Chapter CXI: Epilogue (1)

Oh, Love--no, Love! All the noise below, Love,
Groanings all and moanings--none of Life I lose!
All of Life's a cry just of weariness and woe, Love--
"Hear at least, thou happy one!" How can I, Love, but choose?

Only, when I do hear, sudden circle round me
--Much as when the moon's might frees a space from cloud--
Iridescent splendors: gloom--would else confound me--
Barriered off and banished far--bright-edged the blackest shroud!

Thronging through the cloud-rift, whose are they, the faces
Faint revealed yet sure divined, the famous ones of old?
"What"--they smile--"our names, our deeds so soon erases
Time upon his tablet where Life's glory lies enrolled?

"Was it for mere fool's-play, make-believe and mumming,
So we battled it like men, not boylike sulked or whined?
Each of us heard clang God's 'Come!' and each was coming:
Soldiers all, to forward-face, not sneaks to lag behind!

"How of the field's fortune? That concerned our Leader!
Led, we struck our stroke nor cared for doings left and right:
Each as on his sole head, failer or succeeder,
Lay the blame or lit the praise: no care for cowards: fight!"

Then the cloud-rift broadens, spanning earth that 's under,
Wide our world displays its worth, man's strife and strife's
success;
All the good and beauty, wonder crowning wonder,
Till my heart and soul applaud perfection, nothing less.

Only, at heart's utmost joy and triumph, terror
Sudden turns the blood to ice: a chill wind disencharms
All the late enchantment! What if all be error--
If the halo irised round my head were, Love, thine arms?

Palazzo Giustinian-Recanati, VENICE:
_December 1, 1883_.

RAWDON BROWN

"Tutti ga i so gusti, e mi go i mii."
(_Venetian saying._)

Mr. Rawdon Brown was an Englishman who went to Venice on some temporary errand, and lived there for forty years, dying in that city in the summer of 1883. He had an enthusiastic love for Venice, and is mentioned in books of travel as one who knew the city thoroughly. The Venetian saying means that "everybody follows his taste as I follow mine." Toni was the gondolier and attendant of Brown. The inscription on Brown's tomb is given in the third and fourth lines. G. W. COOKE.

Sighed Rawdon Brown: "Yes, I 'm departing, Toni!
I needs must, just this once before I die,
Revisit England: _Anglus_ Brown am I,
Although my heart 's Venetian. Yes, old crony--
Venice and London--London 's 'Death the bony'
Compared with Life--that 's Venice! What a sky,
A sea, this morning! One last look! Good-by,
Cà Pesaro! No, lion--I 'm a coney
To weep! I 'm dazzled; 't is that sun I view
Rippling the ... the ... _Cospetto_, Toni! Down
With carpet-bag, and off with valise-straps!
_Bella Venezia, non ti lascio più!_"
Nor did Brown ever leave her: well, perhaps
Browning, next week, may find himself quite Brown!

_November 28, 1883._

THE FOUNDER OF THE FEAST

Inscribed in an Album presented to Mr. Arthur Chappell, of the Saint James Hall Saturday and Monday popular concerts.

"Enter my palace," if a prince should say--
"Feast with the Painters! See, in bounteous row,
They range from Titian up to Angelo!"
Could we be silent at the rich survey?
A host so kindly, in as great a way
Invites to banquet, substitutes for show
Sound that 's diviner still, and bids us know
Bach like Beethoven; are we thankless, pray?

Thanks, then, to Arthur Chappell,--thanks to him
Whose every guest henceforth not idly vaunts
"Sense has received the utmost Nature grants,
My cup was filled with rapture to the brim,
When, night by night,--ah, memory, how it haunts!--
Music was poured by perfect ministrants,
By Halle, Schumann, Piatti, Joachim.

_April 5, 1884._

THE NAMES

At Dr. F. J. Furnivall's suggestion, Browning was asked to contribute a sonnet to the _Shakesperean Show-Book_ of the "Shakesperean Show" held in Albert Hall, London, on May 29-31, 1884, to pay off the debt on the Hospital for Women, in Fulham Road. The poet sent to the committee a sonnet on the names of Jehovah and Shakespeare.

Shakespeare!--to such name's sounding, what succeeds
Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell,--
Act follows word, the speaker knows full well,
Nor tampers with its magic more than needs.
Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads
With his soul only: if from lips it fell,
Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven and hell,
Would own "Thou didst create us!" Naught impedes
We voice the other name, man's most of might,
Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love
Mutely await their working, leave to sight
All of the issue as--below--above--
Shakespeare's creation rises: one remove,
Though dread--this finite from that infinite.

_March 12, 1884._

EPITAPH

ON LEVI LINCOLN THAXTER

Born in Watertown, Massachusetts, February 1, 1824.
Died May 31, 1884.

Mr. Thaxter was early a student of Browning's genius and in his later years gave readings from his poems, which were singularly interpretative. The boulder over his grave bears these lines.

Thou, whom these eyes saw never! Say friends true
Who say my soul, helped onward by my song,
Though all unwittingly, has helped thee too?
I gave of but the little that I knew:
How were the gift requited, while along
Life's path I pace, couldst thou make weakness strong!
Help me with knowledge--for Life's Old--Death's New!

R. B. to L. L. T., _April_, 1885.

WHY I AM A LIBERAL

Contributed to a volume edited by Andrew Reid, in which a number of leaders of English thought answered the question, "Why I am a Liberal?"

"Why?" Because all I haply can and do,
All that I am now, all I hope to be,--
Whence comes it save from fortune setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
These shall I bid men--each in his degree
Also God-guided--bear, and gayly, too?

But little do or can the best of us:
That little is achieved through Liberty.
Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,
Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss
A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why."

PARLEYINGS WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORTANCE IN THEIR DAY

IN MEMORIAM J. MILSAND, OBIIT IV. SEPTEMBER, MDCCCLXXXVI.

_Absens Absentem Auditque Videtque._

APOLLO AND THE FATES

A PROLOGUE

(Hymn in Mercurium, v. 559. Eumenides, vv. 693-4, 697-8. Alcestis, vv. 12, 33.)

_Apollo._ (_From above._) Flame at my footfall, Parnassus! Apollo,
Breaking ablaze on thy topmost peak,
Burns thence, down to the depths--dread hollow--
Haunt of the Dire Ones. Haste! They wreak
Wrath on Admetus whose respite I seek.

* * * * *

_The Fates._ (_Below. Darkness._) Dragonwise couched in the womb
of our Mother,
Coiled at thy nourishing heart's core, Night!
Dominant Dreads, we, one by the other,
Deal to each mortal his dole of light
On earth--the upper, the glad, the bright.

_Clotho._ Even so: thus from my loaded spindle
Plucking a pinch of the fleece, lo, "Birth"
Brays from my bronze lip: life I kindle:
Look, 't is a man! go, measure on earth
The minute thy portion, whatever its worth!

* * * * *

_Lachesis._ Woe-purfled, weal-prankt,--if it speed, if it
linger,--
Life's substance and show are determined by me,
Who, meting out, mixing with sure thumb and finger,
Lead life the due length: is all smoothness and glee,
All tangle and grief? Take the lot, my decree!

* * * * *

_Atropos._--Which I make an end of: the smooth as the tangled
My shears cut asunder: each snap shrieks "One more
Mortal makes sport for us Moirai who dangled
The puppet grotesquely till earth's solid floor
Proved film he fell through, lost in Naught as before."

* * * * *

_Clo._ I spin thee a thread. Live, Admetus! Produce him!

_Lac._ Go,--brave, wise, good, happy! Now chequer the thread!
He is slaved for, yet loved by a god. I unloose him
A goddess-sent plague. He has conquered, is wed,
Men crown him, he stands at the height,--

_Atr._ He is ...

_Apollo._ (_Entering: Light._) "Dead?"

Nay, swart spinsters! So I surprise you
Making and marring the fortunes of Man?
Huddling--no marvel, your enemy eyes you--
Head by head bat-like, blots under the ban
Of daylight earth's blessing since time began!

* * * * *

_The Fates._ Back to thy blest earth, prying Apollo!
Shaft upon shaft transpierce with thy beams
Earth to the centre,--spare but this hollow
Hewn out of Night's heart, where our mystery seems
Mewed from day's malice: wake earth from her dreams!

* * * * *

_Apol._ Crones, 't is your dusk selves I startle from slumber:
Day's god deposes you--queens Night-crowned!
--Plying your trade in a world ye encumber,
Fashioning Man's web of life--spun, wound,
Left the length ye allot till a clip strews the ground!

Behold I bid truce to your doleful amusement--
Annulled by a sunbeam!

_The Fates._ Boy, are not we peers?

_Apol._ You with the spindle grant birth: whose inducement
But yours--with the niggardly digits--endears
To mankind chance and change, good and evil? Your shears ...

* * * * *

_Atr._ Ay, mine end the conflict: so much is no fable.
We spin, draw to length, cut asunder: what then?
So it was, and so is, and so shall be: art able
To alter life's law for ephemeral men?

_Apol._ Nor able nor willing. To threescore and ten

Extend but the years of Admetus! Disaster
O'ertook me, and, banished by Zeus, I became
A servant to one who forbore me though master:
True lovers were we. Discontinue your game,
Let him live whom I loved, then hate on, all the same!

* * * * *

_The Fates._ And what if we granted--law-flouter, use-trampler--
His life at the suit of an upstart? Judge, thou--
Of joy were it fuller, of span because ampler?
For love's sake, not hate's, end Admetus--ay, now--
Not a gray hair on head, nor a wrinkle on brow!

For, boy, 't is illusion: from thee comes a glimmer
Transforming to beauty life blank at the best.
Withdraw--and how looks life at worst, when to shimmer
Succeeds the sure shade, and Man's lot frowns--confessed
Mere blackness chance-brightened? Whereof shall attest

The truth this same mortal, the darling thou stylest,
Whom love would advantage,--eke out, day by day,
A life which 't is solely thyself reconcilest
Thy friend to endure,--life with hope: take away
Hope's gleam from Admetus, he spurns it. For, say--

What 's infancy? Ignorance, idleness, mischief:
Youth ripens to arrogance, foolishness, greed:
Age--impotence, churlishness, rancor: call _this_ chief
Of boons for thy loved one? Much rather bid speed
Our function, let live whom thou hatest indeed!

Persuade thee, bright boy-thing! Our eld be instructive!

_Apol._ And certes youth owns the experience of age.
Ye hold then, grave seniors, my beams are productive
--They solely--of good that 's mere semblance, engage
Man's eye--gilding evil, Man's true heritage?

* * * * *

_The Fates._ So, even so! From without,--at due distance
If viewed,--set a-sparkle, reflecting thy rays,--
Life mimics the sun: but withdraw such assistance,
The counterfeit goes, the reality stays--
An ice-ball disguised as a fire-orb.

_Apol._ What craze

Possesses the fool then whose fancy conceits him
As happy?

_The Fates._ Man happy?

_Apol._ If otherwise--solve
This doubt which besets me! What friend ever greets him
Except with "Live long as the seasons revolve,"
Not "Death to thee straightway"? Your doctrines absolve

Such hailing from hatred: yet Man should know best.
He talks it, and glibly, as life were a load
Man fain would be rid of: when put to the test,
He whines "Let it lie, leave me trudging the road
That is rugged so far, but methinks" ...

_The Fates._ Ay, 't is owed

To that glamour of thine, he bethinks him "Once past
The stony, some patch, nay, a smoothness of swarth
Awaits my tired foot: life turns easy at last"--
Thy largess so lures him, he looks for reward
Of the labor and sorrow.

_Apol._ It seems, then--debarred

Of illusion--(I needs must acknowledge the plea)
Man desponds and despairs. Yet,--still further to draw
Due profit from counsel,--suppose there should be
Some power in himself, some compensative law
By virtue of which, independently ...

* * * * *

_The Fates._ Faugh!
Strength hid in the weakling!
What bowl-shape hast there,
Thus laughingly proffered? A gift to our shrine?
Thanks--worsted in argument! Not so? Declare
Its purpose!

_Apol._ I proffer earth's product, not mine.
Taste, try, and approve Man's invention of--WINE!

* * * * *

_The Fates._ We feeding suck honeycombs.

_Apol._ Sustenance meagre!
Such fare breeds the fumes that show all things amiss.
Quaff wine,--how the spirits rise nimble and eager,
Unscale the dim eyes! To Man's cup grant one kiss
Of your lip, then allow--no enchantment like this!

* * * * *

_Clo._ Unhook wings, unhood brows! Dost hearken?

_Lach._ I listen:
I see--smell the food these fond mortals prefer
To our feast, the bee's bounty!

_Atr._ The thing leaps! But--glisten
Its best, I withstand it--unless all concur
In adventure so novel.

_Apol._ Ye drink?

_The Fates._ We demur.

* * * * *

_Apol._ Sweet Trine, be indulgent nor scout the contrivance
Of Man--Bacchus-prompted! The juice, I uphold,
Illuminates gloom without sunny connivance,
Turns fear into hope and makes cowardice bold,--
Touching all that is leadlike in life turns it gold!

* * * * *

_The Fates._ Faith foolish as false!

_Apol._ But essay it, soft sisters!
Then mock as ye may. Lift the chalice to lip!
Good: thou next--and thou! Seems the web, to you twisters
Of life's yarn, so worthless?

_Clo._ Who guessed that one sip
Would impart such a lightness of limb?

_Lach._ I could skip

In a trice from the pied to the plain in my woof!
What parts each from either? A hair's breadth, no inch.
Once learn the right method of stepping aloof,
Though on black next foot falls, firm I fix it, nor flinch,
--Such my trust white succeeds!

_Atr._ One could live--at a pinch!

* * * * *

_Apol._ What, beldames? Earth's yield, by Man's skill, can effect
Such a cure of sick sense that ye spy the relation
Of evil to good? But drink deeper, correct
Blear sight more convincingly still! Take your station
Beside me, drain dregs! Now for edification!

Whose gift have ye gulped? Thank not me but my brother,
Blithe Bacchus, our youngest of godships. 'T was he
Found all boons to all men, by one god or other
Already conceded, so judged there must be
New guerdon to grace the new advent, you see!

Else how would a claim to Man's homage arise?
The plan lay arranged of his mixed woe and weal,
So disposed--such Zeus' will--with design to make wise
The witless--that false things were mingled with real,
Good with bad: such the lot whereto law set the seal.

Now, human of instinct--since Semele's son,
Yet minded divinely--since fathered by Zeus,
With naught Bacchus tampered, undid not things done,
Owned wisdom anterior, would spare wont and use,
Yet change--without shock to old rule--introduce.

Regard how your cavern from crag-tip to base
Frowns sheer, height and depth adamantine, one death!
I rouse with a beam the whole rampart, displace
No splinter--yet see how my flambeau, beneath
And above, bids this gem wink, that crystal unsheathe!

Withdraw beam--disclosure once more Night forbids you
Of spangle and sparkle--Day's chance-gift, surmised
Rock's permanent birthright: my potency rids you
No longer of darkness, yet light--recognized--
Proves darkness a mask: day lives on though disguised.

If Bacchus by wine's aid avail so to fluster
Your sense, that life's fact grows from adverse and thwart
To helpful and kindly by means of a cluster--
Mere hand-squeeze, earth's nature sublimed by Man's art--
Shall Bacchus claim thanks wherein Zeus has no part?

Zeus--wisdom anterior? No, maids, be admonished!
If morn's touch at base worked such wonders, much more
Had noontide in absolute glory astonished
Your den, filled a-top to o'erflowing. I pour
No such mad confusion. 'T is Man's to explore

Up and down, inch by inch, with the taper his reason:
No torch, it suffices--held deftly and straight.
Eyes, purblind at first, feel their way in due season,
Accept good with bad, till unseemly debate
Turns concord--despair, acquiescence in fate.

Who works this but Zeus? Are not instinct and impulse,
Not concept and incept his work through Man's soul
On Man's sense? Just as wine ere it reach brain must brim pulse,
Zeus' flash stings the mind that speeds body to goal,
Bids pause at no part but press on, reach the whole.

For petty and poor is the part ye envisage
When--(quaff away, cummers!)--ye view, last and first,
As evil Man's earthly existence. Come! _Is_ age,
_Is_ infancy--manhood--so uninterspersed
With good--some faint sprinkle?

_Clo._ I 'd speak if I durst.

* * * * *

_Apol._ Draughts dregward loose tongue-tie.

_Lach._ I 'd see, did no web
Set eyes somehow winking.

_Apol._ Drains-deep lies their purge
--True collyrium!

_Atr._ Words, surging at high-tide, soon ebb
From starved ears.

_Apol._ Drink but down to the source, they resurge.
Join hands! Yours and yours too! A dance or a dirge?

* * * * *

_Cho._ Quashed be our quarrel! Sourly and smilingly,
Bare and gowned, bleached limbs and browned,
Drive we a dance, three and one, reconcilingly,
Thanks to the cup where dissension is drowned,
Defeat proves triumphant and slavery crowned.

Infancy? What if the rose-streak of morning
Pale and depart in a passion of tears?
Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning!
Love once--e'en love's disappointment endears!
A minute's success pays the failure of years.

Manhood--the actual? Nay, praise the potential!
(Bound upon bound, foot it around!)
What _is?_ No, what _may_ be--sing! that 's Man's essential!
(Ramp, tramp, stamp and compound
Fancy with fact--the lost secret is found!)

Age? Why, fear ends there: the contest concluded,
Man _did_ live his life, _did_ escape from the fray:
Not scratchless but unscathed, he somehow eluded
Each blow fortune dealt him, and conquers to-day:
To-morrow--new chance and fresh strength,--might we say?

Laud then Man's life--no defeat but a triumph! [_Explosion from the
earth's centre._
_Clo._ Ha, loose hands!

_Lach._ I reel in a swound.

_Atro._ Horror yawns under me, while from on high--humph!
Lightnings astound, thunders resound,
Vault-roof reverberates, groans the ground! [_Silence._

_Apol._ I acknowledge.

_The Fates._ Hence, trickster! Straight sobered are we!
The portent assures 't was our tongue spoke the truth,
Not thine. While the vapor encompassed us three
We conceived and bore knowledge--a bantling uncouth,
Old brains shudder back from: so--take it, rash youth!

Lick the lump into shape till a cry comes!

_Apol._ I hear.

_The Fates_. Dumb music, dead eloquence! Say it, or sing!
What was quickened in us and thee also?

_Apol._ I fear.

_The Fates._ Half female, half male--go, ambiguous thing!
While we speak--perchance sputter--pick up what we fling!

Known yet ignored, nor divined nor unguessed,
Such is Man's law of life. Do we strive to declare
What is ill, what is good in our spinning? Worst, best,
Change hues of a sudden: now here and now there
Flits the sign which decides: all about yet nowhere.

'T is willed so,--that Man's life be lived, first to last,
Up and down, through and through--not in portions, forsooth,
To pick and to choose from. Our shuttles fly fast,
Weave living, not life sole and whole: as age--youth,
So death completes living, shows life in its truth.

Man learningly lives: till death helps him--no lore!
It is doom and must be. Dost submit?

_Apol._ I assent--
Concede but Admetus! So much if no more
Of my prayer grant as peace-pledge! Be gracious, though, blent,
Good and ill, love and hate streak your life-gift!

_The Fates._ Content!

Such boon we accord in due measure. Life's term
We lengthen should any be moved for love's sake
To forego life's fulfilment, renounce in the germ
Fruit mature--bliss or woe--either infinite. Take
Or leave thy friend's lot: on his head be the stake!

* * * * *

_Apol._ On mine, griesly gammers! Admetus, I know thee!
Thou prizest the right these unwittingly give
Thy subjects to rush, pay obedience they owe thee!
Importunate one with another they strive
For the glory to die that their king may survive.

Friends rush: and who first in all Pheræ appears
But thy father to serve as thy substitute?

_Clo._ Bah!

_Apol._ Ye wince? Then his mother, well stricken in years,
Advances her claim--or his wife--

_Lach._ Tra-la-la!

_Apol._ But he spurns the exchange, rather dies!

_Atro._ Ha, ha, ha!
[_Apollo ascends. Darkness._

WITH BERNARD DE MANDEVILLE

I

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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!
_A_ is the House, and _B_ the Garden-gate,
And _C_ the Grass-plot--you 've the whole estate
Letter by letter, down to _Y_ the Pond,
And _Z_ the Pigsty. Do you look beyond
The algebraic signs, and captions say
"Is _A_ the House? But where 's the Roof to _A_,
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

"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 thus
Must be Euripides, not Æschylus.

IX

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, state
Thy wrong, thou sole aggrieved--disconsolate--
While every beast, bird, reptile, insect, gay
And glad acknowledges the bounteous day!

X

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

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!

WITH DANIEL BARTOLI

I

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

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

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

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

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

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 to _pari passu_ reach 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

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

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

"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

"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

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

"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

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

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

"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.

XVI

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

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

"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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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."

WITH CHRISTOPHER SMART

I

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

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

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

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

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