[195]And a borough there was—I forget the name—whose Mayor must have the bench
Of Justices ranged to clear a doubt: for "Vincent," thinks he, sounds French!
It well may have driven him daft, God knows! all man can certainly know
Is—rushing and falling and rising, at last he arrived in a horror—so!
When a word, cry, gasp, would have rescued both! Ay bite me! The worm begins
At his work once more. Had cowardice proved—that only—my sin of sins!
Friends, look you here! Suppose ... suppose.... But mad I am, needs must be!
Judas the Damned would never have dared such a sin as I dream! For, see!
Suppose I had sneakingly loved her myself, my wretched self, and dreamed
In the heart of me "She were better dead than happy and his!"—while gleamed
A light from hell as I spied the pair in a perfectest embrace,
He the savior and she the saved,—bliss born of the very murder-place!
No! Say I was scared, friends! Call me fool and coward, but nothing worse!
Jeer at the fool and gibe at the coward! 'Twas ever the coward's curse
That fear breeds fancies in such: such take their shadow for substance still,
—A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes,—loved Vincent, if you will!
[196]And her—why, I said "Good morrow" to her, "Good even," and nothing more:
The neighborly way! She was just to me as fifty had been before.
So, coward it is and coward shall be! There's a friend, now! Thanks! A drink
Of water I wanted: and now I can walk, get home by myself, I think.
This poem, on an incident in Clive's life, is also included on account of its English historical setting.
The remarkable career of Robert Clive cannot be gone into here. Suffice it to refresh one's memory with a few principal events of his life. He was born in Shopshire in 1725. He entered the service of the East India Company at eighteen and was sent to Madras. Here, on account of his falling into debt, and being in danger of losing his situation, he twice tried to shoot himself. The pistol failed to go off, however, and he became impressed with the idea that some great destiny was awaiting him. His feeling was fully realized as his subsequent career in India shows. At twenty-seven, when he returned to England he had made the English the first military power in India. On his return to India (1755-59) he took a further step and secured for the English a political[197] supremacy. Finally, on his last visit, he crowned his earlier exploits by putting the English dominance on a sounder basis of integrity than it had before been.
The incident related in the poem by the old man, Browning heard from Mrs. Jameson, who had shortly before heard it from Macaulay at Lansdowne House. Macaulay mentions it in his essay: "Of his personal courage he had, while still a writer [clerk] given signal proof by a desperate duel with a military bully who was the terror of Fort St. David."
The old gentleman in the poem evidently mixed up his dates slightly, for he says this incident occurred when Clive was twenty-one, and he represents him as committing suicide twenty-five years afterwards. Clive was actually forty-nine when he took his own life.