monologue must command natural languages, 136

Interpretation of monologue difficult, 139
necessary, 133
unites three languages, 135
must be dramatic, 138-142

_Italian in England, The_, 152

Jerrold, Douglas, situation in his monologues, 75
on Sordello, 1
Mrs. Caudle and the Umbrella, 139
its spirit, 141-143

John Anderson, my Jo, =BURNS=, 62

=KIPLING=, dramatic spirit in, 127-129
Mandalay lyric or monologue, 128-129
dialect of results from dramatic spirit, 228

_Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, =TENNYSON=, 50

Language, threefold, 135-138

La Saisiaz, situation of, 78

_Last Ride Together_, 205

Letters and monologues compared, 17-18

LITERARY FORM, A NEW, 1-12
not invented, 100
monologue, as a, 100-113
monologue, a true, 124, 259-264

LITERATURE, THE MONOLOGUE AS A FORM OF, 100-113
implies unprinted elements, 133-134
suggests life, 135-136

_Lost Leader, The_, 212

_Lost Mistress, The_, 106

Lyric, nature of, 14
compared with monologue, 14-15

Macbeth, story of, compared to monologue, 105-107

_Memorabilia_, 160
illustrates vocal expression of monologue, 161-162

Mental actions modulate voice, 147-172

_Mermaid, At the_, passage from, 73-74

METRE AND THE MONOLOGUE, 195-222
mistakes regarding, 195
appreciation of, 196
part of vocal expression, 196-197
meaning of, 196, 204-205
relation to length of line, 198-199
in Woman's Last Word and In a Year, 201
study of, 213

_Mistress, The Lost_, 106

Mitchell, D. G., on letters, 17

Modulations of voice, 147-172

Monologue contrasted with the play, 105-109
"Invention" of Browning, 2
One end of conversation, 7
study of, centres in, 10
speaker in, 12-30, 41-43
dramatic, 32
person spoken of, in, 54-55
compared with soliloquy, 55-61
situation in, 64-78
connection, 78-86
argument of, 86-94
as literary form, 100-113
compared with play, 105-109
before Browning, 113
common in English poetry, 113-132
common in modern literature, 127-132
needs delivery, 133-146
vocal expression of, 147-172
rhythm of thinking in, 148
action in, 172-195
metre in, 195-222
dialect in, 222-229
use of properties, 231-240
faults in rendering, 241-246
IMPORTANCE OF, 248-264

Movement illustrated by High Tide, 168-171

Mrs. Jim, a series of monologues, 130

_Muleykeh_, 272
Chesterton on, 125
as a monologue, 125-126

_My Last Duchess_, 96
illustrates elements of monologue, 96-99

Natural languages, function of, 134-137

_Nothin' to Say_, Riley, 46

Obscurity, chief cause of Browning's, 81

_Old Boggs' Slarnt_, Day, 188

_One Way of Love_, 150

Oratory and acting compared, 13, 179-181
Jefferson on, 179-180

Palgrave on Sally in our Alley, 120-122

_Patriot, The_, 3

Pause, Importance of, 149

Personal element in art, Chesterton on, 86
found in all conversation and expression, 81-88

_Pheidippides_, 281

Play, a monologue, 10-12

Poetry, Aristotle on, 128
dramatic, not invented, 100
epic, 122-123

PROPERTIES, 230-247
use of, in play and monologue, 230-231
significance of, 230-231
need of generalizing, 232
Irving, Sir Henry, scenery in unity, 233
consistency in, 235
use of scenery, 236-240
must not be literal, 237
when dramatic, 238-240

_Prospice_, 284
metre of, 209

_Psalm Ninetieth_, 253
a monologue, 253-255

_Rabbi Ben Ezra_, 36

Rendering of monologues, 236-237

RENDITION, NECESSITY OF, 133-147

Rhythm, first element in interpretation, 148

=RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB=, Hoosier monologue, 129-131
Knee-deep in June, a monologue, 45
situation in, 53
_Nothin' to Say_, 46

Ring and the Book, The, proves value of monologue, 26-29
extract from, on art, 40

_Sally in our Alley_, =CAREY=, 120

Sam Lawson, stories of, Mrs. Stowe, monologues, 16
illustrates nature of monologue, 248-252

_Saul_, 293

Shakespeare compared with Browning, 112
his soliloquies compared to monologues, 55-57

_Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis_, 288

SITUATION, PLACE AND, 64-78
dramatic, 64
monologue implies, 65
Up at a Villa--Down in the City, 65
in Browning, always definite, 71-72
changes in Grammarian's Funeral, 72
in Douglas Jerrold, 75
Andrea del Sarto (Poem, 265)

_Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister_, 58
soliloquy compared with monologue, 56-57
Shakespeare's, 55
difference between Browning and
Shakespeare, 57-61

SPEAKER, THE, in monologue, 12-30
speech and monologue compared, 101-102

=SUCKLING, SIR JOHN=, _Why so pale and wan_, 116

_Tale, A_, 163

=TENNYSON'S= _Lady Clara Vere de Vere_, 50
a monologue, 52
many monologues, 49
not master of, 53

TIME AND CONNECTION, 78-86
abrupt beginning, 79-80
tone-color explained, 157-160

_Tray_, 143

_Up at a Villa--Down in the City_, 65

_Vagabonds, The_, =TROWBRIDGE=, 190

Vocal Expression
nature of, 134
reveals processes of mind, 147-172
unprintable, 136
in play and monologue, 167-168

VOICE, ACTIONS OF MIND AND, 147-172

_Wanting is--What?_ 157

Whitman, dramatic element in his "O Captain," 120

_Why so pale and wan_, Suckling, 116

_Woman's Last Word, A_, 6

Words complemented by tone and action, 135

=WYATT, SIR THOMAS=, The Lover's Appeal, lyric in form of monologue, 114

_Youth and Art_, 21
metre of, 216

The University Press Cambridge, U. S. A.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Freytag, Technik des Dramas, chap. i, sec. 2, p. 16 (Leipzig, 1881). Translation by Prof. H. B. Lathrop.

[2] To emphasize the nature and importance of poetic form (see pp. 211, 213), "Count Gismond" and "By the Fireside" are here printed as prose. Find the length of line, the stanzas, and the metre, the meaning and appropriateness of all these. How should they be paragraphed?

Transcriber's Notes:

Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.

The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations.

Several of the poems appear in the middle of a paragraph. They have been left as placed in the original text.

In the index, the original text used SMALL CAPITALS to indicate authors of the complete monologues and CAPITALS to indicate the subjects of lessons. In order to differentiate the two in this text version, =SMALL CAPITALS= has been used to indicate authors of the complete monologues.

The following misprints have been corrected:
"'" corrected to "i'" (page 38)
"call st" corrected to "callest" (page 38)
"attenton" corrected to "attention" (page 72)
"Muleykeh" standardized to "Muleykeh" (page 111)
"in" corrected to "is" (page 195)
"al" corrected to "all" (page 205)

Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.

End of Project Gutenberg's Browning and the Dramatic Monologue, by S. S. Curry

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