The Complete Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning / Cambridge Edition

by Robert Browning

IV. NIGHT

Inside the Palace by the Duomo. Monsignor, dismissing his Attendants.

Monsignor. Thanks, friends, many thanks! I chiefly desire life now, that I may recompense every one of you. Most I know something of already. What, a repast prepared? Benedicto benedicatur ... ugh, ugh! Where was I? Oh, as you were remarking, Ugo, the weather is mild, very unlike winter-weather: but I am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your Julys here. To be sure, when 'twas full summer at Messina, as we priests used to cross in procession the great square on Assumption Day, you might see our thickest yellow tapers twist suddenly in two, each like a falling star, or sink down on themselves in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go! [To the Intendant.] Not you, Ugo! [The others leave the apartment.] I have long wanted to converse with you, Ugo.

Intendant. Uguccio—

Mon. ... 'guccio Stefani, man! of Ascoli, Fermo and Fossombruno;—what I do need instructing about, are these accounts of your administration of my poor brother's affairs. Ugh! I shall never get through a third part of your accounts; take some of these dainties before we attempt it, however. Are you bashful to that degree? For me, a crust and water suffice.

Inten. Do you choose this especial night to question me?

Mon. This night, Ugo. You have managed my late brother's affairs since the death of our elder brother: fourteen years and a month, all but three days. On the Third of December, I find him ...

Inten. If you have so intimate an acquaintance with your brother's affairs, you will be tender of turning so far back: they will hardly bear looking into, so far back.

Mon. Ay, ay, ugh, ugh,—nothing but disappointments here below! I remark a considerable payment made to yourself on this Third of December. Talk of disappointments! There was a young fellow here, Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my utmost to advance, that the Church might be a gainer by us both: he was going on hopefully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me some marvellous change that has happened in his notions of Art. Here's his letter,—"He never had a clearly conceived Ideal within his brain till to-day. Yet since his hand could manage a chisel, he has practised expressing other men's Ideals; and, in the very perfection he has attained to, he foresees an ultimate failure: his unconscious hand will pursue its prescribed course of old years, and will reproduce with a fatal expertness the ancient types, let the novel one appear never so palpably to his spirit. There is but one method of escape: confiding the virgin type to as chaste a hand, he will turn painter instead of sculptor, and paint, not carve, its characteristics,"—strike out, I dare say, a school like Correggio: how think you, Ugo?

Inten. Is Correggio a painter?

Mon. Foolish Jules! and yet, after all, why foolish? He may—probably will—fail egregiously; but if there should arise a new painter, will it not be in some such way, by a poet now, or a musician (spirits who have conceived and perfected an Ideal through some other channel), transferring it to this, and escaping our conventional roads by pure ignorance of them; eh, Ugo? If you have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo!

Inten. Sir, I can submit no longer to this course of yours. First, you select the group of which I formed one,—next you thin it gradually,—always retaining me with your smile,—and so do you proceed till you have fairly got me alone with you between four stone walls. And now then? Let this farce, this chatter end now: what is it you want with me?

Mon. Ugo!

Inten. From the instant you arrived, I felt your smile on me as you questioned me about this and the other article in those papers—why your brother should have given me this villa, that podere,—and your nod at the end meant,—what?

Mon. Possibly that I wished for no loud talk here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo!—

Inten. I have your brother's hand and seal to all I possess: now ask me what for! what service I did him—ask me!

Mon. I would better not: I should rip up old disgraces, let out my poor brother's weaknesses. By the way, Maffeo of Forli, (which, I forgot to observe, is your true name,) was the interdict ever taken off you for robbing that church at Cesena?

Inten. No, nor needs be: for when I murdered your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him ...

Mon. Ah, he employed you in that business, did he? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, this villa and that podere, for fear the world should find out my relations were of so indifferent a stamp? Maffeo, my family is the oldest in Messina, and century after century have my progenitors gone on polluting themselves with every wickedness under heaven: my own father ... rest his soul!—I have, I know, a chapel to support that it may rest: my dear two dead brothers were,—what you know tolerably well; I, the youngest, might have rivalled them in vice, if not in wealth: but from my boyhood I came out from among them, and so am not partaker of their plagues. My glory springs from another source; or if from this, by contrast only,—for I, the bishop, am the brother of your employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some of their wrong, however; so far as my brother's ill-gotten treasure reverts to me, I can stop the consequences of his crime: and not one soldo shall escape me. Maffeo, the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves pick up and commit murders with; what opportunities the virtuous forego, the villanous seize. Because, to pleasure myself apart from other considerations, my food would be millet-cake, my dress sackcloth, and my couch straw,—am I therefore to let you, the off-scouring-of the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant by appropriating a pomp these will be sure to think lessens the abominations so unaccountably and exclusively associated with it? Must I let villas and poderi go to you, a murderer and thief, that you may beget by means of them other murderers and thieves? No—if my cough would but allow me to speak!

Inten. What am I to expect? You are going to punish me?

Mon. Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot afford to cast away a chance. I have whole centuries of sin to redeem, and only a month or two of life to do it in. How should I dare to say ...

Inten. "Forgive us our trespasses"?

Mon. My friend, it is because I avow myself a very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject a line of conduct you would applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed, as it were, a-pardoning?—I?—who have no symptom of reason to assume that aught less than my strenuousest efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, much less keep others out. No: I do trespass, but will not double that by allowing you to trespass.

Inten. And suppose the villas are not your brother's to give, nor yours to take? Oh, you are hasty enough just now!

Mon. 1, 2—Nᵒ. 3!—ay, can you read the substance of a letter, Nᵒ. 3, I have received from Rome? It is precisely on the ground there mentioned, of the suspicion I have that a certain child of my late elder brother, who would have succeeded to his estates, was murdered in infancy by you, Maffeo, at the instigation of my late younger brother—that the Pontiff enjoins on me not merely the bringing that Maffeo to condign punishment, but the taking all pains, as guardian of the infant's heritage for the Church, to recover it parcel by parcel, howsoever, whensoever, and wheresoever. While you are now gnawing those fingers, the police are engaged in sealing up your papers, Maffeo, and the mere raising my voice brings my people from the next room to dispose of yourself. But I want you to confess quietly, and save me raising my voice. Why, man, do I not know the old story? The heir between the succeeding heir, and this heir's ruffianly instrument, and their complot's effect, and the life of fear and bribes and ominous smiling silence? Did you throttle or stab my brother's infant? Come now!

Inten. So old a story, and tell it no better? When did such an instrument ever produce such an effect? Either the child smiles in his face; or, most likely, he is not fool enough to put himself in the employer's power so thoroughly: the child is always ready to produce—as you say—howsoever, wheresoever, and whensoever.

Mon. Liar!

Inten. Strike me? Ah, so might a father chastise! I shall sleep soundly to-night at least, though the gallows await me to-morrow; for what a life did I lead! Carlo of Cesena reminds me of his connivance, every time I pay his annuity; which happens commonly thrice a year. If I remonstrate, he will confess all to the good bishop—you!

Mon. I see through the trick, caitiff! I would you spoke truth for once. All shall be sifted, however—seven times sifted.

Inten. And how my absurd riches encumbered me! I dared not lay claim to above half my possessions. Let me but once unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, and die!

Sir, you are no brutal dastardly idiot like your brother I frightened to death: let us understand one another. Sir, I will make away with her for you—the girl—here close at hand; not the stupid obvious kind of killing; do not speak—know nothing of her nor of me! I see her every day—saw her this morning: of course there is to be no killing; but at Rome the courtesans perish off every three years, and I can entice her thither—have indeed begun operations already. There's a certain lusty blue-eyed florid-complexioned English knave, I and the Police employ occasionally. You assent, I perceive—no, that's not it—assent I do not say—but you will let me convert my present havings and holdings into cash, and give me time to cross the Alps? 'Tis but a little black-eyed pretty singing Felippa, gay silk-winding girl. I have kept her out of harm's way up to this present; for I always intended to make your life a plague to you with her. 'T is as well settled once and forever. Some women I have procured will pass Bluphocks, my handsome scoundrel, off for somebody; and once Pippa entangled!—you conceive? Through her singing? Is it a bargain?

[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing—

Overhead the tree-tops meet,

Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet;

There was naught above me, naught below,

My childhood had not learned to know:

For, what are the voices of birds

—Ay, and of beasts,—but words, our words,

Only so much more sweet?

The knowledge of that with my life begun.

But I had so near made out the sun,

And counted your stars, the seven and one,

Like the fingers of my hand:

Nay, I could all but understand

Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges;

And just when out of her soft fifty changes

No unfamiliar face might overlook me—

Suddenly God took me. [Pippa passes.

Mon. [Springing up.] My people—one and all—all—within there! Gag this villain—tie him hand and foot! He dares ... I know not half he dares—but remove him—quick! Miserere mei, Domine! Quick, I say!

Pippa's Chamber again. She enters it.

The bee with his comb,

The mouse at her dray,

The grub in his tomb,

While winter away;

But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob-worm, I pray,

How fare they?

Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze!

"Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze"—

The summer of life so easy to spend,

And care for to-morrow so soon put away!

But winter hastens at summer's end,

And fire-fly, hedge-shrew, lob-worm, pray,

How fare they?

No bidding me then to ... what did Zanze say?

"Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes

More like" ... (what said she?)—"and less like canoes!"

How pert that girl was!—would I be those pert

Impudent staring women! It had done me,

However, surely no such mighty hurt

To learn his name who passed that jest upon me:

No foreigner, that I can recollect,

Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect

Our silk-mills—none with blue eyes and thick rings

Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events.

Well, if old Luca keep his good intents,

We shall do better, see what next year brings!

I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear

More destitute than you perhaps next year!

Bluph ... something! I had caught the uncouth name

But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter

Above us—bound to spoil such idle chatter

As ours: it were indeed a serious matter

If silly talk like ours should put to shame

The pious man, the man devoid of blame,

The ... ah but—ah but, all the same,

No mere mortal has a right

To carry that exalted air;

Best people are not angels quite:

While—not the worst of people's doings scare

The devil; so there 's that proud look to spare!

Which is mere counsel to myself, mind! for

I have just been the holy Monsignor:

And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother,

And you too, Luigi!—how that Luigi started

Out of the turret—doubtlessly departed

On some good errand or another,

For he passed just now in a traveller's trim,

And the sullen company that prowled

About his path, I noticed, scowled

As if they had lost a prey in him.

And I was Jules the sculptor's bride,

And I was Ottima beside,

And now what am I?—tired of fooling.

Day for folly, night for schooling!

New year's day is over and spent,

Ill or well, I must be content.

Even my lily 's asleep, I vow:

Wake up—here 's a friend I've plucked you!

Call this flower a heart's-ease now!

Something rare, let me instruct you,

Is this, with petals triply swollen,

Three times spotted, thrice the pollen;

While the leaves and parts that witness

Old proportions and their fitness,

Here remain unchanged, unmoved now;

Call this pampered thing improved now!

Suppose there 's a king of the flowers

And a girl-show held in his bowers—-

"Look ye, buds, this growth of ours,"

Says he, "Zanze from the Brenta,

I have made her gorge polenta

Till both cheeks are near as bouncing

As her ... name there 's no pronouncing!

See this heightened color too,

For she swilled Breganze wine

Till her nose turned deep carmine;

'T was but white when wild she grew.

And only by this Zanze's eyes

Of which we could not change the size,

The magnitude of all achieved

Otherwise, may be perceived."

Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day!

How could that red sun drop in that black cloud?

Ah Pippa, morning's rule is moved away,

Dispensed with, never more to be allowed!

Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's.

Oh lark, be day's apostle

To mavis, merle and throstle,

Bid them their betters jostle

From day and its delights!

But at night, brother owlet, over the woods,

Toll the world to thy chantry;

Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods

Full complines with gallantry:

Then, owls and bats,

Cowls and twats,

Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods,

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry!

[After she has begun to undress herself.

Now, one thing I should like to really know:

How near I ever might approach all these

I only fancied being, this long day:

—Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so

As to ... in some way ... move them—if you please,

Do good or evil to them some slight way.

For instance, if I wind

Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind [Sitting on the bedside.

And border Ottima's cloak's hem.

Ah me, and my important part with them,

This morning's hymn half promised when I rose!

True in some sense or other, I suppose. [As she lies down.

God bless me! I can pray no more to-night.

No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.

All service ranks the same with God—

With God, whose puppets, best and worst,

Are we; there is no last nor first. [She sleeps.

---

KING VICTOR AND KING CHARLES
A TRAGEDY

This was No. II. of Bells and Pomegranates and was issued in 1842, though it appears to have been written before the publication of Pippa Passes. The following is the advertisement prefixed to the tragedy when first published and always afterward retained.

"So far as I know, this tragedy is the first artistic consequence of what Voltaire termed 'a terrible event without consequences;' and although it professes to be historical, I have taken more pains to arrive at the history than most readers would thank me for particularizing: since acquainted, as I will hope them to be, with the chief circumstances of Victor's remarkable European career—nor quite ignorant of the sad and surprising facts I am about to reproduce (a tolerable account of which is to be found, for instance, in Abbe Roman's Récit, or even the fifth of Lord Orrery's Letters from Italy)—I cannot expect them to be versed, nor desirous of becoming so, in all the detail of the memoirs, correspondence, and relations of the time. From these only may be obtained a knowledge of the fiery and audacious temper, unscrupulous selfishness, profound dissimulation, and singular fertility in resources, of Victor—the extreme and painful sensibility, prolonged immaturity of powers, earnest good purpose and vacillating will of Charles—the noble and right woman's manliness of his wife—and the ill-considered rascality and subsequent better-advised rectitude of D'Ormea. When I say, therefore, that I cannot but believe my statement (combining as it does what appears correct in Voltaire and plausible in Condorcet) more true to person and thing than any it has hitherto been my fortune to meet with, no doubt my word will be taken, and my evidence spared as readily. R. B."

London, 1842.

PERSONS

Victor Amadeus, first King of Sardinia.
Charles Emanuel, his son, Prince of Piedmont.
Polyxena, wife of Charles.
D'Ormea, minister.

---

FIRST YEAR, 1730.—KING VICTOR
PART I

Scene.—The Council Chamber of Rivoli Palace, near Turin, communicating with a Hall at the back, an Apartment to the left, and another to the right of the stage.

Time, 1730-31.

Charles, Polyxena.

Charles. You think so? Well, I do not.

Polyxena. My beloved,

All must clear up; we shall be happy yet:

This cannot last forever—oh, may change

To-day or any day!

Cha. —May change? Ah yes—

May change!

Pol. Endure it, then.

Cha. No doubt a life

Like this drags on, now better and now worse.

My father may ... may take to loving me;

And he may take D'Ormea closer yet

To counsel him;—may even cast off her

—That bad Sebastian; but he also may

... Or no, Polyxena, my only friend,

He may not force you from me?

Pol. Now, force me

From you!—me, close by you as if there gloomed

No Sebastians, no D'Ormeas on our path—

At Rivoli or Turin, still at hand,

Arch-counsellor, prime confidant ... force me!

Cha. Because I felt as sure, as I feel sure

We clasp hands now, of being happy once.

Young was I, quite neglected, nor concerned

By the world's business that engrossed so much

My father and my brother: if I peered

From out my privacy,—amid the crash

And blaze of nations, domineered those two.

'Twas war, peace—France our foe, now—England, friend—

In love with Spain—at feud with Austria! Well—

I wondered, laughed a moment's laugh for pride

In the chivalrous couple, then let drop

My curtain—"I am out of it," I said—

When ...

Pol. You have told me, Charles.

Cha. Polyxena—

When suddenly,—a warm March day, just that!

Just so much sunshine as the cottage child

Basks in delighted, while the cottager

Takes off his bonnet, as he ceases work,

To catch the more of it—and it must fall

Heavily on my brother! Had you seen

Philip—the lion-featured! not like me!

Pol. I know—

Cha. And Philip's mouth yet fast to mine,

His dead cheek on my cheek, his arm still round

My neck,—they bade me rise, "for I was heir

To the Duke," they said, "the right hand of the Duke:"

Till then he was my father, not the Duke.

So ... let me finish ... the whole intricate

World's-business their dead boy was born to, I

Must conquer,—ay, the brilliant thing he was

I of a sudden must be: my faults, my follies,

—All bitter truths were told me, all at once,

To end the sooner. What I simply styled

Their overlooking me, had been contempt:

How should the Duke employ himself, forsooth,

With such an one, while lordly Philip rode

By him their Turin through? But he was punished,

And must put up with—me! 'Twas sad enough

To learn my future portion and submit.

And then the wear and worry, blame on blame!

For, spring-sounds in my ears, spring-smells about,

How could I but grow dizzy in their pent

Dim palace-rooms at first? My mother's look

As they discussed my insignificance,

She and my father, and I sitting by,—

I bore; I knew how brave a son they missed;

Philip had gayly run state-papers through,

While Charles was spelling at them painfully!

But Victor was my father spite of that.

"Duke Victor's entire life has been," I said,

"Innumerable efforts to one end;

And on the point now of that end's success,

Our Ducal turning to a Kingly crown,

Where's time to be reminded 'tis his child

He spurns?" And so I suffered—scarcely suffered,

Since I had you at length!

Pol. To serve in place

Of monarch, minister and mistress, Charles!

Cha. But, once that crown obtained, then was't not like

Our lot would alter? "When he rests, takes breath,

Glances around, sees who there's left to love—

Now that my mother's dead, sees I am left—

Is it not like he'll love me at the last?"

Well, Savoy turns Sardinia; the Duke's King:

Could I—precisely then—could you expect

His harshness to redouble? These few months

Have been ... have been ... Polyxena, do you

And God conduct me, or I lose myself!

What would he have? What is't they want with me?

Him with this mistress and this minister,

—You see me and you hear him; judge us both!

Pronounce what I should do, Polyxena!

Pol. Endure, endure, beloved! Say you not

He is your father? All's so incident

To novel sway! Beside, our life must change:

Or you'll acquire his kingcraft, or he'll find

Harshness a sorry way of teaching it.

I bear this—not that there's so much to bear.

Cha. You bear? Do not I know that you, though bound

To silence for my sake, are perishing

Piecemeal beside me? And how otherwise

When every creephole from the hideous Court

Is stopped; the Minister to dog me, here—

The Mistress posted to entrap you, there!

And thus shall we grow old in such a life;

Not careless, never estranged,—but old: to alter

Our life, there is so much to alter!

Pol. Come—

Is it agreed that we forego complaint

Even at Turin, yet complain we here

At Rivoli? 'Twere wiser you announced

Our presence to the King. What's now afoot

I wonder? Not that any more's to dread

Than every day's embarrassment: but guess

For me, why train so fast succeeded train

On the high-road, each gayer still than each!

I noticed your Archbishop's pursuivant,

The sable cloak and silver cross; such pomp

Bodes ... what now, Charles? Can you conceive?

Cha. Not I.

Pol. A matter of some moment—

Cha. There's our life!

Which of the group of loiterers that stare

From the lime-avenue, divines that I—

About to figure presently, he thinks,

In face of all assembled—am the one

Who knows precisely least about it?

Pol. Tush!

D'Ormea's contrivance!

Cha. Ay, how otherwise

Should the young Prince serve for the old King's foil?

—So that the simplest courtier may remark

'T were idle raising parties for a Prince

Content to linger the court's laughing-stock.

Something, 't is like, about that weary business

[Pointing to papers he has laid down, and which Polyxena examines.

—Not that I comprehend three words, of course,

After all last night's study.

Pol. The faint heart!

Why, as we rode and you rehearsed just now

Its substance ... (that 's the folded speech I mean,

Concerning the Reduction of the Fiefs)

—What would you have?—I fancied while you spoke,

Some tones were just your father's.

Cha. Flattery!

Pol. I fancied so:—and here lurks, sure enough,

My note upon the Spanish Claims! You 've mastered

The fief-speech thoroughly: this other, mind,

Is an opinion you deliver,—stay,

Best read it slowly over once to me;

Read—there 's bare time; you read it firmly—loud

—Rather loud, looking in his face,—don't sink

Your eye once—ay, thus! "If Spain claims" ... begin

—Just as you look at me!

Cha. At you! Oh truly,

You have I seen, say, marshalling your troops,

Dismissing councils, or, through doors ajar,

Head sunk on hand, devoured by slow chagrins

—Then radiant, for a crown had all at once

Seemed possible again! I can behold

Him, whose least whisper ties my spirit fast,

In this sweet brow, naught could divert me from

Save objects like Sebastian's shameless lip,

Or worse, the clipped gray hair and dead white face

And dwindling eye as if it ached with guile,

D'Ormea wears ...

(As he kisses her, enter from the King's apartment D'Ormea.)

I said he would divert

My kisses from your brow!

D'Ormea. [Aside.] Here! So, King Victor

Spoke truth for once: and who 's ordained, but I

To make that memorable? Both in call,

As he declared! Were 't better gnash the teeth,

Or laugh outright now?

Cha. [to Pol.] What 's his visit for?

D'O. [Aside.] I question if they even speak to me.

Pol. [to Cha.] Face the man! He 'll suppose you fear him else.

[Aloud.] The Marquis bears the King's command, no doubt?

D'O. [Aside.] Precisely!—If I threatened him, perhaps?

Well, this at least is punishment enough!

Men used to promise punishment would come.

Cha. Deliver the King's message, Marquis!

D'O. [Aside.] Ah—

So anxious for his fate? [Aloud.] A word, my Prince,

Before you see your father—just one word

Of counsel!

Cha. Oh, your counsel certainly!

Polyxena, the Marquis counsels us!

Well, sir? Be brief, however!

D'O. What? You know

As much as I?—preceded me, most like,

In knowledge! So! ('T is in his eye, beside—

His voice: he knows it, and his heart 's on flame

Already!) You surmise why you, myself,

Del Borgo, Spava, fifty nobles more,

Are summoned thus?

Cha. Is the Prince used to know,

At any time, the pleasure of the King,

Before his minister?—Polyxena,

Stay here till I conclude my task: I feel

Your presence (smile not) through the walls, and take

Fresh heart. The King 's within that chamber?

D'O. [Passing the table whereon a paper lies,
exclaims, as he glances at it] "Spain!"

Pol. [Aside to Cha.] Tarry awhile: what ails the minister?

D'O. Madam, I do not often trouble you.

The Prince loathes, and you scorn me—let that pass!

But since it touches him and you, not me,

Bid the Prince listen!

Pol. [to Cha.] Surely you will listen:

—Deceit?—Those fingers crumpling up his vest?

Cha. Deceitful to the very fingers' ends!

D'O. [who has approached them, overlooks the
other paper Charles continues to hold].

My project for the Fiefs! As I supposed!

Sir, I must give you light upon those measures

—For this is mine, and that I spied of Spain,

Mine too!

Cha. Release me! Do you gloze on me

Who bear in the world's face (that is, the world

You make for me at Turin) your contempt?

—Your measures?—When was not a hateful task

D'Ormea's imposition? Leave my robe!

What post can I bestow, what grant concede?

Or do you take me for the King?

D'O. Not I!

Not yet for King,—not for, as yet, thank God,

One who in ... shall I say a year, a month?

Ay!—shall be wretcheder than e'er was slave

In his Sardinia,—Europe's spectacle

And the world's by-word! What? The Prince aggrieved

That I excluded him our counsels? Here

[Touching the paper in Charles's hand.

Accept a method of extorting gold

From Savoy's nobles, who must wring its worth

In silver first from tillers of the soil,

Whose hinds again have to contribute brass

To make up the amount: there 's counsel, sir,

My counsel, one year old; and the fruit, this—

Savoy 's become a mass of misery

And wrath, which one man has to meet—the King:

You 're not the King! Another counsel, sir!

Spain entertains a project (here it lies)

Which, guessed, makes Austria offer that same King

Thus much to baffle Spain; he promises;

Then comes Spain, breathless lest she be forestalled,

Her offer follows; and he promises ...

Cha.—Promises, sir, when he has just agreed

To Austria's offer?

D'O. That's a counsel, Prince!

But past our foresight, Spain and Austria (choosing

To make their quarrel up between themselves

Without the intervention of a friend)

Produce both treaties, and both promises ...

Cha. How?

D'O. Prince, a counsel! And the fruit of that?

Both parties covenant afresh, to fall

Together on their friend, blot out his name,

Abolish him from Europe. So, take note,

Here's Austria and here's Spain to fight against,

And what sustains the King but Savoy here,

A miserable people mad with wrongs?

You're not the King!

Cha. Polyxena, you said

All would clear up: all does clear up to me.

D'O. Clear up! 'T is no such thing to envy, then?

You see the King's state in its length and breadth?

You blame me now for keeping you aloof

From counsels and the fruit of counsels? Wait

Till I explain this morning's business!

Cha. [Aside.] No—

Stoop to my father, yes,—D'Ormea, no;

—The King's son, not to the King's counsellor!

I will do something, but at least retain

The credit of my deed! [Aloud.] Then it is this

You now expressly come to tell me?

D'O. This

To tell! You apprehend me?

Cha. Perfectly.

Further, D'Ormea, you have shown yourself,

For the first time these many weeks and months,

Disposed to do my bidding?

D'O. From the heart!

Cha. Acquaint my father, first, I wait his pleasure:

Next ... or, I'll tell you at a fitter time.

Acquaint the King!

D'O. [Aside.] If I 'scape Victor yet!

First, to prevent this stroke at me: if not,—

Then, to avenge it! [To Cha.] Gracious sir, I go. [Goes.

Cha. God, I forbore! Which more offends, that man

Or that man's master? Is it come to this?

Have they supposed (the sharpest insult yet)

I needed e'en his intervention? No!

No—dull am I, conceded,—but so dull,

Scarcely! Their step decides me.

Pol. How decides?

Cha. Yon would be freed D'Ormea's eye and hers?

—Could fly the court with me and live content?

So, this it is for which the knights assemble!

The whispers and the closeting of late,

The savageness and insolence of old,

—For this!

Pol. What mean you?

Cha. How? You fail to catch

Their clever plot? I missed it, but could you?

These last two months of care to inculcate

How dull I am,—D'Ormea's present visit

To prove that, being dull, I might be worse

Were I a King—as wretched as now dull—

You recognize in it no winding up

Of a long plot?

Pol. Why should there be a plot?

Cha. The crown's secure now; I should shame the crown—

An old complaint; the point is, how to gain

My place for one more fit in Victor's eyes,

His mistress the Sebastian's child.

Pol. In truth?

Cha. They dare not quite dethrone Sardinia's Prince:

But they may descant on my dulness till

They sting me into even praying them

Grant leave to hide my head, resign my state,

And end the coil. Not see now? In a word,

They'd have me tender them myself my rights

As one incapable;—some cause for that,

Since I delayed thus long to see their drift!

I shall apprise the King he may resume

My rights this moment.

Pol. Pause! I dare not think

So ill of Victor.

Cha. Think no ill of him!

Pol.—Nor think him, then, so shallow as to suffer

His purpose be divined thus easily.

And yet—you are the last of a great line;

There's a great heritage at stake; new days

Seemed to await this newest of the realms

Of Europe:—Charles, you must withstand this!

Cha. Ah!

You dare not then renounce the splendid court

For one whom all the world despises? Speak!

Pol. My gentle husband, speak I will, and truth.

Were this as you believe, and I once sure

Your duty lay in so renouncing rule,

I could ... could? Oh what happiness it were

To live, my Charles, and die, alone with you!

Cha. I grieve I asked you. To the presence, then!

By this, D'Ormea acquaints the King, no doubt,

He fears I am too simple for mere hints,

And that no less will serve than Victor's mouth

Demonstrating in council what I am.

I have not breathed, I think, these many years!

Pol. Why, it may be!—if he desire to wed

That woman, call legitimate her child.

Cha. You see as much? Oh, let his will have way!

You'll not repent confiding in me, love?

There's many a brighter spot in Piedmont, far,

Than Rivoli. I'll seek him: or, suppose

You hear first how I mean to speak my mind?

Loudly and firmly both, this time, be sure!

I yet may see your Rhine-land, who can tell?

Once away, ever then away! I breathe.

Pol. And I too breathe.

Cha. Come, my Polyxena!

---

KING VICTOR
PART II

Enter King Victor, bearing the regalia on a cushion, from his apartment. He calls loudly—

D'Ormea!—for patience fails me, treading thus

Among the obscure trains I have laid,—my knights

Safe in the hall here—in that anteroom,

My son,—D'Ormea, where? Of this, one touch— [Laying down the crown.

This fireball to these mute black cold trains—then

Outbreak enough!

[Contemplating it.] To lose all, after all!

This, glancing o'er my house for ages—shaped,

Brave meteor, like the crown of Cyprus now,

Jerusalem, Spain, England, every change

The braver,—and when I have clutched a prize

My ancestry died wan with watching for,

To lose it!—by a slip, a fault, a trick

Learnt to advantage once and not unlearned

When past the use,—"just this once more" (I thought)

"Use it with Spain and Austria happily,

And then away with trick!" An oversight

I'd have repaired thrice over, any time

These fifty years, must happen now! There 's peace

At length; and I, to make the most of peace,

Ventured my project on our people here,

As needing not their help: which Europe knows,

And means, cold-blooded, to dispose herself

(Apart from plausibilities of war)

To crush the new-made King—who ne'er till now

Feared her. As Duke, I lost each foot of earth

And laughed at her: my name was left, my sword

Left, all was left! But she can take, she knows,

This crown, herself conceded ...

That's to try,

Kind Europe!—My career's not closed as yet,

This boy was ever subject to my will,

Timid and tame—the fitter!—D'Ormea, too

What if the sovereign also rid himself

Of thee, his prime of parasites? I delay!

D'Ormea!

(As D'Ormea enters, the King seats himself.)

My son, the Prince—attends he?

D'O. Sir,

He does attend. The crown prepared!—it seems

That you persist in your resolve.

Victor. Who's come?

The chancellor and the chamberlain? My knights?

D'O. The whole Annunziata. If, my liege,

Your fortune had not tottered worse than now ...

Vic. Del Borgo has drawn up the schedules? mine—

My son's, too? Excellent! Only, beware

Of the least blunder, or we look but fools.

First, you read the Annulment of the Oaths;

Del Borgo follows ... no, the Prince shall sign;

Then let Del Borgo read the Instrument:

On which, I enter.

D'O. Sir, this may be truth;

You, sir, may do as you affect—may break

Your engine, me, to pieces: try at least

If not a spring remain worth saving! Take

My counsel as I've counselled many times!

What if the Spaniard and the Austrian threat?

There 's England, Holland, Venice—which ally

Select you?

Vic. Aha! Come, D'Ormea,—"truth"

Was on your lip a minute since. Allies?

I've broken faith with Venice, Holland, England

—As who knows if not you?

D'O. But why with me

Break faith—with one ally, your best, break faith?

Vic. When first I stumbled on you, Marquis—'t was

At Mondovi—a little lawyer's clerk ...

D'O. Therefore your soul's ally!—who brought you through

Your quarrel with the Pope, at pains enough—

Who simply echoed you in these affairs—

On whom you cannot therefore visit these

Affairs' ill fortune—whom you trust to guide

You safe (yes, on my soul) through these affairs!

Vic. I was about to notice, had you not

Prevented me, that since that great town kept

With its chicane D'Ormea's satchel stuffed

And D'Ormea's self sufficiently recluse,

He missed a sight,—my naval armament

When I burned Toulon. How the skiff exults

Upon the galliot's wave!—rises its height,

O'ertops it even; but the great wave bursts,

And hell-deep in the horrible profound

Buries itself the galliot: shall the skiff

Think to escape the sea's black trough in turn?

Apply this: you have been my minister

—Next me, above me possibly;—sad post,

Huge care, abundant lack of peace of mind;

Who would desiderate the eminence?

You gave your soul to get it; you'd yet give

Your soul to keep it, as I mean you shall,

D'Ormea! What if the wave ebbed with me?

Whereas it cants you to another crest;

I toss you to my son; ride out your ride!

D'O. Ah, you so much despise me?

Vic. You, D'Ormea?

Nowise: and I'll inform you why. A king

Must in his time have many ministers,

And I've been rash enough to part with mine

When I thought proper. Of the tribe, not one

(... Or wait, did Pianezze? ... ah, just the same!)

Not one of them, ere his remonstrance reached

The length of yours, but has assured me (commonly

Standing much as you stand,—or nearer, say,

The door to make his exit on his speech)

—I should repent of what I did. D'Ormea,

Be candid, you approached it when I bade you

Prepare the schedules! But you stopped in time,

You have not so assured me: how should I

Despise you then?

(Enter Charles.)

Vic. [Changing his tone.] Are you instructed? Do

My order, point by point! About it, sir!

D'O. You so despise me! [Aside.] One last stay remains—

The boy's discretion there.

[To Cha.] For your sake, Prince,

I pleaded, wholly in your interest,

To save you from this fate!

Cha. [Aside.] Must I be told

The Prince was supplicated for—by him?

Vic. [To D'O.] Apprise Del Borgo, Spava, and the rest,

Our son attends them; then return.

D'O. One word!

Cha. [Aside.] A moment's pause and they would drive me hence,

I do believe!

D'O. [Aside.] Let but the boy be firm!

Vic. You disobey?

Cha. [To D'O.] You do not disobey

Me, at least. Did you promise that or no?

D'O. Sir, I am yours: what would you? Yours am I!

Cha. When I have said what I shall say, 't is like

Your face will ne'er again disgust me. Go!

Through you, as through a breast of glass, I see.

And for your conduct, from my youth till now,

Take my contempt! You might have spared me much,

Secured me somewhat, nor so harmed yourself:

That's over now. Go, ne'er to come again!

D'O. As son, the father—father, as the son!

My wits! My wits! [Goes.

Vic. [Seated.] And you, what meant you, pray,

Speaking thus to D'Ormea?

Cha. Let us not

Waste words upon D'Ormea! Those I spent

Have half unsettled what I came to say.

His presence vexes to my very soul.

Vic. One called to manage a kingdom, Charles, needs heart

To bear up under worse annoyances

Than seems D'Ormea—to me, at least.

Cha. [Aside.] Ah, good!

He keeps me to the point! Then be it so.

[Aloud.] Last night, sir, brought me certain papers—these—

To be reported on,—your way of late.

Is it last night's result that you demand?

Vic. For God's sake, what has night brought forth? Pronounce

The ... what 's your word?—result!

Cha. Sir, that had proved

Quite worthy of your sneer, no doubt:—a few

Lame thoughts, regard for you alone could wring,

Lame as they are, from brains like mine, believe!

As 't is, sir, I am spared both toil and sneer.

These are the papers.

Vic. Well, sir? I suppose

You hardly burned them. Now for your result!

Cha. I never should have done great things, of course,

But ... oh my father, had you loved me more!

Vic. Loved? [Aside.] Has D'Ormea played me false, I wonder?

[Aloud.] Why, Charles, a king's love is diffused—yourself

May overlook, perchance, your part in it.

Our monarchy is absolutest now

In Europe, or my trouble's thrown away.

I love, my mode, that subjects each and all

May have the power of loving, all and each,

Their mode: I doubt not, many have their sons

To trifle with, talk soft to, all day long:

I have that crown, this chair, D'Ormea, Charles!

Cha. 'T is well I am a subject then, not you.

Vic. [Aside.] D'Ormea has told him everything. [Aloud.] Aha,

I apprehend you: when all 's said, you take

Your private station to be prized beyond

My own, for instance?

Cha. —Do and ever did

So take it: 't is the method you pursue

That grieves ...

Vic. These words! Let me express, my friend,

Your thoughts. You penetrate what I supposed

Secret. D'Ormea plies his trade betimes!

I purpose to resign my crown to you.

Cha. To me?

Vic. Now,—in that chamber.

Cha. You resign

The crown to me?

Vic. And time enough, Charles, sure?

Confess with me, at four-and-sixty years

A crown 's a load. I covet quiet once

Before I die, and summoned you for that.

Cha. 'T is I will speak: you ever hated me,

I bore it,—have insulted me, borne too—

Now you insult yourself; and I remember

What I believed you, what you really are,

And cannot bear it. What! My life has passed

Under your eye, tormented as you know,—

Your whole sagacities, one after one,

At leisure brought to play on me—to prove me

A fool, I thought and I submitted; now

You'd prove ... what would you prove me?

Vic. This to me?

I hardly know you!

Cha. Know me? Oh indeed

You do not! Wait till I complain next time

Of my simplicity!—for here 's a sage

Knows the world well, is not to be deceived,

And his experience and his Macchiavels,

D'Ormeas, teach him—what?—that I this while

Have envied him his crown! He has not smiled,

I warrant,—has not eaten, drunk, nor slept,

For I was plotting with my Princess yonder!

Who knows what we might do or might not do?

Go now, be politic, astound the world!

That sentry in the antechamber—nay,

The varlet who disposed this precious trap [Pointing to the crown.

That was to take me—ask them if they think

Their own sons envy them their posts!—Know me!

Vic. But you know me, it seems: so, learn, in brief,

My pleasure. This assembly is convened ...

Cha. Tell me, that woman put it in your head!

You were not sole contriver of the scheme,

My father!

Vic. Now observe me, sir! I jest

Seldom—on these points, never. Here, I say,

The knights assemble to see me concede,

And you accept, Sardinia's crown.

Cha. Farewell!

'T were vain to hope to change this: I can end it.

Not that I cease from being yours, when sunk

Into obscurity: I 'll die for you,

But not annoy you with my presence. Sir,

Farewell! Farewell!

(Enter D'Ormea.)

D'O. [Aside.] Ha, sure he's changed again—

Means not to fall into the cunning trap!

Then, Victor, I shall yet escape you, Victor!

Vic. [Suddenly placing the crown upon the head of Charles.] D'Ormea, your king!

[To Cha.] My son, obey me! Charles,

Your father, clearer-sighted than yourself,

Decides it must be so. 'Faith, this looks real!

My reasons after; reason upon reason

After: but now, obey me! Trust in me!

By this, you save Sardinia, you save me!

Why, the boy swoons! [To D'O.] Come this side!

D'O. [As Charles turns from him to Victor.] You persist?

Vic. Yes, I conceive the gesture's meaning. 'Faith,

He almost seems to hate you: how is that?

Be reassured, my Charles! Is 't over now?

Then, Marquis, tell the new King what remains

To do! A moment's work. Del Borgo reads

The Act of Abdication out, you sign it,

Then I sign; after that, come back to me.

D'O. Sir, for the last time, pause!

Vic. Five minutes longer

I am your sovereign, Marquis. Hesitate—

And I 'll so turn those minutes to account

That ... Ay, you recollect me! [Aside.] Could I bring

My foolish mind to undergo the reading

That Act of Abdication! [As Charles motions D'Ormea to precede him.

Thanks, dear Charles! [Charles and D'Ormea retire.

Vic. A novel feature in the boy,—indeed

Just what I feared he wanted most. Quite right,

This earnest tone: your truth, now for effect!

It answers every purpose: with that look,

That voice,—I hear him: "I began no treaty,"

(He speaks to Spain,) "nor ever dreamed of this

You show me; this I from my soul regret;

But if my father signed it, bid not me

Dishonor him—who gave me all, beside:"

And, "true," says Spain, "'t were harsh to visit that

Upon the Prince." Then come the nobles trooping:

"I grieve at these exactions—I had cut

This hand off ere impose them; but shall I

Undo my father's deed?"—and they confer:

"Doubtless he was no party, after all;

Give the Prince time!"

Ay, give us time, but time!

Only, he must not, when the dark day comes,

Refer our friends to me and frustrate all.

We 'll have no child's play, no desponding fits,

No Charles at each cross turn entreating Victor

To take his crown again. Guard against that!

(Enter D'Ormea.)

Long live King Charles!

No—Charles's counsellor!

Well, is it over, Marquis? Did I jest?

D'O. "King Charles!" What then may you be?

Vic. Anything!

A country gentleman that, cured of bustle,

Now beats a quick retreat toward Chambery,

Would hunt and hawk and leave you noisy folk

To drive your trade without him. I'm Count Remont—

Count Tende—any little place's Count!

D'O. Then Victor, Captain against Catinat

At Staffarde, where the French beat you; and Duke

At Turin, where you beat the French; King late

Of Savoy, Piedmont, Montferrat, Sardinia,

—Now, "any little place's Count"—

Vic. Proceed!

D'O. Breaker of vows to God, who crowned you first;

Breaker of vows to man, who kept you since;

Most profligate to me who outraged God

And man to serve you, and am made pay crimes

I was but privy to, by passing thus

To your imbecile son—who, well you know,

Must—(when the people here, and nations there,

Clamor for you the main delinquent, slipped

From King to—"Count of any little place)"

Must needs surrender me, all in his reach,—

I, sir, forgive you: for I see the end—

See you on your return—(you will return)—

To him you trust, a moment ...

Vic. Trust him? How?

My poor man, merely a prime-minister,

Make me know where my trust errs!

D'O. In his fear,

His love, his—but discover for yourself

What you are weakest, trusting in!

Vic. Aha,

D'Ormea, not a shrewder scheme than this

In your repertory? You know old Victor—

Vain, choleric, inconstant, rash—(I 've heard

Talkers who little thought the King so close)—

Felicitous now, were 't not, to provoke him

To clean forget, one minute afterward,

His solemn act, and call the nobles back

And pray them give again the very power

He has abjured?—for the dear sake of what?

Vengeance on you, D'Ormea! No: such am I,

Count Tende or Count anything you please,

—Only, the same that did the things you say,

And, among other things you say not, used

Your finest fibre, meanest muscle,—you

I used, and now, since you will have it so,

Leave to your fate—mere lumber in the midst,

You and your works. Why, what on earth beside

Are you made for, you sort of ministers?

D'O. Not left, though, to my fate! Your witless son

Has more wit than to load himself with lumber:

He foils you that way, and I follow you.

Vic. Stay with my son—protect the weaker side!

D'O. Ay, to be tossed the people like a rag,

And flung by them for Spain and Austria's sport,

Abolishing the record of your part

In all this perfidy!

Vic. Prevent, beside,

My own return!

D'O. That's half prevented now!

'Twill go hard but you find a wondrous charm

In exile, to discredit me. The Alps,

Silk-mills to watch, vines asking vigilance—

Hounds open for the stag, your hawk's a-wing—

Brave days that wait the Louis of the South,

Italy's Janus!

Vic. So, the lawyer's clerk

Won't tell me that I shall repent!

D'O. You give me

Full leave to ask if you repent?

Vic. Whene'er

Sufficient time's elapsed for that, you judge! [Shouts inside, "King Charles!"

D'O. Do you repent?

Vic. [After a slight pause.] ... I've kept them waiting? Yes!

Come in, complete the Abdication, sir! [They go out.

(Enter Polyxena.)

Pol. A shout! The sycophants are free of Charles!

Oh, is not this like Italy? No fruit

Of his or my distempered fancy, this,

But just an ordinary fact! Beside,

Here they've set forms for such proceedings; Victor

Imprisoned his own mother: he should know,

If any, how a son's to be deprived

Of a son's right. Our duty's palpable.

Ne'er was my husband for the wily king

And the unworthy subjects: be it so!

Come you safe out of them, my Charles! Our life

Grows not the broad and dazzling life, I dreamed

Might prove your lot; for strength was shut in you

None guessed but I—strength which, untrammelled once,

Had little shamed your vaunted ancestry—

Patience and self-devotion, fortitude,

Simplicity and utter truthfulness

—All which, they shout to lose!

So, now my work

Begins—to save him from regret. Save Charles

Regret?—the noble nature! He's not made

Like these Italians: 'tis a German soul.

(Charles enters crowned.)

Oh, where's the King's heir? Gone:—the Crown-prince? Gone:—

Where's Savoy? Gone!—Sardinia? Gone! But Charles

Is left! And when my Rhine-land bowers arrive,

If he looked almost handsome yester-twilight

As his gray eyes seemed widening into black

Because I praised him, then how will he look?

Farewell, you stripped and whited mulberry-trees

Bound each to each by lazy ropes of vine!

Now I'll teach you my language: I'm not forced

To speak Italian now, Charles?

[She sees the crown.] What is this?

Answer me—who has done this? Answer!

Cha. He!

I am King now.

Pol. Oh worst, worst, worst of all!

Tell me! What, Victor? He has made you King?

What 's he then? What 's to follow this? You, King?

Cha. Have I done wrong? Yes, for you were not by!

Pol. Tell me from first to last.

Cha. Hush—a new world

Brightens before me; he is moved away

—The dark form that eclipsed it, he subsides

Into a shape supporting me like you,

And I, alone, tend upward, more and more

Tend upward: I am grown Sardinia's King.

Pol. Now stop: was not this Victor, Duke of Savoy

At ten years old?

Cha. He was.

Pol. And the Duke spent,

Since then, just four-and-fifty years in toil

To be—what?

Cha. King.

Pol. Then why unking himself?

Cha. Those years are cause enough.

Pol. The only cause?

Cha. Some new perplexities.

Pol. Which you can solve

Although he cannot?

Cha. He assures me so.

Pol. And this he means shall last—how long?

Cha. How long?

Think you I fear the perils I confront?

He's praising me before the people's face—

My people!

Pol. Then he's changed—grown kind, the King?

Where can the trap be?

Cha. Heart and soul I pledge!

My father, could I guard the crown you gained,

Transmit as I received it,—all good else

Would I surrender!

Pol. Ah, it opens then

Before you, all you dreaded formerly?

You are rejoiced to be a king, my Charles?

Cha. So much to dare? The better,—much to dread;

The better. I'll adventure though alone.

Triumph or die, there 's Victor still to witness

Who dies or triumphs—either way, alone!

Pol. Once I had found my share in triumph, Charles,

Or death.

Cha. But you are I! But you I call

To take, Heaven's proxy, vows I tendered Heaven

A moment since. I will deserve the crown!

Pol. You will. [Aside.] No doubt it were a glorious thing

For any people, if a heart like his

Ruled over it. I would I saw the trap.

(Enter Victor.)

'T is he must show me.

Vic. So, the mask falls off

An old man's foolish love at last. Spare thanks!

I know you, and Polyxena I know.

Here's Charles—I am his guest now—does he bid me

Be seated? And my light-haired blue-eyed child

Must not forget the old man far away

At Chambery, who dozes while she reigns.

Pol. Most grateful shall we now be, talking least

Of gratitude—indeed of anything

That hinders what yourself must need to say

To Charles.

Cha. Pray speak, sir!

Vic. 'Faith, not much to say:

Only what shows itself, you once i' the point

Of sight. You're now the King: you 'll comprehend

Much you may oft have wondered at—the shifts,

Dissimulation, wiliness I showed.

For what's our post? Here 's Savoy and here 's Piedmont,

Here's Montferrat—a breadth here, a space there—

To o'er-sweep all these, what 's one weapon worth?

I often think of how they fought in Greece

(Or Rome, which was it? You 're the scholar, Charles!)

You made a front-thrust? But if your shield too

Were not adroitly planted, some shrewd knave

Reached you behind; and him foiled, straight if thong

And handle of that shield were not cast loose,

And you enabled to outstrip the wind,

Fresh foes assailed you, either side; 'scape these,

And reach your place of refuge—e'en then, odds

If the gate opened unless breath enough

Were left in you to make its lord a speech.

Oh, you will see!

Cha. No: straight on shall I go,

Truth helping; win with it or die with it.

Vic. 'Faith, Charles, you're not made Europe's fighting-man!

The barrier-guarder, if you please. You clutch

Hold and consolidate, with envious France

This side, with Austria that, the territory

I held—ay, and will hold ... which you shall hold

Despite the couple! But I've surely earned

Exemption from these weary politics,

—The privilege to prattle with my son

And daughter here, though Europe wait the while.

Pol. Nay, sir,—at Chambery, away forever,

As soon you will be, 't is farewell we bid you:

Turn these few fleeting moments to account!

'T is just as though it were a death.

Vic. Indeed!

Pol. [Aside.] Is the trap there?

Cha. Ay, call this parting—death!

The sacreder your memory becomes.

If I misrule Sardinia, how bring back

My father?

Vic. I mean...

Pol. [who watches Victor narrowly this while].

Your father does not mean

You should be ruling for your father's sake:

It is your people must concern you wholly

Instead of him. You mean this, sir? (He drops

My hand!)

Cha. That people is now part of me.

Vic. About the people! I took certain measures

Some short time since ... Oh, I know well, you know

But little of my measures! These affect

The nobles; we've resumed some grants, imposed

A tax or two: prepare yourself, in short,

For clamor on that score. Mark me: you yield

No jot of aught entrusted you!

Pol. No jot

You yield!

Cha. My father, when I took the oath,

Although my eye might stray in search of yours,

I heard it, understood it, promised God

What you require. Till from this eminence

He move me, here I keep, nor shall concede

The meanest of my rights.

Vic. [Aside.] The boy's a fool!

—Or rather, I'm a fool: for, what's wrong here?

To-day the sweets of reigning: let to-morrow

Be ready with its bitters.

(Enter D'Ormea.)

There 's beside

Somewhat to press upon your notice first.

Cha. Then why delay it for an instant, sir?

That Spanish claim perchance? And, now you speak,

—This morning, my opinion was mature,

Which, boy-like, I was bashful in producing

To one I ne'er am like to fear in future!

My thought is formed upon that Spanish claim.

Vic. Betimes indeed. Not now, Charles! You require

A host of papers on it.

D'O. [Coming forward.] Here they are.

[To Cha.] I, sir, was minister and much beside

Of the late monarch; to say little, him

I served: on you I have, to say e'en less.

No claim. This case contains those papers: with them

I tender you my office.

Vic. [Hastily.] Keep him, Charles!

There's reason for it—many reasons: you

Distrust him, nor are so far-wrong there,—but

He's mixed up in this matter—he'll desire

To quit you, for occasions known to me:

Do not accept those reasons: have him stay!

Pol. [Aside.] His minister thrust on us!

Cha. [To D'O.] Sir, believe,

In justice to myself, you do not need

E'en this commending: howsoe'er might seem

My feelings toward you, as a private man,

They quit me in the vast and untried field

Of action. Though I shall myself (as late

In your own hearing I engaged to do)

Preside o'er my Sardinia, yet your help

Is necessary. Think the past forgotten

And serve me now!

D'O. I did not offer you

My service—would that I could serve you, sir!

As for the Spanish matter ...

Vic. But dispatch

At least the dead, in my good daughter's phrase,

Before the living! Help to house me safe

Ere with D'Ormea you set the world agape!

Here is a paper—will you overlook

What I propose reserving for my needs?

I get as far from you as possible:

Here 's what I reckon my expenditure.

Cha. [Reading.] A miserable fifty thousand crowns!

Vic. Oh, quite enough for country gentlemen!

Beside, the exchequer happens ... but find out

All that, yourself!

Cha. [Still reading.] "Count Tende"—what means this?

Vic. Me: you were but an infant when I burst

Through the defile of Tende upon France.

Had only my allies kept true to me!

No matter. Tende's, then, a name I take

Just as ...

D'O. —The Marchioness Sebastian takes

The name of Spigno.

Cha. How, sir?

Vic. [To D'O.] Fool! All that

Was for my own detailing. [To Cha.] That anon!

Cha. [To D'O.] Explain what you have said, sir!

D'O. I supposed

The marriage of the King to her I named,

Profoundly kept a secret these few weeks,

Was not to be one, now he's Count.

Pol. [Aside.] With us

The minister—with him the mistress!

Cha. [To Vic.] No—

Tell me you have not taken her—that woman—

To live with, past recall!

Vic. And where 's the crime ...

Pol. [To Cha.] True, sir, this is a matter past recall

And past your cognizance. A day before,

And you had been compelled to note this—now

Why note it? The King saved his House from shame:

What the Count did, is no concern of yours.

Cha. [After a pause.] The Spanish claim, D'Ormea!

Vic. Why, my son,

I took some ill-advised ... one's age, in fact,

Spoils everything: though I was overreached,

A younger brain, we 'll trust, may extricate

Sardinia readily. To-morrow, D'Ormea,

Inform the King!

D'O. [Without regarding Victor, and leisurely.]

Thus stands the ease with Spain:

When first the Infant Carlos claimed his proper

Succession to the throne of Tuscany ...

Vic. I tell you, that stands over! Let that rest!

There is the policy!

Cha. [To D'O.] Thus much I know,

And more—too much. The remedy?

D'O. Of course!

No glimpse of one.

Vic. No remedy at all!

It makes the remedy itself—time makes it.

D'O. [To Cha.] But if ...

Vic. [Still more hastily.] In fine, I shall take care of that:

And, with another project that I have ...

D'O. [Turning on him.] Oh, since Count Tende means to take again

King Victor's crown!—

Pol. [Throwing herself at Victor's feet.]

E'en now retake it, sir!

Oh, speak! We are your subjects both, once more!

Say it—a word effects it! You meant not,

Nor do mean now, to take it: but you must!

'T is in you—in your nature—and the shame 's

Not half the shame 't would grow to afterwards!

Cha. Polyxena!

Pol. A word recalls the knights—

Say it!—What 's promising and what 's the past?

Say you are still King Victor!

D'O. Better say

The Count repents, in brief! [Victor rises.

Cha. With such a crime

I have not charged you, sir!

Pol. Charles turns from me!

---

SECOND YEAR, 1731.—KING CHARLES
PART I

Enter Queen Polyxena and D'Ormea.—A pause.

Pol. And now, sir, what have you to say?

D'O.. Count Tende ...

Pol. Affirm not I betrayed you; you resolve

On uttering this strange intelligence

—Nay, post yourself to find me ere I reach

The capital, because you know King Charles

Tarries a day or two at Evian baths

Behind me:—but take warning,—here and thus

[Seating herself in the royal seat.

I listen, if I listen—not your friend.

Explicitly the statement, if you still

Persist to urge it on me, must proceed:

I am not made for aught else.

D'O. Good! Count Tende ...

Pol. I, who mistrust you, shall acquaint King Charles,

Who even more mistrusts you.

D'O. Does he so?

Pol. Why should he not?

D'O. Ay, why not? Motives, seek

You virtuous people, motives! Say, I serve

God at the devil's bidding—will that do?

I 'm proud: our people have been pacified,

Really I know not how—

Pol. By truthfulness.

D'O. Exactly; that shows I had naught to do

With pacifying them. Our foreign perils

Also exceed my means to stay: but here

'T is otherwise, and my pride 's piqued. Count Tende

Completes a full year's absence: would you, madam,

Have the old monarch back, his mistress back,

His measures back? I pray you, act upon

My counsel, or they will be.

Pol. When?

D'O. Let 's think.

Home-matters settled—Victor 's coming now;

Let foreign matters settle—Victor 's here

Unless I stop him; as I will, this way.

Pol. [Reading the papers he presents.] If this should

prove a plot 'twixt you and Victor?

You seek annoyances to give the pretext

For what you say you fear!

D'O. Oh, possibly!

I go for nothing. Only show King Charles

That thus Count Tende purposes return,

And style me his inviter, if you please!

Pol. Half of your tale is true; most like, the Count

Seeks to return: but why stay you with us?

To aid in such emergencies.

D'O. Keep safe

Those papers: or, to serve me, leave no proof

I thus have counselled! When the Count returns,

And the King abdicates, 't will stead me little

To have thus counselled.

Pol. The King abdicate!

D'O. He 's good, we knew long since—wise, we discover—

Firm, let us hope:—but I 'd have gone to work

With him away. Well!

[Charles without.] In the Council Chamber?

D'O. All 's lost!

Pol. Oh, surely not King Charles! He 's changed—

That 's not this year's care-burdened voice and step:

'T is last year's step, the Prince's voice!

D'O. I know.

(Enter Charles —D'Ormea retiring a little.)

Cha. Now wish me joy, Polyxena! Wish it me

The old way! [She embraces him.

There was too much cause for that!

But I have found myself again. What news

At Turin? Oh, if you but felt the load

I 'm free of—free! I said this year would end

Or it, or me—but I am free, thank God!

Pol. How, Charles?

Cha. You do not guess? The day I found

Sardinia's hideous coil, at home, abroad,

And how my father was involved in it,—

Of course, I vowed to rest and smile no more

Until I cleared his name from obloquy.

We did the people right—'t was much to gain

That point, redress our nobles' grievance, too—

But that took place here, was no crying shame:

All must be done abroad,—if I abroad

Appeased the justly-angered Powers, destroyed

The scandal, took down Victor's name at last

From a bad eminence, I then might breathe

And rest! No moment was to lose. Behold

The proud result—a Treaty, Austria, Spain

Agree to—

D'O. [Aside.] I shall merely stipulate

For an experienced headsman.

Cha. Not a soul

Is compromised: the blotted past 's a blank:

Even D'Ormea escapes unquestioned. See!

It reached me from Vienna; I remained

At Evian to dispatch the Count his news;

'T is gone to Chambery a week ago—

And here am I: do I deserve to feel

Your warm white arms around me?

D'O. [Coming forward.] He knows that?

Cha. What, in Heaven's name, means this?

D'O. He knows that matters

Are settled at Vienna? Not too late!

Plainly, unless you post this very hour

Some man you trust (say, me) to Chambery

And take precautions I acquaint you with,

Your father will return here.

Cha. Are you crazed,

D'Ormea? Here? For what? As well return

To take his crown!

D'O. He will return for that.

Cha. [To Pol.] You have not listened to this man?

Pol. He spoke

About your safety—and I listened. [He disengages himself from her arms.

Cha. [To D'O.] What

Apprised you of the Count's intentions?

D'O. Me?

His heart, sir; you may not be used to read

Such evidence however; therefore read [Pointing to Polyxena's papers.

My evidence.

Cha. [To Pol.] Oh, worthy this of you!

And of your speech I never have forgotten,

Though I professed forgetfulness; which haunts me

As if I did not know how false it was;

Which made me toil unconsciously thus long

That there might be no least occasion left

For aught of its prediction coming true!

And now, when there is left no least occasion

To instigate my father to such crime—

When I might venture to forget (I hoped)

That speech and recognize Polyxena—

Oh worthy, to revive, and tenfold worse,

That plague! D'Ormea at your ear, his slanders

Still in your hand! Silent?

Pol. As the wronged are.

Cha. And you, D'Ormea, since when have you presumed

To spy upon my father? I conceive

What that wise paper shows, and easily.

Since when?

D'O. The when and where and how belong

To me. 'T is sad work, but I deal in such.

You ofttimes serve yourself; I'd serve you here:

Use makes me not so squeamish. In a word,

Since the first hour he went to Chambery,

Of his seven servants, five have I suborned.

Cha. You hate my father?

D'O. Oh, just as you will! [Looking at Polyxena.

A minute since, I loved him—hate him, now!

What matter?—if you ponder just one thing:

Has he that treaty?—he is setting forward

Already. Are your guards here?

Cha. Well for you

They are not! [To Pol.] Him I knew of old, but you—

To hear that pickthank, further his designs! [To D'O.

Guards?—were they here, I 'd bid them, for your trouble,

Arrest you.

D'O. Guards you shall not want. I lived

The servant of your choice, not of your need.

You never greatly needed me till now

That you discard me. This is my arrest.

Again I tender you my charge—its duty

Would bid me press you read those documents.

Here, sir! [Offering his badge of Office.

Cha. [Taking it.] The papers also! Do you think

I dare not read them?

Pol. Read them, sir!

Cha. They prove,

My father, still a month within the year

Since he so solemnly consigned it me,

Means to resume his crown? They shall prove that,

Or my best dungeon ...

D'O. Even say, Chambery!

'T is vacant, I surmise, by this.

Cha. You prove

Your words or pay their forfeit, sir. Go there!

Polyxena, one chance to rend the veil

Thickening and blackening 'twixt us two! Do say,

You 'll see the falsehood of the charges proved!

Do say, at least, you wish to see them proved

False charges—my heart's love of other times!

Pol. Ah, Charles!

Cha. [To D'O.] Precede me, sir!

D'O. And I 'm at length

A martyr for the truth! No end, they say,

Of miracles. My conscious innocence!

(As they go out, enter—by the middle door, at which he pauses—Victor.)

Vic. Sure I heard voices? No. Well, I do best

To make at once for this, the heart o' the place.

The old room! Nothing changed! So near my seat,

D'Ormea? [Pushing away the stool which is by the King's chair.

I want that meeting over first,

I know not why. Tush, he, D'Ormea, slow

To hearten me, the supple knave? That burst

Of spite so eased him! He 'll inform me ...

What?

Why come I hither? All 's in rough: let all

Remain rough. There 's full time to draw back—nay,

There 's naught to draw back from, as yet; whereas,

If reason should be, to arrest a course

Of error—reason good, to interpose

And save, as I have saved so many times,

Our House, admonish my son's giddy youth,

Relieve him of a weight that proves too much—

Now is the time,—or now, or never.

'Faith,

This kind of step is pitiful, not due

To Charles, this stealing back—hither, because

He 's from his capital! Oh Victor! Victor!

But thus it is. The age of crafty men

Is loathsome; youth contrives to carry off

Dissimulation; we may intersperse

Extenuating passages of strength,

Ardor, vivacity and wit—may turn

E'en guile into a voluntary grace:

But one's old age, when graces drop away

And leave guile the pure staple of our lives—

Ah, loathsome!

Not so—or why pause I? Turin

Is mine to have, were I so minded, for

The asking; all the army 's mine—I 've witnessed

Each private fight beneath me; all the Court 's

Mine too; and, best of all, D'Ormea's still

D'Ormea and mine. There 's some grace clinging yet.

Had I decided on this step, ere midnight

I 'd take the crown.

No. Just this step to rise

Exhausts me. Here am I arrived: the rest

Must be done for me. Would I could sit here

And let things right themselves, the masque unmasque

Of the old King, crownless, gray hair and hot blood,—

The young King, crowned, but calm before his time,

They say,—the eager mistress with her taunts,—

And the sad earnest wife who motions me

Away—ay, there she knelt to me! E'en yet

I can return and sleep at Chambery

A dream out.

Rather shake it off at Turin,

King Victor! Say: to Turin—yes, or no?

'T is this relentless noonday-lighted chamber.

Lighted like life but silent as the grave,

That disconcerts me. That 's the change must strike.

No silence last year! Some one flung doors wide

(Those two great doors which scrutinize me now)

And out I went 'mid crowds of men—men talking,

Men watching if my lip fell or brow knit,

Men saw me safe forth, put me on my road:

That makes the misery of this return.

Oh had a battle done it! Had I dropped,

Haling some battle, three entire days old,

Hither and thither by the forehead—dropped

In Spain, in Austria, best of all, in France—

Spurned on its horns or underneath its hoofs,

When the spent monster went upon its knees

To pad and pash the prostrate wretch—I, Victor,

Sole to have stood up against France, beat down

By inches, brayed to pieces finally

In some vast unimaginable charge,

A flying hell of horse and foot and guns

Over me, and all 's lost, forever lost,

There 's no more Victor when the world wakes up!

Then silence, as of a raw battlefield,

Throughout the world. Then after (as whole days

After, you catch at intervals faint noise

Through the stiff crust of frozen blood)—there creeps

A rumor forth, so faint, no noise at all,

That a strange old man, with face outworn for wounds,

Is stumbling on from frontier town to town,

Begging a pittance that may help him find

His Turin out; what scorn and laughter follow

The coin you fling into his cap! And last,

Some bright morn, how men crowd about the midst

O' the market-place, where takes the old king breath

Ere with his crutch he strike the palace-gate

Wide ope!

To Turin, yes or no—or no?

(Re-enter Charles with papers.)

Cha. Just as I thought! A miserable falsehood

Of hirelings discontented with their pay

And longing for enfranchisement! A few

Testy expressions of old age that thinks

To keep alive its dignity o'er slaves

By means that suit their natures! [Tearing them.]

Thus they shake

My faith in Victor! [Turning, he discovers Victor.

Vic. [After a pause.] Not at Evian, Charles?

What's this? Why do you run to close the doors?

No welcome for your father?

Cha. [Aside.] Not his voice!

What would I give for one imperious tone

Of the old sort! That's gone forever.

Vic. Must

I ask once more ...

Cha. No—I concede it, sir!

You are returned for ... true, your health declines;

True, Chambery 's a bleak unkindly spot;

You 'd choose one fitter for your final lodge—

Veneria, or Moncaglier—ay, that's close

And I concede it.

Vic. I received advices

Of the conclusion of the Spanish matter,

Dated from Evian Baths ...

Cha. And you forbore

To visit me at Evian, satisfied

The work I had to do would fully task

The little wit I have, and that your presence

Would only disconcert me—

Vic. Charles?

Cha. —Me, set

Forever in a foreign course to yours,

And ...

Sir, this way of wile were good to catch,

But I have not the sleight of it. The truth!

Though I sink under it! What brings you here?

Vic. Not hope of this reception, certainly,

From one who 'd scarce assume a stranger mode

Of speech, did I return to bring about

Some awfullest calamity!

Cha. —You mean,

Did you require your crown again! Oh yes,

I should speak otherwise! But turn not that

To jesting! Sir, the truth! Your health declines?

Is aught deficient in your equipage?

Wisely you seek myself to make complaint,

And foil the malice of the world which laughs

At petty discontents; but I shall care

That not a soul knows of this visit. Speak!

Vic. [Aside.] Here is the grateful much-professing son

Prepared to worship me, for whose sole sake

I think to waive my plans of public good!

[Aloud.] Nay, Charles, if I did seek to take once more

My crown, were so disposed to plague myself,

What would be warrant for this bitterness?

I gave it—grant I would resume it—well?

Cha. I should say simply—leaving out the why

And how—you made me swear to keep that crown:

And as you then intended ...

Vic. Fool! What way

Could I intend or not intend? As man,

With a man's will, when I say "I intend,"

I can intend up to a certain point,

No farther. I intended to preserve

The crown of Savoy and Sardinia whole:

And if events arise demonstrating

The way, I hoped should guard it, rather like

To lose it ...

Cha. Keep within your sphere and mine!

It is God's province we usurp on, else.

Here, blindfold through the maze of things we walk

By a slight clue of false, true, right and wrong;

All else is rambling and presumption. I

Have sworn to keep this kingdom: there's my truth.

Vic. Truth, boy, is here, within my breast; and in

Your recognition of it, truth is, too;

And in the effect of all this tortuous dealing

With falsehood, used to carry out the truth,

—In its success, this falsehood turns, again,

Truth for the world! But you are right: these themes

Are over-subtle. I should rather say

In such a case, frankly,—it fails, my scheme:

I hoped to see you bring about, yourself,

What I must bring about. I interpose

On your behalf—with my son's good in sight—

To hold what he is nearly letting go,

Confirm his title, add a grace perhaps.

There's Sicily, for instance,—granted me

And taken back, some years since: till I give

That island with the rest, my work's half done.

For his sake, therefore, as of those he rules ...

Cha. Our sakes are one; and that, you could not say,

Because my answer would present itself

Forthwith:—a year has wrought an age's change.

This people's not the people now, you once

Could benefit; nor is my policy

Your policy.

Vic. [With an outburst.] I know it! You undo

All I have done—my life of toil and care!

I left you this the absolutest rule

In Europe: do you think I sit and smile,

Bid you throw power to the populace—

See my Sardinia, that has kept apart,

Join in the mad and democratic whirl

Whereto I see all Europe haste full tide?

England casts off her kings; France mimics England:

This realm I hoped was safe! Yet here I talk,

When I can save it, not by force alone,

But bidding plagues, which follow sons like you,

Fasten upon my disobedient ...

[Recollecting himself.] Surely

I could say this—if minded so—my son?

Cha. You could not. Bitterer curses than your curse

Have I long since denounced upon myself

If I misused my power. In fear of these

I entered on those measures—will abide

By them: so, I should say, Count Tende ...

Vic. No!

But no! But if, my Charles, your—more than old—

Half-foolish father urged these arguments,

And then confessed them futile, but said plainly

That he forgot his promise, found his strength

Fail him, had thought at savage Chambery

Too much of brilliant Turin, Rivoli here,

And Susa, and Veneria, and Superga—

Pined for the pleasant places he had built

When he was fortunate and young—

Cha. My father!

Vic. Stay yet!—and if he said he could not die

Deprived of baubles he had put aside,

He deemed, forever—of the Crown that binds

Your brain up, whole, sound and impregnable,

Creating kingliness—the Sceptre too,

Whose mere wind, should you wave it, back would beat

Invaders—and the golden Ball which throbs

As if you grasped the palpitating heart

Indeed o' the realm, to mould as choose you may!

—If I must totter up and down the streets

My sires built, where myself have introduced

And fostered laws and letters, sciences,

The civil and the military arts!

Stay, Charles! I see you letting me pretend

To live my former self once more—King Victor,

The venturous yet politic: they style me

Again, the Father of the Prince: friends wink

Good-humoredly at the delusion you

So sedulously guard from all rough truths

That else would break upon my dotage!—You—

Whom now I see preventing my old shame—

I tell not, point by cruel point, my tale—

For is't not in your breast my brow is hid?

Is not your hand extended? Say you not ...

(Enter D'Ormea, leading in Polyxena.)

Pol. [Advancing and withdrawing Charles—to Victor.]

In this conjuncture even, he would say

(Though with a moistened eye and quivering lip)

The suppliant is my father. I must save

A great man from himself, nor see him fling

His well-earned fame away: there must not follow

Ruin so utter, a break-down of worth

So absolute: no enemy shall learn,

He thrust his child 'twist danger and himself.

And, when that child somehow stood danger out,

Stole back with serpent wiles to ruin Charles

—Body, that's much,—and soul, that's more—and realm,

That's most of all! No enemy shall say ...

D'O. Do you repent, sir?

Vic. [Resuming himself.] D'Ormea? This is well!

Worthily done, King Charles, craftily done!

Judiciously you post these, to o'erhear

The little your importunate father thrusts

Himself on you to say!—Ah, they'll correct

The amiable blind facility

You show in answering his peevish suit.

What can he need to sue for? Thanks, D'Ormea!

You have fulfilled your office: but for you,

The old Count might have drawn some few more livres

To swell his income! Had you, lady, missed

The moment, a permission might be granted

To buttress up my ruinous old pile!

But you remember properly the list

Of wise precautions I took when I gave

Nearly as much away—to reap the fruits

I should have looked for!

Cha. Thanks, sir: degrade me,

So you remain yourself! Adieu!

Vic. I'll not

Forget it for the future, nor presume

Next time to slight such mediators! Nay—

Had I first moved them both to intercede,

I might secure a chamber in Moncaglier

—Who knows?

Cha. Adieu!

Vic. You bid me this adieu

With the old spirit?

Cha. Adieu!

Vic. Charles—Charles!

Cha. Adieu!

[Victor goes.

Cha. You were mistaken, Marquis, as you hear!

'Twas for another purpose the Count came.

The Count desires Moncaglier. Give the order!

D'O. [Leisurely.] Your minister has lost your confidence,

Asserting late, for his own purposes,

Count Tende would ...

Cha. [Flinging his badge back.] Be still the minister!

And give a loose to your insulting joy;

It irks me more thus stifled than expressed:

Loose it!

D'O. There's none to loose, alas! I see

I never am to die a martyr.

Pol. Charles!

Cha. No praise, at least, Polyxena—no praise!

---

KING CHARLES
PART II

D'Ormea seated, folding papers he has been examining.

This at the last effects it: now, King Charles

Or else King Victor—that's a balance: but now,

D'Ormea the arch-culprit, either turn

Of the scale,—that's sure enough. A point to solve,

My masters, moralists, whate'er your style!

When you discover why I push myself

Into a pitfall you'd pass safely by,

Impart to me among the rest! No matter.

Prompt are the righteous ever with their rede

To us the wrongful: lesson them this once!

For safe among the wicked are you set,

D'Ormea! We lament life's brevity,

Yet quarter e'en the threescore years and ten,

Nor stick to call the quarter roundly "life."

D'Ormea was wicked, say, some twenty years;

A tree so long was stunted; afterward,

What if it grew, continued growing, till

No fellow of the forest equalled it?

'Twas a stump then; a stump it still must be:

While forward saplings, at the outset cheeked,

In virtue of that first sprout keep their style

Amid the forest's green fraternity.

Thus I shoot up to surely get lopped down

And bound up for the burning. Now for it!

(Enter Charles and Polyxena with Attendants.)

D'O. [Rises.] Sir, in the due discharge of this my office—

This enforced summons of yourself from Turin,

And the disclosure I am bound to make

To-night,—there must already be, I feel,

So much that wounds ...

Cha.. Well, sir?

D'O. —That I, perchance,

May utter also what, another time,

Would irk much,—it may prove less irksome now.

Cha. What would you utter?

D'O. That I from my soul

Grieve at to-night's event: for you I grieve,

E'en grieve for ...

Cha. Tush, another time for talk!

My kingdom is in imminent danger?

D'O. Let

The Count communicate with France—its King,

His grandson, will have Fleury's aid for this,

Though for no other war.

Cha. First for the levies:

What forces can I muster presently?

[D'Ormea delivers papers which Charles inspects.

Cha. Good—very good. Montorio ... how is this?

—Equips me double the old complement

Of soldiers?

D'O. Since his land has been relieved

From double imposts, this he manages:

But under the late monarch ...

Cha. Peace! I know.

Count Spava has omitted mentioning

What proxy is to head these troops of his.

D'O. Count Spava means to head his troops himself.

Something to fight for now; "Whereas," says he,

"Under the sovereign's father" ...

Cha. It would seem

That all my people love me.

D'O. Yes.

[To Polyxena while Charles continues to inspect the papers.

A temper

Like Victor's may avail to keep a state;

He terrifies men and they fall not off;

Good to restrain: best, if restraint were all.

But, with the silent circle round him, ends

Such sway: our King's begins precisely there.

For to suggest, impel and set at work,

Is quite another function. Men may slight,

In time of peace, the King who brought them peace:

In war,—his voice, his eyes, help more than fear.

They love you, sir!

Cha. [To Attendants.] Bring the regalia, forth!

Quit the room! And now, Marquis, answer me!

Why should the King of France invade my realm?

D'O. Why? Did I not acquaint your Majesty

An hour ago?

Cha. I choose to hear again

What then I heard.

D'O. Because, sir, as I said,

Your father is resolved to have his crown

At any risk; and, as I judge, calls in

The foreigner to aid him.

Cha. And your reason

For saying this?

D'O. [Aside.] Ay, just his father's way!

[To Cha.] The Count wrote yesterday to your forces' Chief,

Rhebinder—made demand of help—

Cha. To try

Rhebinder—he 's of alien blood. Aught else?

D'O. Receiving a refusal,—some hours after,

The Count called on Del Borgo to deliver

The Act of Abdication: he refusing,

Or hesitating, rather—

Cha. What ensued?

D'O. At midnight, only two hours since, at Turin,

He rode in person to the citadel

With one attendant, to Soccorso gate,

And bade the governor, San Remi, open—

Admit him.

Cha. For a purpose I divine.

These three were faithful, then?

D'O. They told it me:

And I—

Cha. Most faithful—

D'O. Tell it you—with this

Moreover of my own: if, an hour hence,

You have not interposed, the Count will be

O' the road to France for succor.

Cha. Very good!

You do your duty now to me your monarch

Fully, I warrant?—have, that is, your project

For saving both of us disgrace, no doubt?

D'O. I give my counsel,—and the only one.

A month since, I besought you to employ

Restraints which had prevented many a pang:

But now the harsher course must be pursued.

These papers, made for the emergency,

Will pain you to subscribe: this is a list

Of those suspected merely—men to watch;

This—of the few of the Count's very household

You must, however reluctantly, arrest;

While here's a method of remonstrance—sure

Not stronger than the case demands—to take

With the Count's self.

Cha. Deliver those three papers.

Pol. [While Charles inspects them—to D'Ormea.]

Your measures are not over-harsh, sir: France

Will hardly be deterred from her intents

By these.

D'O. If who proposes might dispose,

I could soon satisfy you. Even these,

Hear what he'll say at my presenting!

Cha. [who has signed them]. There!

About the warrants! You've my signature.

What turns you pale? I do my duty by you

In acting boldly thus on your advice.

D'O. [Reading them separately.] Arrest the people I suspected merely?

Cha. Did you suspect them?

D'O. Doubtless: but—but—sir,

This Forquieri's governor of Turin,

And Rivarol and he have influence over

Half of the capital! Rabella, too?

Why, sir—

Cha. Oh, leave the fear to me!

D'O. [Still reading.] You bid me

Incarcerate the people on this list?

Sir—

Cha. But you never bade arrest those men,

So close related to my father too,

On trifling grounds?

D'O. Oh, as for that, St. George,

President of Chambery's senators,

Is hatching treason! still—

[More troubled.] Sir, Count Cumiane

Is brother to your father's wife! What 's here?

Arrest the wife herself?

Cha. You seem to think

A venial crime this plot against me. Well?

D'O. [who has read the last paper.] Wherefore am I thus ruined? Why not take

My life at once? This poor formality

Is, let me say, unworthy you! Prevent it

You, madam! I have served you, am prepared

For all disgraces: only, let disgrace

Be plain, be proper—proper for the world

To pass its judgment on 'twixt you and me!

Take back your warrant, I will none of it!

Cha. Here is a man to talk of fickleness!

He stakes his life upon my father's falsehood;

I bid him ...

D'O. Not you! Were he trebly false,

You do not bid me ...

Cha. Is 't not written there?

I thought so: give—I 'll set it right.

D'O. Is it there?

Oh yes, and plain—arrest him now—drag here

Your father! And were all six times as plain,

Do you suppose I trust it?

Cha. Just one word!

You bring him, taken in the act of flight,

Or else your life is forfeit.

D'O. Ay, to Turin

I bring him, and to-morrow?

Cha. Here and now!

The whole thing is a lie, a hateful lie,

As I believed and as my father said.

I knew it from the first, but was compelled

To circumvent you; and the great D'Ormea,

That baffled Alberoni and tricked Coscia,

The miserable sower of such discord

'Twixt sire and son, is in the toils at last.

Oh I see! you arrive—this plan of yours,

Weak as it is, torments sufficiently

A sick old peevish man—wrings hasty speech,

An ill-considered threat from him; that's noted;

Then out you ferret papers, his amusement

In lonely hours of lassitude—examine

The day-by-day report of your paid spies—

And back you come: all was not ripe, you find,

And, as you hope, may keep from ripening yet,

But you were in bare time! Only, 'twere best

I never saw my father—these old men

Are potent in excuses: and meanwhile,

D'Ormea's the man I cannot do without!

Pol. Charles—

Cha. Ah, no question! You against me too!

You 'd have me eat and drink and sleep, live, die,

With this lie coiled about me, choking me!

No, no, D'Ormea! You venture life, you say,

Upon my father's perfidy: and I

Have, on the whole, no right to disregard

The chains of testimony you thus wind

About me; though I do—do from my soul

Discredit them: still I must authorize

These measures, and I will. Perugia!

[Many Officers enter.] Count—

You and Solar, with all the force you have,

Stand at the Marquis' orders: what he bids,

Implicitly perform! You are to bring

A traitor here; the man that 's likest one

At present, fronts me; you are at his beck

For a full hour! he undertakes to show

A fouler than himself,—but, failing that,

Return with him, and, as my father lives,

He dies this night! The clemency you blame

So oft, shall be revoked—rights exercised,

Too long abjured.

[To D'O.] Now, sir, about the work!

To save your king and country! Take the warrant!

D'O. You hear the sovereign's mandate, Count Perugia?

Obey me! As your diligence, expect

Reward! All follow to Montcaglier!

[D'Ormea goes.

Cha. [In great anguish.] D'Ormea!

He goes, lit up with that appalling smile!

[To Polyxena after a pause.

At least you understand all this?

Pol. These means

Of our defence—these measures of precaution?

Cha. It must be the best way: I should have else

Withered beneath his scorn.

Pol. What would you say?

Cha. Why, do you think I mean to keep the crown, Polyxena?

Pol. You then believe the story

In spite of all—that Victor comes?

Cha. Believe it?

I know that he is coming—feel the strength

That has upheld me leave me at his coming!

'T was mine, and now he takes his own again.

Some kinds of strength are well enough to have;

But who 's to have that strength? Let my crown go!

I meant to keep it; but I cannot—cannot!

Only, he shall not taunt me—he, the first ...

See if he would not be the first to taunt me

With having left his kingdom at a word,

With letting it be conquered without stroke,

With ... no—no—'t is no worse than when he left!

I 've just to bid him take it, and, that over,

We 'll fly away—fly, for I loathe this Turin,

This Rivoli, all titles loathe, all state.

We 'd best go to your country—unless God

Send I die now!

Pol. Charles, hear me!

Cha. And again

Shall you be my Polyxena—you 'll take me

Out of this woe! Yes, do speak, and keep speaking!

I would not let you speak just now, for fear

You 'd counsel me against him: but talk, now,

As we two used to talk in blessed times:

Bid me endure all his caprices; take me

From this mad post above him!

Pol. I believe

We are undone, but from a different cause.

All your resources, down to the least guard,

Are at D'Ormea's beck. What if, the while,

He act in concert with your father? We

Indeed were lost. This lonely Rivoli—

Where find a better place for them?

Cha. [Pacing the room.] And why

Does Victor come? To undo all that 's done,

Restore the past, prevent the future! Seat

His mistress in your seat, and place in mine

... Oh, my own people, whom will you find there,

To ask of, to consult with, to care for,

To hold up with your hands? Whom? One that's false—

False—from the head's crown to the foot's sole, false!

The best is, that I knew it in my heart

From the beginning, and expected this,

And hated you, Polyxena, because

You saw through him, though I too saw through him,

Saw that he meant this while he crowned me, while

He prayed for me,—nay, while he kissed my brow,

I saw—

Pol. But if your measures take effect,

D'Ormea true to you?

Cha. Then worst of all!

I shall have loosed that callous wretch on him!

Well may the woman taunt him with his child—

I, eating here his bread, clothed in his clothes,

Seated upon his seat, let slip D'Ormea

To outrage him! We talk—perchance he tears

My father from his bed; the old hands feel

For one who is not, but who should be there:

He finds D'Ormea! D'Ormea too finds him!

The crowded chamber when the lights go out—

Closed doors—the horrid scuffle in the dark—

The accursed prompting of the minute! My guards!

To horse—and after, with me—and prevent!

Pol. [Seizing his hand.] King Charles! Pause here upon this strip of time

Allotted you out of eternity!

Crowns are from God: you in his name hold yours.

Your life 's no least thing, were it fit your life

Should be abjured along with rule; but now,

Keep both! Your duty is to live and rule—

You, who would vulgarly look fine enough

In the world's eye, deserting your soul's charge,—

Ay, you would have men's praise, this Rivoli

Would be illumined! While, as 't is, no doubt,

Something of stain will ever rest on you;

No one will rightly know why you refused

To abdicate; they 'll talk of deeds you could

Have done, no doubt,—nor do I much expect

Future achievement will blot out the past,

Envelope it in haze—nor shall we two

Live happy any more. 'T will be, I feel,

Only in moments that the duty 's seen

As palpably as now: the months, the years

Of painful indistinctness are to come,

While daily must we tread these palace-rooms

Pregnant with memories of the past: your eye

May turn to mine and find no comfort there,

Through fancies that beset me, as yourself,

Of other courses, with far other issues,

We might have taken this great night: such bear,

As I will bear! What matters happiness?

Duty! There's man's one moment: this is yours!

[Putting the crown on his head, and the sceptre in his hand, she places him on his seat: a long pause and silence.

(Enter D'Ormea and Victor, with Guards.)

Vic. At last I speak; but once—that once, to you!

'T is you I ask, not these your varletry,

Who 's King of us?

Cha. [From his seat.] Count Tende ...

Vic. What your spies

Assert I ponder in my soul, I say—

Here to your face, amid your guards! I choose

To take again the crown whose shadow I gave—

For still its potency surrounds the weak

White locks their felon hands have discomposed.

Or I 'll not ask who 's King, but simply, who

Withholds the crown I claim? Deliver it!

I have no friend in the wide world: nor France

Nor England cares for me: you see the sum

Of what I can avail. Deliver it!

Cha. Take it, my father!

And now say in turn,

Was it done well, my father—sure not well,

To try me thus! I might have seen much cause

For keeping it—too easily seen cause!

But, from that moment, e'en more woefully

My life had pined away, than pine it will.

Already you have much to answer for.

My life to pine is nothing,—her sunk eyes

Were happy once! No doubt, my people think

I am their King still ... but I cannot strive!

Take it!

Vic. [One hand on the crown Charles offers,
the other on his neck.] So few years give it quietly,

My son! It will drop from me. See you not?

A crown 's unlike a sword to give away—

That, let a strong hand to a weak hand give!

But crowns should slip from palsied brows to heads

Young as this head: yet mine is weak enough,

E'en weaker than I knew. I seek for phrases

To vindicate my right. 'T is of a piece!

All is alike gone by with me—who beat

Once D'Orleans in his lines—his very lines!

To have been Eugene's comrade, Louis's rival,

And now ...

Cha. [Putting the crown on him, to the rest.]

The King speaks, yet none kneels, I think!

Vic. I am then King! As I became a King

Despite the nations, kept myself a King,

So I die King, with Kingship dying too

Around me! I have lasted Europe's time!

What wants my story of completion? Where

Must needs the damning break show? Who mistrusts

My children here—tell they of any break

'Twixt my day's sunrise and its fiery fall?

And who were by me when I died but they?

D'Ormea there!

Cha. What means he?

Vic. Ever there!

Charles—how to save your story! Mine must go!

Say—say that you refused the crown to me!

Charles, yours shall be my story! You immured

Me, say, at Rivoli. A single year

I spend without a sight of you, then die.

That will serve every purpose—tell that tale

The world!

Cha. Mistrust me? Help!

Vic. Past help, past reach!

'T is in the heart—you cannot reach the heart:

This broke mine, that I did believe, you, Charles,

Would have denied me and disgraced me.

Pol. Charles

Has never ceased to be your subject, sir!

He reigned at first through setting up yourself

As pattern: if he e'er seemed harsh to you,

'T was from a too intense appreciation

Of your own character: he acted you—

Ne'er for an instant did I think it real,

Nor look for any other than this end.

I hold him worlds the worse on that account;

But so it was.

Cha. [To Pol.] I love you now indeed!

[To Vic.] You never knew me!

Vic. Hardly till this moment,

When I seem learning many other things

Because the time for using them is past.

If 't were to do again! That's idly wished.

Truthfulness might prove policy as good

As guile. Is this my daughter's forehead? Yes:

I 've made it fitter now to be a queen's

Than formerly: I 've ploughed the deep lines there

Which keep too well a crown from slipping off.

No matter. Guile has made me King again.

Louis—'t was in King Victor's time:—long since,

When Louis reigned and, also, Victor reigned.

How the world talks already of us two!

God of eclipse and each discolored star,

Why do I linger then?

Ha! Where lurks he?

D'Ormea! Nearer to your King! Now stand!

[Collecting his strength as D'Ormea approaches.

You lied, D'Ormea! I do not repent. [Dies.

---

DRAMATIC LYRICS

The third number of Bells and Pomegranates, published in 1842, contained a collection of short poems under the general head of Dramatic Lyrics. When Browning made his first collective edition, he redistributed all his groups of poems, retaining this title and making it cover some of the poems included in the original group, but many more first published under other headings. The arrangement here given is that adopted finally by Browning. "Such Poems," he says, "as the majority in this volume (Dramatic Lyrics) might also come properly enough, I suppose, under the head of Dramatic Pieces; being, though often Lyric in expression, always Dramatic in principle, and so many utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine. Part of the Poems were inscribed to my dear friend, John Kenyon; I hope the whole may obtain the honor of an association with his memory."

The third of the Cavalier Tunes was originally entitled My Wife Gertrude. The three songs have been set to music by Dr. Villiers Stanford.

---

CAVALIER TUNES

I. MARCHING ALONG

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,

Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:

And, pressing a troop unable to stoop

And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,

Marched them along, fifty-score strong,

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

God for King Charles! Pym and such carles

To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous parles!

Cavaliers, up! Lips from the cup,

Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup

Till you're—

Chorus.—Marching along, fifty-score strong,

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell.

Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well!

England, good cheer! Rupert is near!

Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here,

Cho.—Marching along, fifty-score strong,

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song?

Then, God for King Charles! Pym and his snarls

To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles!

Hold by the right, you double your might;

So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight,

Cho.—March we along, fifty-score strong,

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song!

---

II. GIVE A ROUSE

King Charles, and who 'll do him right now?

King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now?

Give a rouse: here 's, in hell's despite now,

King Charles!

Who gave me the goods that went since?

Who raised me the house that sank once?

Who helped me to gold I spent since?

Who found me in wine you drank once?

Cho.—King Charles, and who 'll do him right now?

King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now?

Give a rouse: here' s, in hell's despite now,

King Charles!

To whom used my boy George quaff else,

By the old fool's side that begot him?

For whom did he cheer and laugh else,

While Noll's damned troopers shot him?

Cho.—King Charles, and who 'll do him right now?

King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now?

Give a rouse: here 's, in hell's despite now,

King Charles!

---

III. BOOT AND SADDLE

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!

Rescue my castle before the hot day

Brightens to blue from its silvery gray.

Cho.—Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you 'd say;

Many 's the friend there, will listen and pray

"God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay—

Cho.—Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay,

Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array:

Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay,

Cho.—Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

Who? My wife Gertrude; that, honest and gay,

Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay!

I 've better counsellors; what counsel they?

Cho.—Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!"

---

THE LOST LEADER

Browning was beset with questions by people asking if he referred to Wordsworth in this poem. He answered the question more than once, as an artist would: the following letter to Rev. A. B. Grosart, the editor of Wordsworth's Prose Works, sufficiently states his position.

"19 Warwick-Crescent, W., Feb. 24, '75.

"Dear Mr. Grosart,—I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly answered it, I can't remember how many times; there is no sort of objection to one more assurance or rather confession, on my part, that I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account; had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about 'handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.' These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet, whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But just as in the tapestry on my wall I can recognize figures which have struck out a fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet would be preposterous as a copy, so, though I dare not deny the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it considered as the 'very effigies' of such a moral and intellectual superiority.

"Faithfully yours,
"Robert Browning."

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coat—

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,

So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!

We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

—He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering,—not through his presence;

Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;

Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,

One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,

Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,

Never glad confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly,

Menace our heart ere we master his own;

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

---

"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX"

Browning wrote to an American inquirer about this poem: "There is no sort of historical foundation for the poem about 'Good News from Ghent.' I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel, off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse 'York,' then in my stable at home. It was written in pencil on the fly-leaf of Bartoli's Simboli, I remember."

[16—]

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

'T was moonset at starting; but while we drew near

Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;

At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;

At Düffeld, 't was morning as plain as could be;

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,

So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,

And against him the cattle stood black every one,

To stare through the mist at us galloping past,

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,

With resolute shoulders, each butting away

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;

And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glance

O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!

And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon

His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!

Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her,

We'll remember at Aix"—for one heard the quick wheeze

Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,

And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!"

"How they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roan

Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight

Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,

With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,

And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,

Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,

Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,

Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;

Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,

Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

And all I remember is—friends flocking round

As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;

And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,

As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,

Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

---

THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR

As I ride, as I ride,

With a full heart for my guide,

So its tide rocks my side,

As I ride, as I ride,

That, as I were double-eyed,

He, in whom our Tribes confide,

Is descried, ways untried,

As I ride, as I ride.

As I ride, as I ride

To our Chief and his Allied,

Who dares chide my heart's pride

As I ride, as I ride?

Or are witnesses denied—

Through the desert waste and wide

Do I glide unespied

As I ride, as I ride?

As I ride, as I ride,

When an inner voice has cried,

The sands slide, nor abide

(As I ride, as I ride)

O'er each visioned homicide

That came vaunting (has he lied?)

To reside—where he died,

As I ride, as I ride.

As I ride, as I ride,

Ne'er has spur my swift horse plied,

Yet his hide, streaked and pied,

As I ride, as I ride,

Shows where sweat has sprung and dried,

—Zebra-footed, ostrich-thighed—

How has vied stride with stride

As I ride, as I ride!

As I ride, as I ride,

Could I loose what Fate has tied,

Ere I pried, she should hide

(As I ride, as I ride)

All that 's meant me—satisfied

When the Prophet and the Bride

Stop veins I 'd have subside

As I ride, as I ride!

---

NATIONALITY IN DRINKS

The first two of this group, under the titles Claret and Tokay, were published in Hood's Magazine, June, 1844, at the request of Richard Monckton Milnes, who was editing the magazine during Hood's illness. The third, first entitled Beer, was called out by the description of Nelson's coat at Greenwich, given by the captain of the vessel in which Browning was sailing to Italy.

I

My heart sank with our Claret-flask,

Just now, beneath the heavy sedges

That serve this pond's black face for mask;

And still at yonder broken edges

O' the hole, where up the bubbles glisten,

After my heart I look and listen.

Our laughing little flask, compelled

Through depth to depth more bleak and shady;

As when, both arms beside her held,

Feet straightened out, some gay French lady

Is caught up from life's light and motion,

And dropped into death's silent ocean!

II

—Up jumped Tokay on our table,

Like a pygmy castle-warder,

Dwarfish to see, but stout and able,

Arms and accoutrements all in order;

And fierce he looked North, then, wheeling South,

Blew with his bugle a challenge to Drouth,

Cocked his flap-hat with the tosspot-feather,

Twisted his thumb in his red moustache,

Jingled his huge brass spurs together,

Tightened his waist with its Buda sash,

And then, with an impudence naught could abash,

Shrugged his hump-shoulder, to tell the beholder,

For twenty such knaves he should laugh but the bolder:

And so, with his sword-hilt gallantly jutting,

And dexter-hand on his haunch abutting,

Went the little man, Sir Ausbruch, strutting!

III

—Here's to Nelson's memory!

'T is the second time that I, at sea,

Right off Cape Trafalgar here,

Have drunk it deep in British Beer.

Nelson forever—any time

Am I his to command in prose or rhyme!

Give me of Nelson only a touch,

And I save it, be it little or much:

Here 's one our Captain gives, and so

Down at the word, by George, shall it go!

He says that at Greenwich they point the beholder

To Nelson's coat, "still with tar on the shoulder:

For he used to lean with one shoulder digging,

Jigging, as it were, and zig-zag-zigging

Up against the mizzen-rigging!"

---

GARDEN FANCIES

These two poems also appeared in Hood's Magazine, July, 1844.

I. THE FLOWER'S NAME

Here's the garden she walked across,

Arm in my arm, such a short while since:

Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss

Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!

She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,

As back with that murmur the wicket swung;

For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,

To feed and forget it the leaves among.

Down this side of the gravel-walk

She went while her robe's edge brushed the box:

And here she paused in her gracious talk

To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox.

Roses, ranged in valiant row,

I will never think that she passed you by!

She loves you, noble roses, I know;

But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie!

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,

Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim;

Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,

Its soft meandering Spanish name:

What a name! Was it love or praise?

Speech half-asleep or song half-awake?

I must learn Spanish, one of these days,

Only for that slow sweet name's sake.

Roses, if I live and do well,

I may bring her, one of these days,

To fix you fast with as fine a spell,

Fit you each with his Spanish phrase;

But do not detain me now; for she lingers

There, like sunshine over the ground,

And ever I see her soft white fingers

Searching after the bud she found.

Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not,

Stay as you are and be loved forever!

Bud, if I kiss you 't is that you blow not,

Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never!

For while it pouts, her fingers wrestle,

Twinkling the audacious leaves between,

Till round they turn and down they nestle—

Is not the dear mark still to be seen?

Where I find her not, beauties vanish;

Whither I follow her, beauties flee;

Is there no method to tell her in Spanish

June 's twice June since she breathed it with me?

Come, bud, show me the least of her traces,

Treasure my lady's lightest footfall!

—Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces—

Roses, you are not so fair after all!

II. 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 pont-levis

In a castle of the Middle Age,

Joins to a lip of gum, pure amber;

When 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,

—At the bottom, I knew, rain-drippings stagnate;

Next, a handful of blossoms I plucked

To bury him with, my bookshelf's magnate;

Then I went in-doors, 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 sat in the midst with arms akimbo:

So, I took pity, for learning's sake,

And, de profundis, accentibus lœtis,

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-bye, 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!

---

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER

When first printed in Bells and Pomegranates, this poem was the second of a group of two bearing the general title Camp and Cloister, the first of the two being Incident of the French Camp.

Gr-r-r—there go, my heart's abhorrence!

Water your damned flower-pots, do!

If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,

God's blood, would not mine kill you!

What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?

Oh, that rose has prior claims—

Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?

Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together:

Salve tibi! I must hear

Wise talk of the kind of weather,

Sort of season, time of year:

Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely

Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:

What's the Latin name for "parsley"?

What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?

Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,

Laid with care on our own shelf!

With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,

And a goblet for ourself,

Rinsed like something sacrificial

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps—

Marked with L for our initial!

(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores

Squats outside the Convent bank

With Sanchicha, telling stories,

Steeping tresses in the tank,

Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,

—Can't I see his dead eye glow,

Bright as 't were a Barbary corsair's?

(That is, if he 'd let it show!)

When he finishes refection,

Knife and fork he never lays

Cross-wise, to my recollection,

As do I, in Jesu's praise.

I the Trinity illustrate,

Drinking watered orange-pulp—

In three sips the Arian frustrate;

While he drains his at one gulp.

Oh, those melons! If he's able

We 're to have a feast! so nice!

One goes to the Abbot's table,

All of us get each a slice.

How go on your flowers? None double?

Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange!—And I, too, at such trouble

Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

There's a great text in Galatians,

Once you trip on it, entails

Twenty-nine distinct damnations,

One sure, if another fails:

If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of heaven as sure can be,

Spin him round and send him flying

Off to hell, a Manichee?

Or, my scrofulous French novel

On gray paper with blunt type!

Simply glance at it, you grovel

Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:

If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print,

When he gathers his greengages,

Ope a sieve and slip it in 't?

Or, there's Satan!—one might venture

Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave

Such a flaw in the indenture

As he'd miss till, past retrieve,

Blasted lay that rose-acacia

We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine ...

'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratiâ,

Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r—you swine!

---

THE LABORATORY
ANCIEN RÉGIME

Published first in Hood's Magazine, June, 1844. In Bells and Pomegranates it was grouped with The Confessional under the title France and Spain.

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,

Pound 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,

What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures!

To carry pure death in an earring, a casket,

A 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 pastile, and Elise, with her head

And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop dead!

Quick—is it finished? The color'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!

That'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;

Let death be felt and the proof remain:

Brand, burn up, bite into its grace—

He 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!

---

THE CONFESSIONAL
SPAIN

It is a lie—their Priests, their Pope,

Their Saints, their ... all they fear or hope

Are lies, and lies—there! through my door

And ceiling, there! and walls and floor,

There, lies, they lie—shall still be hurled

Till spite of them I reach the world!

You think Priests just and holy men!

Before they put me in this den

I was a human creature too,

With flesh and blood like one of you,

A girl that laughed in beauty's pride

Like lilies in your world outside.

I had a lover—shame avaunt!

This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt,

Was kissed all over till it burned,

By lips the truest, love e'er turned

His heart's own tint: one night they kissed

My soul out in a burning mist.

So, next day when the accustomed train

Of things grew round my sense again,

"That is a sin," I said: and slow

With downcast eyes to church I go,

And pass to the confession-chair,

And tell the old mild father there.

But when I falter Beltran's name,

"Ha!" quoth the father; "much I blame

The sin; yet wherefore idly grieve?

Despair not—strenuously retrieve!

Nay, I will turn this love of thine

To lawful love, almost divine;

"For he is young, and led astray,

This Beltran, and he schemes, men say,

To change the laws of church and state;

So, thine shall be an angel's fate,

Who, ere the thunder breaks, should roll

Its cloud away and save his soul.

"For, when he lies upon thy breast,

Thou mayest demand and be possessed

Of all his plans, and next day steal

To me, and all those plans reveal,

That I and every priest, to purge

His soul, may fast and use the scourge."

That father's beard was long and white,

With love and truth his brow seemed bright;

I went back, all on fire with joy,

And, that same evening, bade the boy

Tell me, as lovers should, heart-free,

Something to prove his love of me.

He told me what he would not tell

For hope of heaven or fear of hell;

And I lay listening in such pride!

And, soon as he had left my side,

Tripped to the church by morning-light

To save his soul in his despite.

I told the father all his schemes,

Who were his comrades, what their dreams;

"And now make haste," I said, "to pray

The one spot from his soul away;

To-night he comes, but not the same

Will look!" At night he never came.

Nor next night: on the after-morn,

I went forth with a strength new-born.

The church was empty; something drew

My steps into the street; I knew

It led me to the market-place:

Where, lo, on high, the father's face!

That horrible black scaffold dressed,

That stapled block ... God sink the rest!

That head strapped back, that blinding vest,

Those knotted hands and naked breast,

Till near one busy hangman pressed,

And, on the neck these arms caressed ...

No part in aught they hope or fear!

No heaven with them, no hell!—and here,

No earth, not so much space as pens

My body in their worst of dens

But shall bear God and man my cry.

Lies—lies, again—and still, they lie!

---

CRISTINA

In Bells and Pomegranates, this poem was the second of a group headed Queen-Worship, the first being Rudel and the Lady of Tripoli.

She should never have looked at me

If she meant I should not love her!

There are plenty ... men, you call such,

I suppose ... she may discover

All her soul to, if she pleases,

And yet leave much as she found them:

But I'm not so, and she knew it

When she fixed me, glancing round them.

What? To fix me thus meant nothing?

But I can't tell (there's my weakness)

What her look said!—no vile cant, sure,

About "need to strew the bleakness

Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed,

That the sea feels"—no "strange yearning

That such souls have, most to lavish

Where there's chance of least returning."

Oh, we're sunk enough here, God knows!

But not quite so sunk that moments,

Sure though seldom, are denied us,

When the spirit's true endowments

Stand out plainly from its false ones,

And apprise it if pursuing

Or the right way or the wrong way,

To its triumph or undoing.

There are flashes struck from midnights,

There are fire-flames noondays kindle,

Whereby piled-up honors perish,

Whereby swollen ambitions dwindle,

While just this or that poor impulse,

Which for once had play unstifled,

Seems the sole work of a lifetime,

That away the rest have trifled.

Doubt you if, in some such moment,

As she fixed me, she felt clearly,

Ages past the soul existed,

Here an age 't is resting merely,

And hence fleets again for ages,

While the true end, sole and single,

It stops here for is, this love-way,

With some other soul to mingle?

Else it loses what it lived for,

And eternally must lose it;

Better ends may be in prospect,

Deeper blisses (if you choose it),

But this life's end and this love-bliss

Have been lost here. Doubt you whether

This she felt as, looking at me,

Mine and her souls rushed together?

Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,

The world's honors, in derision,

Trampled out the light forever:

Never fear but there's provision

Of the devil's to quench knowledge

Lest we walk the earth in rapture!

—Making those who catch God's secret

Just so much more prize their capture!

Such am I: the secret 's mine now!

She has lost me, I have gained her;

Her soul's mine: and thus, grown perfect,

I shall pass my life's remainder.

Life will just hold out the proving

Both our powers, alone and blended:

And then, come the next life quickly!

This world's use will have been ended.

---

THE LOST MISTRESS

All 's over, then: does truth sound bitter

As one at first believes?

Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter

About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,

I noticed that, to-day;

One day more bursts them open fully

—You know the red turns gray.

To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?

May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest

Keep much that I resign:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black

Though I keep with heart's endeavor,—

Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,

Though it stay in my soul forever!—

Yet I will but say what mere friends say,

Or only a thought stronger;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,

Or so very little longer!

---

EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES

FAME

See, as the prettiest graves will do in time,

Our poet's wants the freshness of its prime;

Spite of the sexton's browsing horse, the sods

Have struggled through its binding osier rods;

Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry,

Wanting the brick-work promised by-and-by;

How the minute gray lichens, plate o'er plate,

Have softened down the crisp-cut name and date!

---

LOVE

So, the year's done with!

(Love me forever!)

All March begun with,

April's endeavor;

May-wreaths that bound me

June needs must sever;

Now snows fall round me,

Quenching June's fever—

(Love me forever!)

---

MEETING AT NIGHT

This and its companion piece were published originally simply as Night and Morning.

The gray sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

---

PARTING AT MORNING

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,

And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:

And straight was a path of gold for him,

And the need of a world of men for me.

---

SONG

Nay but you, who do not love her,

Is she not pure gold, my mistress?

Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her?

Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,

And this last fairest tress of all,

So fair, see, ere I let it fall?

Because you spend your lives in praising;

To praise, you search the wide world over:

Then why not witness, calmly gazing,

If earth holds aught—speak truth—above her?

Above this tress, and this, I touch

But cannot praise, I love so much!

---

A WOMAN'S LAST WORD

Let's contend no more, Love,

Strive nor weep:

All be as before, Love,

—Only sleep!

What so wild as words are?

I and thou

In debate, as birds are,

Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking

While we speak!

Hush and hide the talking,

Cheek on cheek!

What so false as truth is,

False to thee?

Where the serpent's tooth is

Shun the tree—

Where the apple reddens

Never pry—

Lest we lose our Edens,

Eve and I.

Be a god and hold me

With a charm!

Be a man and fold me

With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love!

As I ought

I will speak thy speech, Love,

Think thy thought—

Meet, if thou require it,

Both demands,

Laying flesh and spirit

In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow,

Not to-night:

I must bury sorrow

Out of sight:

—Must a little weep, Love,

(Foolish me!)

And so fall asleep, Love,

Loved by thee.

---

EVELYN HOPE

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour.

That is her book-shelf, this her bed;

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,

Beginning to die too, in the glass;

Little has yet been changed, I think:

The shutters are shut, no light may pass

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name;

It was not her time to love; beside,

Her life had many a hope and aim,

Duties enough and little cares,

And now was quiet, now astir,

Till God's hand beckoned unawares,—

And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?

What, your soul was pure and true,

The good stars met in your horoscope,

Made you of spirit, fire and dew—

And, just because I was thrice as old

And our paths in the world diverged so wide,

Each was naught to each, must I be told?

We were fellow mortals, naught beside?

No, indeed! for God above

Is great to grant, as mighty to make,

And creates the love to reward the love:

I claim you still, for my own love's sake!

Delayed it may be for more lives yet,

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few:

Much is to learn, much to forget

Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come,—at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)

In the lower earth, in the years long still,

That body and soul so pure and gay?

Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own geranium's red—

And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead.

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,

Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;

Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,

Either I missed or itself missed me:

And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!

What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!

My heart seemed full as it could hold;

There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.

So, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep:

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!

There, that is our secret: go to sleep!

You will wake, and remember, and understand.

---

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles

Miles and miles

On the solitary pastures where our sheep

Half-asleep

Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop

As they crop—

Was the site once of a city great and gay,

(So they say)

Of our country's very capital, its prince

Ages since

Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far

Peace or war.

Now,—the country does not even boast a tree,

As you see,

To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills

From the hills

Intersect and give a name to, (else they run

Into one,)

Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires

Up like fires

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall

Bounding all,

Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,

Twelve abreast.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass

Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads

And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,

Stock or stone—

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe

Long ago;

Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame

Struck them tame;

And that glory and that shame alike, the gold

Bought and sold.

Now,—the single little turret that remains

On the plains,

By the caper overrooted, by the gourd

Overscored,

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks

Through the chinks—

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time

Sprang sublime,

And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced

As they raced,

And the monarch and his minions and his dames

Viewed the games.

And I know, while thus the quiet-colored eve

Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece

In such peace,

And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray

Melt away—

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair

Waits me there

In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul

For the goal,

When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb

Till I come.

But he looked upon the city, every side,

Far and wide,

All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'

Colonnades,

All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—and then,

All the men!

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,

Either hand

On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace

Of my face,

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech

Each on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth

South and North,

And they built their gods a brazen pillar high

As the sky,

Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—

Gold, of course.

Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!

Earth's returns

For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Shut them in,

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!

Love is best.

---

A LOVERS' QUARREL

Oh, what a dawn of day!

How the March sun feels like May!

All is blue again

After last night's rain,

And the South dries the hawthorn-spray.

Only, my Love's away!

I 'd as lief that the blue were gray.

Runnels, which rillets swell,

Must be dancing down the dell,

With a foaming head

On the beryl bed

Paven smooth as a hermit's cell;

Each with a tale to tell,

Could my Love but attend as well.

Dearest, three months ago!

When we lived blocked-up with snow,—

When the wind would edge

In and in his wedge,

In, as far as the point could go—

Not to our ingle, though,

Where we loved each the other so!

Laughs with so little cause!

We devised games out of straws,

We would try and trace

One another's face

In the ash, as an artist draws;

Free on each other's flaws,

How we chattered like two church daws!

What's in the "Times"?—a scold

At the Emperor deep and cold;

He has taken a bride

To his gruesome side,

That's as fair as himself is bold:

There they sit ermine-stoled,

And she powders her hair with gold.

Fancy the Pampas' sheen!

Miles and miles of gold and green

Where the sunflowers blow

In a solid glow,

And—to break now and then the screen—

Black neck and eyeballs keen,

Up a wild horse leaps between!

Try, will our table turn?

Lay your hands there light, and yearn

Till the yearning slips

Through the finger-tips

In a fire which a few discern,

And a very few feel burn,

And the rest, they may live and learn!

Then we would up and pace,

For a change, about the place,

Each with arm o'er neck:

'T is our quarter-deck,

We are seamen in woeful case.

Help in the ocean-space!

Or, if no help, we'll embrace.

See, how she looks now, dressed

In a sledging-cap and vest!

'T is a huge fur cloak—

Like a reindeer's yoke

Falls the lappet along the breast:

Sleeves for her arms to rest,

Or to hang, as my Love likes best.

Teach me to flirt a fan

As the Spanish ladies can,

Or I tint your lip

With a burnt stick's tip

And you turn into such a man!

Just the two spots that span

Half the bill of the young male swan.

Dearest, three months ago

When the mesmerizer Snow

With his hand's first sweep

Put the earth to sleep:

'T was a time when the heart could show

All—how was earth to know,

'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro?

Dearest, three months ago

When we loved each other so,

Lived and loved the same

Till an evening came

When a shaft from the devil's bow

Pierced to our ingle-glow,

And the friends were friend and foe!

Not from the heart beneath—

'T was a bubble born of breath,

Neither sneer nor vaunt,

Nor reproach nor taunt.

See a word, how it severeth!

Oh, power of life and death

In the tongue, as the Preacher saith!

Woman, and will you cast

For a word, quite off at last

Me, your own, your You,—

Since, as truth is true,

I was You all the happy past—

Me do you leave aghast

With the memories We amassed?

Love, if you knew the light

That your soul casts in my sight,

How I look to you

For the pure and true,

And the beauteous and the right,—

Bear with a moment's spite

When a mere mote threats the white!

What of a hasty word?

Is the fleshly heart not stirred

By a worm's pin-prick

Where its roots are quick?

See the eye, by a fly's-foot blurred—

Ear, when a straw is heard

Scratch the brain's coat of curd!

Foul be the world or fair

More or less, how can I care?

'T is the world the same

For my praise or blame,

And endurance is easy there.

Wrong in the one thing rare—

Oh, it is hard to bear!

Here's the spring back or close,

When the almond-blossom blows;

We shall have the word

In a minor third,

There is none but the cuckoo knows:

Heaps of the guelder-rose!

I must bear with it, I suppose.

Could but November come,

Were the noisy birds struck dumb

At the warning slash

Of his driver's-lash—

I would laugh like the valiant Thumb

Facing the castle glum

And the giant's fee-faw-fum!

Then, were the world well stripped

Of the gear wherein equipped

We can stand apart,

Heart dispense with heart

In the sun, with the flowers unnipped,—

Oh, the world's hangings ripped,

We were both in a bare-walled crypt!

Each in the crypt would cry

"But one freezes here! and why?

When a heart, as chill,

At my own would thrill

Back to life, and its fires out-fly?

Heart, shall we live or die?

The rest, ... settle by and by!"

So, she'd efface the score,

And forgive me as before.

It is twelve o'clock:

I shall hear her knock

In the worst of a storm's uproar,

I shall pull her through the door,

I shall have her for evermore!

---

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!

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least!

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!

—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? Though winter be over in March by rights,

'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,

And 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 foambows flash

On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash

Round the lady atop in her conch—fifty gazers do not abash,

Though 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,

Exception 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:

You 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;

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,

Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, and Cicero,

"And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts of Saint Paul has reached,

Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached."

Noon strikes,—here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne smiling and smart

With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart!

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,

And 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

Published in Men and Women in 1855. An American author, visiting Browning and his wife at Casa Guidi in 1847, wrote of their occupations: "Mrs. Browning," he said, "was still too much of an invalid to walk, but she sat under the great trees upon the lawn-like hillsides near the convent, or in the seats of the dusky convent chapel, while Robert Browning at the organ chased a fugue, or dreamed out upon the twilight keys a faint throbbing toccata of Galuppi."

Oh Galuppi, Baldassare, this is very sad to find!

I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;

But although I take your meaning, 't is 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,

Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 't is arched by ... what you call

... 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.

Did 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 made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,—

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,

While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,

Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions—"Must we die?"

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!

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,

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 through 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.

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;

Butterflies may dread extinction,—you 'll not die, it cannot be!

"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.

---

OLD PICTURES IN FLORENCE

The morn when first it thunders in March,

The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:

As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch

Of the villa-gate this warm March day,

No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled

In the valley beneath where, white and wide

And washed by the morning water-gold,

Florence lay out on the mountain-side.

River and bridge and street and square

Lay mine, as much at my beck and call,

Through the live translucent bath of air,

As the sights in a magic crystal ball.

And of all I saw and of all I praised,

The most to praise and the best to see,

Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised:

But why did it more than startle me?

Giotto, how, with that soul of yours,

Could, you play me false who loved you so?

Some slights if a certain heart endures

Yet it feels, I would have your fellows know!

I' faith, I perceive not why I should care

To break a silence that suits them best,

But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear

When I find a Giotto join the rest.

On the arch where olives overhead

Print the blue sky with twig and leaf,

(That sharp-curled leaf which they never shed)

'Twixt the aloes, I used to lean in chief,

And mark through the winter afternoons,

By a gift God grants me now and then,

In the mild decline of those suns like moons,

Who walked in Florence, besides her men.

They might chirp and chaffer, come and go

For pleasure or profit, her men alive—

My business was hardly with them, I trow,

But with empty cells of the human hive;

—With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch,

The church's apsis, aisle or nave,

Its crypt, one fingers along with a torch,

Its face set full for the sun to shave.

Wherever a fresco peels and drops,

Wherever an outline weakens and wanes

Till the latest life in the painting stops,

Stands One whom each fainter pulse-tick pains:

One, wishful each scrap should clutch the brick,

Each tinge not wholly escape the plaster,

—A lion who dies of an ass's kick.

The wronged great soul of an ancient Master.

For oh, this world and the wrong it does!

They are safe in heaven with their backs to it,

The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz

Round the works of, you of the little wit!

Do their eyes contract to the earth's old scope,

Now that they see God face to face,

And have all attained to be poets, I hope?

'T is their holiday now, in any case.

Much they reek of your praise and you!

But the wronged great souls—can they be quit

Of a world where their work is all to do,

Where you style them, you of the little wit,

Old Master This and Early the Other,

Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows:

A younger succeeds to an elder brother,

Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.

And here where your praise might yield returns,

And a handsome word or two give help,

Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns

And the puppy pack of poodles yelp.

What, not a word for Stefano there,

Of brow once prominent and starry,

Called Nature's Ape, and the world's despair

For his peerless painting? (See Vasari.)

There stands the Master. Study, my friends,

What a man's work comes to! So he plans it,

Performs it, perfects it, makes amends

For the toiling and moiling, and then, sic transit!

Happier the thrifty blind-folk labor,

With upturned eye while the hand is busy,

Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbor!

'T is looking downward that makes one dizzy.

"If you knew their work you would deal your dole."

May I take upon me to instruct you?

When Greek Art ran and reached the goal,

Thus much had the world to boast in fructu—

The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken,

Which the actual generations garble,

Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken)

And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.

So you saw yourself as you wished you were,

As you might have been, as you cannot be;

Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there:

And grew content in your poor degree

With your little power, by those statues' god-head

And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway,

And your little grace, by their grace embodied,

And your little date, by their forms that stay.

You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am?

Even so, you will not sit like Theseus.

You would prove a model? The Son of Priam

Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use.

You 're wroth—can you slay your snake like Apollo?

You 're grieved—still Niobe's the grander!

You live—there's the Racers' frieze to follow:

You die—there's the dying Alexander.

So, testing your weakness by their strength,

Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty,

Measured by Art in your breadth and length,

You learned—to submit is a mortal's duty.

—When I say "you" 'tis the common soul,

The collective, I mean: the race of Man

That receives life in parts to live in a whole,

And grow here according to God's clear plan.

Growth came when, looking your last on them all,

You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day

And cried with a start—What if we so small

Be greater and grander the while than they?

Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature?

In both, of such lower types are we

Precisely because of our wider nature;

For time, theirs—ours, for eternity.

To-day's brief passion limits their range;

It seethes with the morrow for us and more.

They are perfect—how else? they shall never change:

We are faulty—why not? we have time in store.

The Artificer's hand is not arrested

With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished:

They stand for our copy, and, once invested

With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished.

'T is a life-long toil till our lump be leaven—

The better! What's come to perfection perishes.

Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven:

Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes.

Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto!

Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish,

Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) "O!"

Thy great Campanile is still to finish.

Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter,

But what and where depend on life's minute?

Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter

Our first step out of the gulf or in it?

Shall Man, such step within his endeavor,

Man's face, have no more play and action

Than joy which is crystallized forever,

Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?

On which I conclude, that the early painters,

To cries of "Greek Art and what more wish you?"—

Replied, "To become now self-acquainters,

And paint man, man, whatever the issue!

Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,

New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters:

To bring the invisible full into play!

Let the visible go to the dogs—what matters?"

Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory

For daring so much, before they well did it.

The first of the new, in our race's story,

Beats the last of the old; 't is no idle quiddit.

The worthies began a revolution,

Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge,

Why, honor them now! (ends my allocution)

Nor confer your degree when the folk leave college.

There's a fancy some lean to and others hate—

That, when this life is ended, begins

New work for the soul in another state,

Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins:

Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries,

Repeat in large what they practised in small,

Through life after life in unlimited series;

Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.

Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen

By the means of Evil that Good is best,

And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene,—

When our faith in the same has stood the test—

Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod,

The uses of labor are surely done;

There remaineth a rest for the people of God:

And I have had troubles enough, for one.

But at any rate I have loved the season

Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy;

My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan,

My painter—who but Cimabue?

Nor ever was man of them all indeed,

From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo,

Could say that he missed my critic-meed.

So, now to my special grievance—heigh-ho!

Their ghosts still stand, as I said before,

Watching each fresco flaked and rasped,

Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er:

—No getting again what the church has grasped!

The works on the wall must take their chance;

"Works never conceded to England's thick clime!"

(I hope they prefer their inheritance

Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.)

When they go at length, with such a shaking

Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly

Each master his way through the black streets taking,

Where many a lost work breathes though badly—

Why don't they bethink them of who has merited?

Why not reveal, while their pictures dree

Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted?

Why is it they never remember me?

Not that I expect the great Bigordi,

Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose;

Nor the wronged Lippino; and not a word I

Say of a scrap of Frà Angelico's:

But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi,

To grant me a taste of your intonaco,

Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye?

Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco?

Could not the ghost with the close red cap,

My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman,

Save me a sample, give me the hap

Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughtsman?

No Virgin by him the somewhat petty,

Of finical touch and tempera crumbly—

Could not Alesso Baldovinetti

Contribute so much, I ask him humbly?

Margheritone of Arezzo,

With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret,

(Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so,

You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?)

Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion,

Where in the foreground kneels the donor?

If such remain, as is my conviction,

The hoarding it does you but little honor.

They pass; for them the panels may thrill,

The tempera grow alive and tinglish;

Their pictures are left to the mercies still

Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English,

Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize,

Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno

At naked High Art, and in ecstasies

Before some clay-cold vile Carlino!

No matter for these! But Giotto, you,

Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it,—

Oh, never! it shall not be counted true—

That a certain precious little tablet

Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover—

Was buried so long in oblivion's womb

And, left for another than I to discover,

Turns up at last! and to whom?—to whom?

I, that have haunted the dim San Spirito,

(Or was it rather the Ognissanti?)

Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe!

Nay, I shall have it yet! Detur amanti!

My Koh-i-noor—or (if that's a platitude)

Jewel of Giamschid, the Persian Sofi's eye;

So, in anticipative gratitude,

What if I take up my hope and prophesy?

When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotard

Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing,

To the worse side of the Mont St. Gothard,

We shall begin by way of rejoicing;

None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge),

Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer,

Hunting Radetzky's soul like a partridge

Over Morello with squib and cracker.

This time we 'll shoot better game and bag 'em hot—

No mere display at the stone of Dante,

But a kind of sober Witanagemot

(Ex: "Casa Guidi," quod videas ante)

Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence,

How Art may return that departed with her.

Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine's,

And bring us the days of Orgagna hither!

How we shall prologuize, how we shall perorate,

Utter fit things upon art and history,

Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero rate,

Make of the want of the age no mystery;

Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras,

Show—monarchy ever its uncouth cub licks

Out of the bear's shape into Chimæra's,

While Pure Art's birth is still the republic's.

Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan,

Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an "issimo,")

To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan,

And turn the bell-tower's alt to altissimo;

And fine as the beak of a young beccaceia

The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally,

Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia,

Completing Florence, as Florence Italy.

Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold

Is broken away, and the long-pent fire,

Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffled

Springs from its sleep, and up goes the spire

While "God and the People" plain for its motto,

Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky?

At least to foresee that glory of Giotto

And Florence together, the first am I!

---

"DE GUSTIBUS—"

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,

(If our loves remain)

In an English lane,

By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.

Hark, those two in the hazel coppice—

A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,

Making love, say,—

The happier they!

Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,

And let them pass, as they will too soon,

With the beanflowers' boon,

And the blackbird's tune,

And May, and June!

What I love best in all the world

Is a castle, precipice-encurled,

In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine,

Or look for me, old fellow of mine,

(If I get my head from out the mouth

O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,

And come again to the land of lands)—

In a sea-side house to the farther South,

Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,

And one sharp tree—'t is a cypress—stands.

By the many hundred years red-rusted,

Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,

My sentinel to guard the sands

To the water's edge. For, what expands

Before the house, but the great opaque

Blue breadth of sea without a break?

While, in the house, forever crumbles

Some fragment of the frescoed walls,

From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.

A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles

Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,

And says there's news to-day—the king

Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing,

Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:

—She hopes they have not caught the felons.

Italy, my Italy!

Queen Mary's saying serves for me—

(When fortune's malice

Lost her, Calais)

Open my heart and you will see

Graved inside of it, "Italy."

Such lovers old are I and she:

So it always was, so shall ever be!

---

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

This and the following poem were first published along with Beer, which bore the name Here's to Nelson's Memory, under the general heading Home-Thoughts, from Abroad. The final member of the group, Home-Thoughts, from the Sea, was written under the same circumstances as the poem, How They brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.

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 brush-wood 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,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, 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

—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away;

Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;

Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;

In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray;

"Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"—say,

Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

---

SAUL

The first nine sections of this poem were printed under the same title in No. VII. of Bells and Pomegranates, in 1845. The poem as enlarged was published in Men and Women in 1855.

I

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 nor 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.

II

"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!"

III

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 naught 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 through the tent-roof, showed Saul.

IV

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.

V

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!

VI

—Then the tune for which quails on the corn-land 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.

VII

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

Naught 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.

VIII

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:—

IX

"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 couched in his lair.

And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine,

And the locust-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 through 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!"

X

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 intensely: so, arm folded arm

O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.

XI

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.

XII

Then fancies grew rife

Which had come long ago on the pasture, 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—

XIII

"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 't is 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 a-wave

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!"

XIV

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.

XV

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 he 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 awhile,

And 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 time, 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: through 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!"

XVI

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

XVII

"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 dewdrop 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 a 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 appall?

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 dayspring, 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 struggles in this."

XVIII

"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 loth

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!"

XIX

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' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills;

In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still

Though averted with wonder and dread; in 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!"

---

MY STAR

This poem has been held to refer pointedly to Mrs. Browning. An inference to this end may be drawn from the fact that it stands first in a volume of Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning, published in 1872 and dedicated to Alfred Tennyson. "In Poetry—Illustrious and consummate: In Friendship—Noble and sincere." The selection was made under Browning's supervision and contains the following preface:—

"In the present selection from my poetry, there is an attempt to escape from the embarrassment of appearing to pronounce upon what myself may consider the best of it. I adopt another principle; and by simply stringing together certain pieces on the thread of an imagined personality, I present them in succession, rather as the natural development of a particular experience than because I account them the most noteworthy portion of my work. Such an attempt was made in the volume of selections from the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning: to which—in outward uniformity, at least—my own would venture to become a companion.

"A few years ago, had such an opportunity presented itself, I might have been tempted to say a word in reply to the objections my poetry was used to encounter. Time has kindly coöperated with my disinclination to write the poetry and the criticism besides. The readers I am at last privileged to expect, meet me fully halfway; and if, from the fitting stand-point, they must still 'censure me in their wisdom,' they have previously 'awakened their senses that they may the better judge.' Nor do I apprehend any more charges of being willfully obscure, unconscientiously careless, or perversely harsh. Having hitherto done my utmost in the art to which my life is a devotion, I cannot engage to increase the effort; but I conceive that there may be helpful light, as well as reassuring warmth, in the attention and sympathy I gratefully acknowledge. R. B."

London, May14, 1872.

All that I know

Of a certain star

Is, it can throw

(Like the angled spar)

Now a dart of red,

Now a dart of blue;

Till my friends have said

They would fain see, too,

My star that dartles the red and the blue!

Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:

They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.

What matter to me if their star is a world?

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

---

BY THE FIRESIDE

The scene of the declaration in this poem is laid in a little mountain gorge adjacent to the Baths of Lucca, where the Brownings spent the summer of 1853.

How well I know what I mean to do

When the long dark autumn evenings come;

And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?

With the music of all thy voices, dumb

In life's November too!

I shall be found by the fire, suppose,

O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age,

While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows,

And I turn the page, and I turn the page,

Not verse now, only prose!

Till the young ones whisper, finger on lip,

"There he is at it, deep in Greek:

Now then, or never, out we slip

To cut from the hazels by the creek

A mainmast for our ship!"

I shall be at it indeed, my friends!

Greek puts already on either side

Such a branch-work forth as soon extends

To a vista opening far and wide,

And I pass out where it ends.

The outside-frame, like your hazel-trees—

But the inside-archway widens fast,

And a rarer sort succeeds to these,

And we slope to Italy at last

And youth, by green degrees.

I follow wherever I am led,

Knowing so well the leader's hand:

Oh woman-country, wooed not wed,

Loved all the more by earth's male-lands,

Laid to their hearts instead!

Look at the ruined chapel again

Half-way up in the Alpine gorge!

Is that a tower, I point you plain,

Or is it a mill, or an iron forge

Breaks solitude in vain?

A turn, and we stand in the heart of things;

The woods are round us, heaped and dim;

From slab to slab how it slips and springs,

The thread of water single and slim,

Through the ravage some torrent brings!

Does it feed the little lake below?

That speck of white just on its marge

Is Pella; see, in the evening-glow,

How sharp the silver spear-heads charge

When Alp meets heaven in snow!

On our other side is the straight-up rock;

And a path is kept 'twixt the gorge and it

By boulder-stones where lichens mock

The marks on a moth, and small ferns fit

Their teeth to the polished block.

Oh the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers,

And thorny halls, each three in one,

The chestnuts throw on our path in showers!

For the drop of the woodland fruit's begun,

These early November hours,

That crimson the creeper's leaf across

Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt,

O'er a shield else gold from rim to boss,

And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped

Elf-needled mat of moss,

By the rose-flesh mushrooms, undivulged

Last evening—nay, in to-day's first dew

Yon sudden coral nipple bulged,

Where a freaked fawn-colored flaky crew

Of toad-stools peep indulged.

And yonder, at foot of the fronting ridge

That takes the turn to a range beyond,

Is the chapel reached by the one-arched bridge

Where the water is stopped in a stagnant pond

Danced over by the midge.

The chapel and bridge are of stone alike,

Blackish-gray and mostly wet;

Cut hemp-stalks steep in the narrow dyke.

See here again, how the lichens fret

And the roots of the ivy strike!

Poor little place, where its one priest comes

On a festa-day, if he comes at all,

To the dozen folk from their scattered homes,

Gathered within that precinct small

By the dozen ways one roams—

To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts,

Or climb from the hemp-dressers' low shed,

Leave the grange where the woodman stores his nuts,

Or the wattled cote where the fowlers spread

Their gear on the rock's bare juts.

It has some pretension too, this front,

With its bit of fresco half-moon-wise

Set over the porch, Art's early wont:

'T is John in the Desert, I surmise,

But has borne the weather's brunt—

Not from the fault of the builder, though,

For a pent-house properly projects

Where three carved beams make a certain show,

Dating—good thought of our architect's—

'Five, six, nine, he lets you know.

And all day long a bird sings there,

And a stray sheep drinks at the pond at times;

The place is silent and aware;

It has had its scenes, its joys and crimes,

But that is its own affair.

My perfect wife, my Leonor,

Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too,

Whom else could I dare look backward for,

With whom beside should I dare pursue

The path gray heads abhor?

For it leads to a crag's sheer edge with them;

Youth, flowery all the way, there stops—

Not they; age threatens and they contemn,

Till they reach the gulf wherein youth drops,

One inch from life's safe hem!

With me, youth led ... I will speak now,

No longer watch you as you sit

Reading by fire-light, that great brow

And the spirit-small hand propping it,

Mutely, my heart knows how—

When, if I think but deep enough,

You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme;

And you, too, find without rebuff

Response your soul seeks many a time

Piercing its fine flesh-stuff.

My own, confirm me! If I tread

This path back, is it not in pride

To think how little I dreamed it led

To an age so blest that, by its side,

Youth seems the waste instead?

My own, see where the years conduct!

At first, 't was something our two souls

Should mix as mists do; each is sucked

In each now: on, the new stream rolls,

Whatever rocks obstruct.

Think, when our one soul understands

The great Word which makes all things new.

When earth breaks up and heaven expands,

How will the change strike me and you

In the house not made with hands?

Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine,

Your heart anticipate my heart,

You must be just before, in fine,

See and make me see, for your part,

New depths of the divine!

But who could have expected this

When we two drew together first

Just for the obvious human bliss,

To satisfy life's daily thirst

With a thing men seldom miss?

Come back with me to the first of all,

Let us lean and love it over again,

Let us now forget and now recall,

Break the rosary in a pearly rain

And gather what we let fall!

What did I say?—that a small bird sings

All day long, save when a brown pair

Of hawks from the wood float with wide wings

Strained to a bell: 'gainst noonday glare

You count the streaks and rings.

But at afternoon or almost eve

'T is better; then the silence grows

To that degree, you half believe

It must get rid of what it knows,

Its bosom does so heave.

Hither we walked then, side by side,

Arm in arm and cheek to cheek,

And still I questioned or replied,

While my heart, convulsed to really speak,

Lay choking in its pride.

Silent the crumbling bridge we cross,

And pity and praise the chapel sweet,

And care about the fresco's loss,

And wish for our souls a like retreat,

And wonder at the moss.

Stoop and kneel on the settle under,

Look through the window's grated square:

Nothing to see! For fear of plunder,

The cross is down and the altar bare,

As if thieves don't fear thunder.

We stoop and look in through the grate,

See the little porch and rustic door,

Read duly the dead builder's date;

Then cross the bridge that we crossed before,

Take the path again—but wait!

Oh moment, one and infinite!

The water slips o'er stock and stone;

The West is tender, hardly bright:

How gray at once is the evening grown—

One star, its chrysolite!

We two stood there with never a third,

But each by each, as each knew well:

The sights we saw and the sounds we heard,

The lights and the shades made up a spell

Till the trouble grew and stirred.

Oh, the little more, and how much it is!

And the little less, and what worlds away!

How a sound shall quicken content to bliss,

Or a breath suspend the blood's best play,

And life be a proof of this!

Had she willed it, still had stood the screen

So slight, so sure, 'twixt my love and her:

I could fix her face with a guard between,

And find her soul as when friends confer,

Friends—lovers that might have been.

For my heart had a touch of the woodland-time,

Wanting to sleep now over its best.

Shake the whole tree in the summer-prime,

But bring to the last leaf no such test!

"Hold the last fast!" runs the rhyme.

For a chance to make your little much,

To gain a lover and lose a friend,

Venture the tree and a myriad such,

When nothing you mar but the year can mend:

But a last leaf—fear to touch!

Yet should it unfasten itself and fall

Eddying down till it find your face

At some slight wind—best chance of all!

Be your heart henceforth its dwelling-place

You trembled to forestall!

Worth how well, those dark gray eyes,

That hair so dark and dear, how worth

That a man should strive and agonize,

And taste a veriest hell on earth

For the hope of such a prize!

You might have turned and tried a man,

Set him a space to weary and wear,

And prove which suited more your plan,

His best of hope or his worst despair,

Yet end as he began.

But you spared me this, like the heart you are,

And filled my empty heart at a word.

If two lives join, there is oft a scar,

They are one and one, with a shadowy third;

One near one is too far.

A moment after, and hands unseen

Were hanging the night around us fast;

But we knew that a bar was broken between

Life and life: we were mixed at last

In spite of the mortal screen.

The forests had done it; there they stood;

We caught for a moment the powers at play;

They had mingled us so, for once and good,

Their work was done—we might go or stay,

They relapsed to their ancient mood.

How the world is made for each of us!

How all we perceive and know in it

Tends to some moment's product thus,

When a soul declares itself—to wit,

By its fruit, the thing it does!

Be hate that fruit or love that fruit,

It forwards the general deed of man,

And each of the Many helps to recruit

The life of the race by a general plan;

Each living his own, to boot.

I am named and known by that moment's feat;

There took my station and degree;

So grew my own small life complete,

As nature obtained her best of me—

One born to love you, sweet!

And to watch you sink by the fireside now

Back again, as you mutely sit

Musing by fire-light, that great brow

And the spirit-small hand propping it,

Yonder, my heart knows how!

So, earth has gained by one man the more,

And the gain of earth must be heaven's gain too;

And the whole is well worth thinking o'er

When autumn comes: which I mean to do

One day, as I said before.

---

ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou—

Who art all truth, and who dost love me now

As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say—

Shouldst love so truly, and couldst love me still

A whole long life through, had but love its will,

Would death that leads me from thee brook delay.

I have but to be by thee, and thy hand

Will never let mine go, nor heart withstand

The beating of my heart to reach its place.

When shall I look for thee and feel thee gone?

When cry for the old comfort and find none?

Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face.

Oh, I should fade—'tis willed so! Might I save,

Gladly I would, whatever beauty gave

Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too.

It is not to be granted. But the soul

Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole;

Vainly the flesh fades; soul makes all things new.

It would not be because my eye grew dim

Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him

Who never is dishonored in the spark

He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade

Remember whence it sprang, nor be afraid

While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark.

So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean

Outside as inside, soul and soul's demesne

Alike, this body given to show it by!

Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss,

What plaudits from the next world after this,

Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky!

And is it not the bitterer to think

That disengage our hands and thou wilt sink

Although thy love was love in very deed?

I know that nature! Pass a festive day,

Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away

Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed.

Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell;

If old things remain old things all is well,

For thou art grateful as becomes man best:

And hadst thou only heard me play one tune,

Or viewed me from a window, not so soon

With thee would such things fade as with the rest.

I seem to see! We meet and part; 't is brief;

The book I opened keeps a folded leaf,

The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank;

That is a portrait of me on the wall—

Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call:

And for all this, one little hour to thank!

But now, because the hour through years was fixed,

Because our inmost beings met and mixed,

Because thou once hast loved me—wilt thou dare

Say to thy soul and Who may list beside,

"Therefore she is immortally my bride;

Chance cannot change my love, nor time impair.

"So, what if in the dusk of life that's left,

I, a tired traveller of my sun bereft,

Look from my path when, mimicking the same,

The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone?

—Where was it till the sunset? Where anon

It will be at the sunrise! What's to blame?"

Is it so helpful to thee? Canst thou take

The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake,

Put gently by such efforts at a beam?

Is the remainder of the way so long,

Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong?

Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream!

Ah, but the fresher faces! "Is it true,"

Thou 'lt ask, "some eyes are beautiful and new?

Some hair,—how can one choose but grasp such wealth?

And if a man would press his lips to lips

Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips

The dewdrop out of, must it be by stealth?

"It cannot change the love still kept for Her,

More than if such a picture I prefer

Passing a day with, to a room's bare side:

The painted form takes nothing she possessed,

Yet, while the Titian's Venus lies at rest,

A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?"

So must I see, from where I sit and watch,

My own self sell myself, my hand attach

Its warrant to the very thefts from me—

Thy singleness of soul that made me proud,

Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,

Thy man's-truth I was bold to bid God see!

Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst

Away to the new faces—disentranced,

(Say it and think it) obdurate no more:

Re-issue looks and words from the old mint,

Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print

Image and superscription once they bore!

Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,—

It all comes to the same thing at the end,

Since mine thou wast, mine art and mine shalt be,

Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum

Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come

Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee!

Only, why should it be with stain at all?

Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal,

Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow?

Why need the other women know so much,

And talk together, "Such the look and such

The smile he used to love with, then as now!"

Might I die last and show thee! Should I find

Such hardship in the few years left behind,

If free to take and light my lamp, and go

Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit,

Seeing thy face on those four sides of it

The better that they are so blank, I know!

Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er

Within my mind each look, get more and more

By heart each word, too much to learn at first:

And join thee all the fitter for the pause

'Neath the low doorway's lintel. That were cause

For lingering, though thou calledst, if I durst!

And yet thou art the nobler of us two:

What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do,

Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride?

I'll say then, here's a trial and a task—

Is it to bear?—if easy, I'll not ask:

Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride.

Pride?—when those eyes forestall the life behind

The death I have to go through!—when I find,

Now that I want thy help most, all of thee!

What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast

Until the little minute's sleep is past

And I wake saved.—And yet it will not be!

---

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA

I wonder do you feel to-day

As I have felt since, hand in hand,

We sat down on the grass, to stray

In spirit better through the land,

This morn of Rome and May?

For me, I touched a thought, I know,

Has tantalized me many times,

(Like turns of thread the spiders throw

Mocking across our path) for rhymes

To catch at and let go.

Help me to hold it! First it left

The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork's cleft,

Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed

Took up the floating weft,

Where one small orange cup amassed

Five beetles,—blind and green they grope

Among the honey-meal: and last,

Everywhere on the grassy slope

I traced it. Hold it fast!

The champaign with its endless fleece

Of feathery grasses everywhere!

Silence and passion, joy and peace,

An everlasting wash of air—

Rome's ghost since her decease.

Such life here, through such lengths of hours,

Such miracles performed in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,

Such letting nature have her way

While heaven looks from its towers!

How say you? Let us, O my dove,

Let us be unashamed of soul,

As earth lies bare to heaven above!

How is it under our control

To love or not to love?

I would that you were all to me,

You that are just so much, no more.

Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!

Where does the fault lie? What the core

O' the wound, since wound must be?

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart

Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul's springs,—your part my part

In life, for good and ill.

No. I yearn upward, touch you close.

Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

Catch your soul's warmth,—I pluck the rose

And love it more than tongue can speak—

Then the good minute goes.

Already how am I so far

Out of that minute? Must I go

Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,

Onward, whenever light winds blow,

Fixed by no friendly star?

Just when I seemed about to learn!

Where is the thread now? Off again!

The old trick! Only I discern—

Infinite passion, and the pain

Of finite hearts that yearn.

---

MISCONCEPTIONS

This is a spray the Bird clung to,

Making it blossom with pleasure,

Ere the high tree-top she sprung to,

Fit for her nest and her treasure.

Oh, what a hope beyond measure

Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,—

So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!

This is a heart the Queen leant on,

Thrilled in a minute erratic,

Ere the true bosom she bent on,

Meet for love's regal dalmatic.

Oh, what a fancy ecstatic

Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on—

Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!

---

A SERENADE AT THE VILLA

That was I, you heard last night,

When there rose no moon at all,

Nor, to pierce the strained and tight

Tent of heaven, a planet small:

Life was dead and so was light.

Not a twinkle from the fly,

Not a glimmer from the worm;

When the crickets stopped their cry,

When the owls forebore a term,

You heard music; that was I.

Earth turned in her sleep with pain,

Sultrily suspired for proof:

In at heaven and out again,

Lightning!—where it broke the roof,

Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

What they could my words expressed.

O my love, my all, my one!

Singing helped the verses best.

And when singing's best was done,

To my lute I left the rest.

So wore night; the East was gray,

White the broad-faced hemlock-flowers;

There would be another day;

Ere its first of heavy hours

Found me, I had passed away.

What became of all the hopes,

Words and song and lute as well?

Say, this struck you—"When life gropes

Feebly for the path where fell

Light last on the evening slopes,

One friend in that path shall be,

To secure my step from wrong;

One to count night day for me,

Patient through the watches long,

Serving most with none to see."

Never say—as something bodes—

"So, the worst has yet a worse!

When life halts 'neath double loads,

Better the task-master's curse

Than such music on the roads!

"When no moon succeeds the sun,

Nor can pierce the midnight's tent

Any star, the smallest one,

While some drops, where lightning rent,

Show the final storm begun—

"When the fire-fly hides its spot,

When the garden-voices fail

In the darkness thick and hot,—

Shall another voice avail.

That shape be where these are not?

"Has some plague a longer lease,

Proffering its help uncouth?

Can't one even die in peace?

As one shuts one's eyes on youth,

Is that face the last one sees?"

Oh, how dark your villa was,

Windows fast and obdurate!

How the garden grudged me grass

Where I stood—the iron gate

Ground its teeth to let me pass!

---

ONE WAY OF LOVE

All June I bound the rose in sheaves.

Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves

And strew them where Pauline may pass.

She will not turn aside? Alas!

Let them lie. Suppose they die?

The chance was they might take her eye.

How many a month I strove to suit

These stubborn fingers to the lute!

To-day I venture all I know.

She will not hear my music? So!

Break the string; fold music's wing:

Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

My whole life long I learned to love.

This hour my utmost art I prove

And speak my passion—heaven or hell?

She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well!

Lose who may—I still can say,

Those who win heaven, blest are they!

---

ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE

June was not over

Though past the full,

And the best of her roses

Had yet to blow,

When a man I know

(But shall not discover,

Since ears are dull,

And time discloses)

Turned him and said with a man's true air,

Half sighing a smile in a yawn, as 't were,—

"If I tire of your June, will she greatly care?"

Well, dear, in-doors with you!

True! serene deadness

Tries a man's temper.

What's in the blossom

June wears on her bosom?

Can it clear scores with you?

Sweetness and redness,

Eadem semper!

Go, let me care for it greatly or slightly!

If June mend her bower now, your hand left unsightly

By plucking the roses,—my June will do rightly.

And after, for pastime,

If June be refulgent

With flowers in completeness,

All petals, no prickles,

Delicious as trickles

Of wine poured at mass-time,—

And choose One indulgent

To redness and sweetness:

Or if, with experience of man and of spider,

June use my June-lightning, the strong insect-ridder,

And stop the fresh film-work,—why, June will consider.

---

A PRETTY WOMAN

That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,

And the blue eye

Dear and dewy,

And that infantine fresh air of hers!

To think men cannot take you, Sweet,

And enfold you,

Ay, and hold you,

And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!

You like us for a glance, you know—

For a word's sake

Or a sword's sake,

All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.

And in turn we make you ours, we say—

You and youth too,

Eyes and mouth too,

All the face composed of flowers, we say.

All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet—

Sing and say for,

Watch and pray for,

Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!

But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,

Though we prayed you,

Paid you, brayed you

In a mortar—for you could not, Sweet!

So, we leave the sweet face fondly there:

Be its beauty

Its sole duty!

Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!

And while the face lies quiet there,

Who shall wonder

That I ponder

A conclusion? I will try it there.

As,—why must one, for the love foregone,

Scout mere liking?

Thunder-striking

Earth,—the heaven, we looked above for, gone!

Why, with beauty, needs there money be,

Love with liking?

Crush the fly-king

In his gauze, because no honey-bee?

May not liking be so simple-sweet,

If love grew there

'T would undo there

All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?

Is the creature too imperfect, say?

Would you mend it

And so end it?

Since not all addition perfects aye!

Or is it of its kind, perhaps,

Just perfection—

Whence, rejection

Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?

Shall we burn up, tread that face at once

Into tinder,

And so hinder

Sparks from kindling all the place at once?

Or else kiss away one's soul on her?

Your love-fancies!

—A sick man sees

Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!

Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,—

Plucks a mould-flower

For his gold flower,

Uses fine things that efface the rose:

Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,

Precious metals

Ape the petals,—

Last, some old king locks it up, morose!

Then how grace a rose? I know a way!

Leave it, rather.

Must you gather?

Smell, kiss, wear it—at last, throw away!

---

RESPECTABILITY

Dear, had the world in its caprice

Deigned to proclaim "I know you both,

Have recognized your plighted troth,

Am sponsor for you: live in peace!"—

How many precious months and years

Of youth had passed, that speed so fast,

Before we found it out at last,

The world, and what it fears!

How much of priceless life were spent

With men that every virtue decks,

And women models of their sex,

Society's true ornament,—

Ere we dared wander, nights like this,

Through wind and rain, and watch the Seine,

And feel the Boulevard break again

To warmth and light and bliss!

I know! the world proscribes not love;

Allows my finger to caress

Your lips' contour and downiness,

Provided it supply a glove.

The world's good word!—the Institute!

Guizot receives Montalembert!

Eh? Down the court three lampions flare:

Put forward your best foot!

---

LOVE IN A LIFE

Room after room,

I hunt the house through

We inhabit together.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her—

Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her

Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!

As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew:

Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

Yet the day wears,

And door succeeds door;

I try the fresh fortune—

Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.

Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.

Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?

But 't is twilight, you see,—with such suites to explore,

Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

---

LIFE IN A LOVE

Escape me?

Never—

Beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,

Me the loving and you the loth,

While the one eludes, must the other pursue.

My life is a fault at last, I fear:

It seems too much like a fate, indeed!

Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.

But what if I fail of my purpose here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain,

To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,

And baffled, get up and begin again,—

So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.

While, look but once from your farthest bound

At me so deep in the dust and dark,

No sooner the old hope goes to ground

Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,

I shape me—

Ever

Removed!

---

IN THREE DAYS

So, I shall see her in three days

And just one night, but nights are short,

Then two long hours, and that is morn.

See how I come, unchanged, unworn!

Feel, where my life broke off from thine,

How fresh the splinters keep and fine,—

Only a touch and we combine!

Too long, this time of year, the days!

But nights, at least the nights are short.

As night shows where her one moon is,

A hand's-breadth of pure light and bliss,

So life's night gives my lady birth

And my eyes hold her! What is worth

The rest of heaven, the rest of earth?

O loaded curls, release your store

Of warmth and scent, as once before

The tingling hair did, lights and darks

Outbreaking into fairy sparks,

When under curl and curl I pried

After the warmth and scent inside,

Through lights and darks how manifold—

The dark inspired, the light controlled!

As early Art embrowns the gold.

What great fear, should one say, "Three days

That change the world might change as well

Your fortune; and if joy delays,

Be happy that no worse befell!"

What small fear, if another says,

"Three days and one short night beside

May throw no shadow on your ways;

But years must teem with change untried,

With chance not easily defied,

With an end somewhere undescried."

No fear!—or if a fear be born

This minute, it dies out in scorn.

Fear? I shall see her in three days

And one night, now the nights are short,

Then just two hours, and that is morn.

---

IN A YEAR

Never any more,

While I live,

Need I hope to see his face

As before.

Once his love grown chill,

Mine may strive:

Bitterly we re-embrace,

Single still.

Was it something said,

Something done,

Vexed him? Was it touch of hand,

Turn of head?

Strange! that very way

Love begun:

I as little understand

Love's decay.

When I sewed or drew,

I recall

How he looked as if I sung,

—Sweetly too.

If I spoke a word,

First of all

Up his cheek the color sprung,

Then he heard.

Sitting by my side,

At my feet,

So he breathed but air I breathed,

Satisfied!

I, too, at love's brim

Touched the sweet:

I would die if death bequeathed

Sweet to him.

"Speak, I love thee best!"

He exclaimed:

"Let thy love my own foretell!"

I confessed:

"Clasp my heart on thine

Now unblamed,

Since upon thy soul as well

Hangeth mine!"

Was it wrong to own,

Being truth?

Why should all the giving prove

His alone?

I had wealth and ease,

Beauty, youth:

Since my lover gave me love,

I gave these.

That was all I meant,

—To be just,

And the passion I had raised,

To content.

Since he chose to change

Gold for dust,

If I gave him what he praised

Was it strange?

Would he loved me yet,

On and on,

While I found some way undreamed

—Paid my debt!

Gave more life and more,

Till, all gone,

He should smile "She never seemed

Mine before.

"What, she felt the while,

Must I think?

Love's so different with us men!"

He should smile:

"Dying for my sake—

White and pink!

Can't we touch these bubbles then

But they break?"

Dear, the pang is brief,

Do thy part,

Have thy pleasure! How perplexed

Grows belief!

Well, this cold clay clod

Was man's heart:

Crumble it, and what comes next?

Is it God?

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WOMEN AND ROSES

Written on the suggestion of some roses sent Mrs. Browning. At the time of writing, Browning was carrying out a resolve to write a poem a day, a resolve which lasted a fortnight.

I

I dream of a red-rose tree.

And which of its roses three

Is the dearest rose to me?

II

Round and round, like a dance of snow

In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go

Floating the women faded for ages,

Sculptured in stone, on the poet's pages.

Then follow women fresh and gay,

Living and loving and loved to-day,

Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,

Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one cadence,

They circle their rose on my rose tree.

III

Dear rose, thy term is reached,

Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached:

Bees pass it unimpeached.

IV

Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb,

You, great shapes of the antique time!

How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you,

Break my heart at your feet to please you?

Oh, to possess and be possessed!

Hearts that beat 'neath each pallid breast!

Once but of love, the poesy, the passion,

Drink but once and die!—In vain, the same fashion,

They circle their rose on my rose tree.

V

Dear rose, thy joy's undimmed,

Thy cup is ruby-rimmed,

Thy cup's heart nectar-brimmed.

VI

Deep, as drops from a statue's plinth

The bee sucked in by the hyacinth,

So will I bury me while burning,

Quench like him at a plunge my yearning,

Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!

Fold me fast where the cincture slips,

Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure,

Girdle me for once! But no—the old measure,

They circle their rose on my rose tree.

VII

Dear rose without a thorn,

Thy bud 's the babe unborn:

First streak of a new morn.

VIII

Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear!

What is far conquers what is near.

Roses will bloom nor want beholders,

Sprung from the dust where our flesh moulders,

What shall arrive with the cycle's change?

A novel grace and a beauty strange.

I will make an Eve, be the artist that began her,

Shaped her to his mind!—Alas! in like manner

They circle their rose on my rose tree.

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BEFORE

Let them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far.

God must judge the couple: leave them as they are

—Whichever one's the guiltless, to his glory,

And whichever one the guilt 's with, to my story!

Why, you would not bid men, sunk in such a slough,

Strike no arm out further, stick and stink as now,

Leaving right and wrong to settle the embroilment,

Heaven with snaky hell, in torture and entoilment?

Who's the culprit of them? How must he conceive

God—the queen he caps to, laughing in his sleeve,

"'T is but decent to profess one's self beneath her:

Still, one must not be too much in earnest, either!"

Better sin the whole sin, sure that God observes;

Then go live his life out! Life will try his nerves,

When the sky, which noticed all, makes no disclosure,

And the earth keeps up her terrible composure.

Let him pace at pleasure, past the walls of rose,

Pluck their fruits when grape-trees graze him as he goes!

For he 'gins to guess the purpose of the garden,

With the sly mute thing, beside there, for a warden.

What's the leopard-dog-thing, constant at his side,

A leer and lie in every eye of its obsequious hide?

When will come an end to all the mock obeisance,

And the price appear that pays for the misfeasance?

So much for the culprit. Who's the martyred man?

Let him bear one stroke more, for be sure he can!

He that strove thus evil's lump with good to leaven,

Let him give his blood at last and get his heaven!

All or nothing, stake it! Trusts he God or no?

Thus far and no farther? farther? be it so!

Now, enough of your chicane of prudent pauses,

Sage provisos, sub-intents and saving-clauses!

Ah, "forgive" you bid him? While God's champion lives,

Wrong shall be resisted: dead, why, he forgives.

But you must not end my friend ere you begin him;

Evil stands not crowned on earth, while breath is in him.

Once more—Will the wronger, at this last of all,

Dare to say, "I did wrong," rising in his fall?

No?—Let go, then! Both the fighters to their places!

While I count three, step you back as many paces!

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AFTER

Take the cloak from his face, and at first

Let the corpse do its worst!

How he lies in his rights of a man!

Death has done all death can.

And, absorbed in the new life he leads,

He recks not, he heeds

Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike

On his senses alike,

And are lost in the solemn and strange

Surprise of the change.

Ha, what avails death to erase

His offence, my disgrace?

I would we were boys as of old

In the field, by the fold:

His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn

Were so easily borne!

I stand here now, he lies in his place:

Cover the face!

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THE GUARDIAN-ANGEL
A PICTURE AT FANO

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave

That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!

Let me sit all the day here, that when eve

Shall find performed thy special ministry,

And time come for departure, thou, suspending,

Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending,

Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,

From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,

—And suddenly my head is covered o'er

With those wings, white above the child who prays

Now on that tomb—and I shall feel thee guarding

Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding

Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

I would not look up thither past thy head

Because the door opes, like that child, I know,

For I should have thy gracious face instead,

Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low

Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,

And lift them up to pray, and gently tether

Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

If this was ever granted, I would rest

My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands

Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,

Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,

Back to its proper size again, and smoothing

Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,

And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!

I think how I should view the earth and skies

And sea, when once again my brow was bared

After thy healing, with such different eyes.

O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:

And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.

What further may be sought for or declared?

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach

(Alfred, dear friend!)—that little child to pray,

Holding the little hands up, each to each

Pressed gently,—with his own head turned away

Over the earth where so much lay before him

Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him,

And he was left at Fano by the beach.

We were at Fano, and three times we went

To sit and see him in his chapel there,

And drink his beauty to our soul's content

—My angel with me too: and since I care

For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power

And glory comes this picture for a dower,

Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)—

And since he did not work thus earnestly

At all times, and has else endured some wrong—

I took one thought his picture struck from me,

And spread it out, translating it to song.

My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?

How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?

This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.

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MEMORABILIA

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,

And did he stop and speak to you,

And did you speak to him again?

How strange it seems and new!

But you were living before that,

And also you are living after;

And the memory I started at—

My starting moves your laughter!

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own

And a certain use in the world no doubt,

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone

'Mid the blank miles round about:

For there I picked up on the heather,

And there I put inside my breast

A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!

Well, I forget the rest.

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POPULARITY

As the previous poem was an appreciation of Shelley, so this, of Keats.

Stand still, true poet that you are!

I know you; let me try and draw you.

Some night you'll fail us: when afar

You rise, remember one man saw you,

Knew you, and named a star!

My star, God's glow-worm! Why extend

That loving hand of his which leads you,

Yet locks you safe from end to end

Of this dark world, unless he needs you,

Just saves your light to spend?

His clenched hand shall unclose at last,

I know, and let out all the beauty:

My poet holds the future fast,

Accepts the coming ages' duty,

Their present for this past.

That day, the earth's feast-master's brow

Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;

"Others give best at first, but thou

Forever set'st our table praising,

Keep'st the good wine till now!"

Meantime, I'll draw you as you stand,

With few or none to watch and wonder:

I'll say—a fisher, on the sand

By Tyre the old, with ocean-plunder,

A netful, brought to land.

Who has not heard how Tyrian shells

Enclosed the blue, that dye of dyes

Whereof one drop worked miracles,

And colored like Astarte's eyes

Raw silk the merchant sells?

And each bystander of them all

Could criticise, and quote tradition

How depths of blue sublimed some pall

—To get which, pricked a king's ambition;

Worth sceptre, crown and ball.

Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh,

The sea has only just o'er-whispered!

Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping fresh,

As if they still the water's lisp heard

Through foam the rock-weeds thresh.

Enough to furnish Solomon

Such hangings for his cedar-house,

That, when gold-robed he took the throne

In that abyss of blue, the Spouse

Might swear his presence shone.

Most like the centre-spike of gold

Which burns deep in the bluebell's womb

What time, with ardors manifold,

The bee goes singing to her groom,

Drunken and overbold.

Mere conchs! not fit for warp or woof!

Till cunning come to pound and squeeze

And clarify,—refine to proof

The liquor filtered by degrees,

While the world stands aloof.

And there's the extract, flasked and fine,

And priced and salable at last!

And Hobbs, Nobbs, Stokes and Nokes combine

To paint the future from the past,

Put blue into their line.

Hobbs hints blue,—straight he turtle eats:

Nobbs prints blue,—claret crowns his cup:

Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,—

Both gorge. Who fished the murex up?

What porridge had John Keats?

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MASTER HUGUES OF SAXE-GOTHA

Whomever Browning may have had in mind, there was no historical figure with this name and place.

Hist, but a word, fair and soft!

Forth and be judged, Master Hugues!

Answer the question I've put you so oft:

What do you mean by your mountainous fugues?

See, we're alone in the loft,—

I, the poor organist here,

Hugues, the composer of note,

Dead though, and done with, this many a year:

Let's have a colloquy, something to quote,

Make the world prick up its ear!

See, the church empties apace:

Fast they extinguish the lights.

Hallo there, sacristan! Five minutes' grace!

Here's a crank pedal wants setting to rights,

Balks one of holding the base.

See, our huge house of the sounds,

Hushing its hundreds at once

Bids the last loiterer back to his bounds!

—O you may challenge them, not a response

Get the church-saints on their rounds!

(Saints go their rounds, who shall doubt?

—March, with the moon to admire,

Up nave, down chancel, turn transept about,

Supervise all betwixt pavement and spire,

Put rats and mice to the rout—

Aloys and Jurien and Just—

Order things back to their place,

Have a sharp eye lest the candlesticks rust,

Rub the church-plate, darn the sacrament-lace,

Clear the desk-velvet of dust.)

Here's your book, younger folks shelve!

Played I not off-hand and runningly,

Just now, your masterpiece, hard number twelve?

Here's what should strike, could one handle it cunningly:

Help the axe, give it a helve!

Page after page as I played,

Every bar's rest where one wipes

Sweat from one's brow, I looked up and surveyed,

O'er my three claviers, yon forest of pipes

Whence you still peeped in the shade.

Sure you were wishful to speak?

You, with brow ruled like a score,

Yes, and eyes buried in pits on each cheek,

Like two great breves, as they wrote them of yore,

Each side that bar, your straight beak!

Sure you said—"Good, the mere notes!

Still, couldst thou take my intent,

Know what procured me our Company's votes—

A master were lauded and sciolists shent,

Parted the sheep from the goats!"

Well then, speak up, never flinch!

Quick, ere my candle's a snuff

—Burnt, do you see? to its uttermost inch—

I believe in you, but that's not enough:

Give my conviction a clinch!

First you deliver your phrase

—Nothing propound, that I see,

Fit in itself for much blame or much praise—

Answered no less, where no answer needs be;

Off start the Two on their ways.

Straight must a Third interpose,

Volunteer needlessly help;

In strikes a Fourth, a Fifth thrusts in his nose.

So the cry's open, the kennel's a-yelp,

Argument's hot to the close.

One dissertates, he is candid;

Two must discept,—has distinguished;

Three helps the couple, if ever yet man did;

Four protests; Five makes a dart at the thing wished:

Back to One, goes the case bandied.

One says his say with a difference;

More of expounding, explaining!

All now is wrangle, abuse and vociferance;

Now there's a truce, all's subdued, self-restraining:

Five, though, stands out all the stiffer hence.

One is incisive, corrosive;

Two retorts, nettled, curt, crepitant;

Three makes rejoinder, expansive, explosive;

Four overbears them all, strident and strepitant:

Five ... O Danaides, O Sieve!

Now, they ply axes and crowbars;

Now, they prick pins at a tissue

Fine as a skein of the casuist Escobar's

Worked on the bone of a lie. To what issue?

Where is our gain at the Two-bars?

Est fuga, volvitur rota.

On we drift: where looms the dim port?

One, Two, Three, Four, Five, contribute their quota;

Something is gained, if one caught but the import—

Show it us, Hugues of Saxe-Gotha!

What with affirming, denying,

Holding, risposting, subjoining,

All's like ... it's like ... for an instance I 'm trying ...

There! See our roof, its gilt moulding and groining

Under those spider-webs lying!

So your fugue broadens and thickens,

Greatens and deepens and lengthens,

Till we exclaim—"But where's music, the dickens?

Blot ye the gold, while your spider-web strengthens

—Blacked to the stoutest of tickens?"

I for man's effort am zealous:

Prove me such censure unfounded!

Seems it surprising a lover grows jealous—

Hopes 'twas for something, his organ-pipes sounded,

Tiring three boys at the bellows?

Is it your moral of Life?

Such a web, simple and subtle,

Weave we on earth here in impotent strife,

Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle,

Death ending all with a knife?

Over our heads truth and nature—

Still our life's zigzags and dodges,

Ins and outs, weaving a new legislature—

God's gold just shining its last where that lodges,

Palled beneath man's usurpature.

So we o'ershroud stars and roses,

Cherub and trophy and garland;

Nothings grow something which quietly closes

Heaven's earnest eye: not a glimpse of the far land

Gets through our comments and glozes.

Ah, but traditions, inventions,

(Say we and make up a visage)

So many men with such various intentions,

Down the past ages, must know more than this age!

Leave we the web its dimensions!

Who thinks Hugues wrote for the deaf,

Proved a mere mountain in labor?

Better submit; try again; what's the clef?

'Faith, 'tis no trifle for pipe and for tabor—

Four flats, the minor in F.

Friend, your fugue taxes the finger:

Learning it once, who would lose it?

Yet all the while a misgiving will linger,

Truth's golden o'er us although we refuse it—

Nature, through cobwebs we string her.

Hugues! I advise meâ pœnâ

(Counterpoint glares like a Gorgon)

Bid One, Two, Three, Four, Five, clear the arena!

Say the word, straight I unstop the full organ,

Blare out the mode Palestrina.

While in the roof, if I'm right there,

... Lo you, the wick in the socket!

Hallo, you sacristan, show us a light there!

Down it dips, gone like a rocket.

What, you want, do you, to come unawares,

Sweeping the church up for first morning-prayers,

And find a poor devil has ended his cares

At the foot of your rotten-runged rat-riddled stairs?

Do I carry the moon in my pocket?

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THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES
A TRAGEDY

Originally published as No. IV. of Bells and Pomegranates in 1843. The manuscript was first named Mansoor the Hierophant.

PERSONS

The Grand-Master's Prefect.

The Patriarch's Nuncio.

The Republic's Admiral.

Loys de Dreux, Knight-Novice.

Initiated Druses—Djabal, Khalil, Anael, Maani, Karshook, Raghib, Ayoob, and others.

Uninitiated Druses, Prefect's Guard, Nuncio's Attendants, Admiral's Force.

Time, 14—.

Place, An Islet of the Southern Sporades, colonised by Druses of Lebanon, and garrisoned by the Knights-Hospitallers of Rhodes.

Scene, A Hall in the Prefect's Palace.

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