ANCIEN RÉGIME
Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly,
May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely,
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy—
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?
He is with her, and they know that I know
Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear
Empty church, to pray God in, for them!—I am here!
Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste,
10Pound at thy powder, I am not in haste!
Better sit thus and observe thy strange things,
Than go where men wait me, and dance at the King's.
That in the mortar—you call it a gum?
Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come!
And yonder soft phial, the exquisite blue,
Sure to taste sweetly,—is that poison, too?
Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures,[page 114]
What a wild crowd of Invisible pleasures!
To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,
20A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!
Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give
And Pauline should have just thirty minutes to live!
But to light a pastille, and Elise, with her head
And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!
Quick—is it finished? The colour's too grim!
Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim?
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir,
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer!
What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me!
30That's why she ensnared him: this never will free
The soul from those masculine eyes,—say "No!"
To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go.
For only last night, as they whispered, I brought
My own eyes to bear on her so that I thought
Could I keep them one half-minute fixed, she would fall
Shrivelled; she fell not: yet this does it all!
Not that I bid you spare her the pain;[page 115]
Let death be felt and the proof remain:
Brand, burn up, bite into its grace—
40He is sure to remember her dying face!
Is it done? Take my mask off! Nay, be not morose;
It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close:
The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee!
If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me?
Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill,
You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will!
But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings
Ere I know it—next moment I dance at the King's!
HOME THOUGHTS, FROM [ABROAD][°]
Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,[page 116]
10And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark I where my blossomed pear tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
20—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
UP AT A VILLA—DOWN IN THE [CITY][°]
(As distinguished by an Italian person of quality.)
Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!
°[4] [Something] to see, by Bacchusº, something to hear, at least![page 117]
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast;
While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast.
Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull,
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull!
10—I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool.
But the city, oh the city—the square with the houses! Why?
They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye!
Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry;
You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by;
Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high;
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly.
What of a villa? Tho' winter be over in March, by rights,[page 118]
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights:
You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze,
20 the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive trees.
Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once;
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns,
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well,
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell.
Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash!
In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash [page 119]
Round the lady atop in her conch—fifty gazers do not abash,
30Tho' all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash.
All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger,
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger.
Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle,
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle.
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill,
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill.
Enough of the seasons,—I spare you the months of the fever and chill.
Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin:
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in:[page 120]
40You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin.
By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth;
°[42] [Or] the Pulcinello°-trumpet breaks up the market beneath.
At the post-office such a scene-picture—the new play, piping hot!
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot.
Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes,
And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law of the Duke's!
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so,
°[48] [Who] is Dante,º Boccaccio,º Petrarca,º St. Jeromeº and Cicero,º
°[49] "[And] moreover" (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the skirts of St. Paul has reached,º
50Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached."
°[51] [Noon] strikes,—here sweeps the procession! our Ladyº borne smiling and smart.
°[52] [With] a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swordsº stuck in her heart![page 121]
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife;
No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life.
But bless you, it's dear—it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate.
They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate
It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city!
Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still—ah, the pity, the pity!
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals,
60And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding the yellow candles;
One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles,
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention of scandals:
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife.
Oh, a day in the city square, there is no such pleasure in life!
A TOCCATA OF [GALUPPI'S ][°]
°[1] [Oh] Galuppi,° Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But altho' I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!
Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,
°[6] [Where] St. Mark's° is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings°?
Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by ... what you call
°[8] ... [Shylock]'s bridge° with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of England—it's as if I saw it all.
10Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,
When they make up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?
Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,—[page 123]
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed,
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?
Well, and it was graceful of them: they'd break talk off and afford
—She, to bite her mask's black velvet—he, to finger on his sword,
°[18] [While] you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord°?
°[19] [What]? Those lesser thirds° so plaintive, sixths° diminished sigh on sigh,
°[20] [Told] them something? Those suspensions,° those solutions°—"Must we die?"
°[21] [Those] commiserating sevenths°—"Life might last! we can but try!"
"Were you happy?"—"Yes."—"And are you still as happy?"—"Yes. And you?"
—"Then, more kisses !"—"Did I stop them, when, a million seemed so few?"
Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to![page 124]
So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"
Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,
°[30] [Death], stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.°
But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor swerve,
While I triumph o'er a secret wrung from nature's close reserve,
In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every nerve.
Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned:
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned.[page 125]
The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.
"Yours, for instance: you know physics, [something] of geology,
Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;
°[39] Butterflies may dread extinction,—you'll not die, it cannot be!°
40"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop,
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop:
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?
"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.
Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what's become of all the gold
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.
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,
°[3][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,
°[8] And pile him a [palace]° straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!
Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,
10 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,[page 127]
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,
°[19][Raising] my rampired° walls of gold as transparent as glass,
20 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—
°[23][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,[page 128]
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 splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine.
30 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 thro' the body and gone,[page 129]
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;
40 And what is,—shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.
All thro' my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
All thro' my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,
All thro' 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,[page 130]
50 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 naught;
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,
60 That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.
Never to be again! But many more of the kind[page 131]
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;
70 The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound;
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;[page 132]
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;
80 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;[page 133]
The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.
Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:
90 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.
RABBI BEN [EZRA][°]
°[1] [Grow] old along with meº!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,[page 134]
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"
°[7] [Not] that°, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, "Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall!"
10Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
20 man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?
Rejoice we are allied [page 135]
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
°[29] [Nearer] we hold ofº God.
30Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.
Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
For thence,—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,—
°[39] [Shall] life succeed in that it seems to fail:
40What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.
What is he but a brute
Whose flesh has soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?[page 136]
To man, propose this test—
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?
Yet gifts should prove their use:
50I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn?"
Not once beat "Praise be Thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:
Perfect I call Thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
60Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shall do!"
For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:
Would we some prize might hold
To match those manifold[page 137]
Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!
Let us not always say,
"Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!"
70As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry "All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"
Therefore I summon age
To grant youth's heritage,
Life's struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a God tho' in the germ.
And I shall thereupon
80Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armour to indue.
Youth ended, I shall try[page 138]
My gain or loss thereby;
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame:
90Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.
For, note when evening shuts,
A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:
A whisper from the west
Shoots—"Add this to the rest,
Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."
So, still within this life,
Tho' lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
100"This rage was right i' the main,
That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."
For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch [page 139]
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.
As it was better, youth
110Should strive, thro' acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made:
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid!
Enough now, if the Right
And Good and Infinite
°[117] [Be] namedº here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,
With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
120From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.
Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
°[124] [Was] I,º the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
Now, who shall arbitrate?[page 140]
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
130Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?
Not on the vulgar mass
Called "work," must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straight way to its mind, could value in a trice:
[But] all, the world's coarse thumb
140And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account:
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
°[144] That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amountº:
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke thro' language and escaped:
All I could never be,[page 141]
All, men ignored in me,
150This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
°[151] [Ay], note that Potter's wheel,º
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
"Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"
Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
160What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.
He fixed thee mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,[page 142]
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.
[What] tho' the earlier grooves
170Which ran the laughing loves
º[171] Around thy base, no longer pause and pressº?
[What] tho' about thy rim,
Scull-things in order grim
°[174] Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stressº?
Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup
The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,
The new wine's foaming flow,
The Master's lips a-glow!
180Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?
But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men!
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I,—to the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst.
So take and use Thy work,[page 143]
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
190My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!