;>^-^^ ^' ^ ii^^^iij^j?-^!;;^ ■.:^^:i;.^^V •-^"■^■- r )ir.i^-,;':'::;:;;-:!:i':' ■■:;-■: ■cT' \\' '< ^ ^'^ A A , N c tP ^■^ ^-^'c ■t<. - % A^ >?<'.. 'oo^ .v^^' vOo - iO *>" ,.o^\.- •>'^ ^\ **• '♦ ^A <^ .i^: ■^%^r '^^ ,a\ n N C ^^^. <^ •^oo^ m: ■<^'h - fe xO°, ■;p A^' POEMS ROBERT BROWNING JFrom ti^e ^utfjor's EeiJiseU VLtxt of 1889 HIS OWN SELECTIONS i WITH ADDITIONS FROM HIS LATEST WORKS EDITED WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTES AND INTRODUCTIONS BY CHARLOTTE PORTER and HELEN A. CLARKE EDITORS OF " POET LORE " >»{« NEW YORK : 46 EAST 14TH Street THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY BOSTON : 100 Purchase Street Copyright, 1896, By T. Y. CROWELL & CO. ^1 n 3 ^ \ ) 1 'i^^ i M NortoooU ^r?g8 J. S. Gushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. DEDICATED TO IN POETRY — ILLUSTRIOUS AND CONSUMMATE IN FRIENDSHIP — NOBLE AND SINCERE In the pction from my poetry, there is an attempt to escaj. '^^ imbarrassment of appearifig to pronounce upon 7vhat nij .Lj may consider the best of it. I adopt another principle ; a7id by simply stringing together certain pieces on the thread of an i?nagina7y 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 — 7ny 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 ki?idly co-operated 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 fudge. ^^ Nor do I apprehend any more chajges of being wilfully obscure, unconscientiously care- less, 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 re-assuring warmth, in the attention and sympathy I gratefully acknowledge. R. B, London, May 14, i9y3. \ CONTENTS. Page Kadr Editor's Preface . Biographical Introduction Critical Introduction My Star A Face My Last Duchess Song from " Pippa Passes Cristina Count Gismond . Eurydice to Orpheus The Glove . Song . A Serenade at the Villa Youth and Art . The Flight of the Duchess Song from " Pippa Passes ' " How they brought the Good News Ghent to Aix " Song from " Paracelsus" . Through the Metidja to Abd-el Incident of the French Camp The Lost Leader In a Gondola A Lovers' Quarrel . Earth's Immortalities The Last Ride together . Mesmerism By the Fireside . Any Wife to Any Husband In a Year .... Song from " James Lee" . A Woman's Last Word Meeting at Night Parting at Morning . Women and Roses . Misconceptions . A Pretty Woman A Light Woman Love in a Life . Life in a Love . The Laboratory Gold Hair: A Story of Pornic The Statue and the Bust . Love among the Ruins Time's Revenges Waring .... Home Thoughts from Abroad The Italian in England The Englishman in Italy . from Page Up at a Villa — Down in the City . .120 Pictor Ignotus 123 Fra Lippo Lippi 124 Andrea del Sarto . . . . . 133 The Bishop orders his Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church 138 A Toccata of Galuppi's .... 141 How it strikes a Contemporary . 143 Protus 146 Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha . . 147 Abt Vogler 152 Two in the Campagna .... 155 " De Gustibus " 157 The Guardian-Angel .... 158 Evelyn Hope 160 Memorabilia 162 Apparent Failure 162 Prospice 164 "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came" 165 A Grammarian's Funeral .... 171 Cleon 174 Instans Tyrannus 182 An Epistle containing the Strange Medi- cal Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician 184 Caliban upon Setebos ; or, Natural The- ology in the Island .... 191 Saul 198 Rabbi Ben Ezra 207 Epilogue 213 A Wall 217 Apparitions 218 Natural Magic 218 Magical Nature 219 Garden Fancies ...... 219 In Three Days 223 The Lost Mistress 224 One Way of Love 225 Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli . . . 225 Numpholeptos 226 Appearances 230 The Worst of it 230 Too Late 234 Bifurcation 237 A Likeness 238 May and Death 240 A Forgiveness 241 Cenciaja 251 vu Vlll CONTENTS. Page Porphyria' s Lover ..... 257 Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial 259 Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister . . 272 The Heretic's Tragedy .... 275 Holy-Cross Day ..... 278 Amphibian ...... 282 St. Martin's Summer .... 285 James Lee's Wife 288 Respectability 300 Dis Aliter Visum ; or, Le Byron de Nos Jours 301 Confessions ...... 306 The Householder 307 Tray 308 Cavalier Tunes ...... 310 Before 312 After 314 Herve Riel ...... 314 In a Balcony ...... 318 Old Pictures in Florence .... 339 Bishop Blougram's Apology . . . 347 Mr. Sludge, " The Medium" . . . 369 The Boy and the Angel , . . . 403 A Death in the Desert .... 406 Fears and Scruples 421 Artemis Prologizes ..... 422 Pheidippides 425 The Patriot . , ... 428 Page Popularity Pisgah Sights, i Pisgah Sights. 2 Pisgah Sights. 3 At the " Mermaid House Shop . A Tale . Additional Selections from Browning's Latest Works, 1880-1889 Echetlos Touch him ne'er so Lightly Wanting is — What? Never the Time and the Place . Round us the Wild Creatures . Ask not One Least Word of Praise Epilogue to " Ferishtah's Fancies " The Names Why I am a Liberal . Prologue to " Asolando Rosny Poetics Summum Bonum Muckle-Mouth Meg Epilogue to " Asolando Notes Bibliography Index to Poems Index to First Lines . 429 432 433 434 435 439 441 444 448 448 449 449 450 450 451 451 452 452 453 454 453 455 455 456 459 504 509 5" EDITORS' PREFACE. BROWNING'S own selections from his works supply the general reader, or the student who intends further complete study, with the most coherent representative short survey or initial presentation of his whole complex and voluminous genius. The poet has made his selections cover the entire range of his work from 1833 to 1879; th^ present editors, not presuming to go back over any part of the field from which he has garnered, have added from his later publications a choice handful of short poems, mainly lyrical, be- ginning with the second series of 'Dramatic Idyls,' 1880, and closing with the final volume, 'Asolando,' 1889, which was published in Lon- don on the day of Browning's death in Venice. Care has been taken to give with accuracy Browning's own latest revised text of 1888, 1889; also, to make the Introduction and Notes rich in small space. In making the aesthetic part of the Notes, the aim has been neither to paraphrase, nor to give comment about the poems, but to epitomize the gist of each one, or, at most, where the poem demanded such treatment, to summarize its leading traits and show its outcome. Such a procedure seemed especially appro- priate to this volume which Browning intended should offer the public a representative view of his poetic domain, and the editors hope this part of their work will especially commend itself. They believe the Notes will also be found to shed light on many allusions not before explained. Finally, they desire to acknowledge with cordial gratitude their in- debtedness to the work of their predecessors, especially to Mrs. Orr, Professor Hiram Corson, Mr. George Willis Cooke, Dr. Edward Berdoe, Dr. W. J. Rolfe, and Miss Hersey for help in allusions ; and to Mrs. Orr, Mr. William Sharpe, Mr. Edmund Gosse, and Mr. W. G. Kingsland, from whom the materials for the biographical sketch were drawn ; also to the Boston Browning Society, whose collection of first editions was consulted in compiling the bibliography. Boston, May 20, 1896. BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. " A peep through my window, if folk prefer ; But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine." — ' HOUSE.' WHEN some depredator of the familiar declared that "Only in Italy is there any romance left," Browning replied, "Ah! well, I should like to include poor old Camberwell," and " poor old Camber- well," where Robert Browning was born, May 7, 1812, offered no meagre nurture for the fancy of a child gifted with the ardor that greatens and glorifies the real. Nature still garlanded this suburban part of London with bowery spaces breathing peace. The view of the region from Heme Hill over softly wreathing distances of domestic wood " was, before railroads came, entirely lovely," Ruskin says. He writes of " the tops of twenty square miles of politely inhabited groves," of bloom of lilac and laburnum and of almond-blossoms, intermingling suggestions of the wealth of fruit-trees in enclosed gardens, and companioning all this with the furze, birch, oak, and bramble of the Norwood hills, and the open fields of Dulwich " ani- mate with cow and buttercup." Nature was ready to beckon the young poet to dreams and solitude, and, too close to need to vie with her, the great city was at hand to make her power intimately felt. From a height crowned by three large elms, Browning, as a lad, used to enjoy the picturesqueness of his "poor old Camberwell." Its heart of romance was centred for him in the sight of the vast city lying to the westward. His memory singled out one such visit as peculiarly significant, the first one on which he beheld teeming London by night, and heard the vague confusion of her collec- tive voice beneath the silence of the stars. Within the home into which he was born, equally well-poised condi- tions befriended him, fostering the development of his emotional and intellectual nature. His mother was once described by Carlyle as "the true type of a Scottish gentlewoman." Browning himself used to say of xi Xll BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. her "with tremulous emotion," according to his friend, Mrs. Orr, "she was a divine woman." Her gentle, deeply religious nature evidently derived its evangelical tendency from her mother, also Scotch ; while from her father, William Wiedemann, ship-owner, a Hamburg German, settled in Dundee, who was an accomplished draughtsman and musician, she seems to have derived the liking and facility for music which was one of the characteristic bents of the poet. To this Scotch-German descent on his mother's side the metaphysical quality of his mind is accountable, concerning which Harriet Martineau is recorded as having said to him, " You have no need to study German thought, your mind is German enough already." The peculiarly tender affection his mother called out in him seems to have been at once proof and enhancement of the mystical, emotional, and impressible side of his disposition; and these traits were founded on an organic inheritance from her of " what he called a nervousness of nature," which his father could not have bequeathed to him. Exuberant vitality, insatiable intellectual curiosity and capacity, the characteristics of Robert Browning the elder, were the heritage of his son, but raised in him to a more effective power, through their transmu- tation, perhaps, as Mrs. Orr suggests, in the more sensitive physique and temperament inherited from his mother. Of his father, Browning wrote that his " Powers, natural and acquired, would easily have made him a notable man, had he known what vanity or ambition or the love of money or social influence meant." He had refused to stay on his mother's sugar plantation at St. Kitt's in the West Indies, losing the fortune to be achieved there, because of his detestation of slavery, and the ofhce he filled in the Bank of England was never close enough to his liking to induce him to rise in it so far as his father had risen ; but it enabled him to indulge his tastes for many books and a few pictures and to secure for his son, as that son said shortly before his death, " all the ease and comfort that a literary man needs to do good work." One of the poet's own early recollections gives a picture that epito- mizes the joint influence of his happy parentage. It depicts the child " sitting on his father's knees in the library, listening with enthralled attention to the tale of Troy, with marvellous illustrations among the glowing coals in the fireplace ; with, below all, the vaguely heard accompaniment — from the neighboring room where Mrs. Browning sat ' in her chief happiness, her hour of darkness and solitude and music ' — of a wild Gaelic lament." His father's brain was itself a library, stored with literary antiquitieSj which, his son used to say, made him seem to have known Paracelsus, Faustus, and even Talmudic personages personally, and his heart was BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. xiii so young and buoyant that his lore, instead of isolating him from his boy and girl, made him their most entertaining companion. It is not surprising that under such circumstances the ordinary school- ing was too puerile for young Robertas wide-awake wits. He was so energetic in mind and body that he was sent to a day-school near by for peace' sake at an early age, and sent back again, for peace' sake, too, because his proficiency made the mammas complain that Mrs. was neglecting her other pupils for the sake of bringing on Master Browning. Home teaching followed. Also home amusement, which included the keeping of a variety of pets, — owls, monkeys, magpies, hedgehogs, an eagle, a toad, and two snakes. If any further proof is needed of the hospitable warmth of his youthful heart, an entry in his diary at the age of seven or eight may serve — " married two wives this morning." This referred, of course, to an imaginary appropriation of two girls he had just seen in church. Later he entered the school of the Misses Ready and passed thence to their brother's school, staying there till he was fourteen, but his con- tempt for the petty and formal learning which is the best accorded many children, was marked, and perfectly natural to a boy who delighted to plunge in the deeper knowledge his father's book-crammed house opened generously to him. In the hst, given by Mrs. Orr, of books early attractive to him, were a seventeenth edition of Quarles's ' Emblems ' ; first editions of ' Robinson Crusoe,' and Milton ; the original pamphlet, ^ Killing no Murder ' (1559) which Carlyle borrowed for his '■ Cromwell ' ; an early edition of the * Bees ' by the Bernard Mandeville, with whom he was destined later to hold a '■ Parleying ' of his own ; rare old Bibles ; Voltaire ; a wide range of English poetry; the Greek and Elizabethan dramatists. His father's profound love of poetry was essentially classic, and his marked aptitude in rhyming followed the models of Pope, but Brown- ing's early poet was Byron, and all his sympathies were warmly roman- tic. His verse-making, which began before he could write, resulted at twelve in a volume of short poems, presumably Byronic, which he gracefully entitled ' Incondita.' He wanted, in vain, to find a publisher for this, and soon afterwards destroyed it, but not before his mother had shown it to Miss Flower, and she, to her sister, Sarah Flower, and to Mr. Fox, and the budding poet had thus gained the attention of three genuine friends. Shortly after this, the Byronic star which had shed its somewhat lurid influence over the first ebullitions of his genius, was forever ban- ished by the appearance of a new star within his field of vision. In- credible as it may seem to the present generation, he had never heard xiv BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION-. of Shelley, and if it had not been for a happy chance, an important in- fluence in the early shaping of his poetic faculties might have been postponed until too late to furnish its quickening impulse- One day in passing a book-stall, he happened to see advertised in a box of second-hand wares a little book, 'Mr. Shelley's Atheistical Poems : ' very scarce. Though the little second-hand volume was only a miserable pirated edition, by its means such entrancing glimpses of an unsuspected world were revealed to the boy that he longed to possess more of Shelley. His mother, accordingly, sallied forth m search of Shelley's poems, which, after many tribulations, she at length found at C. and J. Ollier's of Vere Street. She brought away not only nearly all of Shelley in first editions (the ' Cenci ' excepted), but three volumes of Keats, whom she was assured would interest anybody who liked Shelley. Browning, himself, used to recall how, at the end of this eventful day, two nightingales, one in the laburnum at the end of his father's garden, and one in a copper beech in the next garden, sang in emulation of the poets whose music had laid its subtile spell upon him. While Keats was duly appreciated, it was Shelley who appealed most to Browning, and although it was some years before any poetic mani- festation of Shelley's influence was to work itself out, he, with youthful ardor, at once adopted the crude attitude taken by Shelley in his immature work 'Queen Mab,' became a professing atheist, and even went so far as to practise vegetarianism, of which, however, he was soon cured because of its unpleasant effect on his eyesight. Of his atheism Mrs. Orr says, " His mind was not so constituted that such doubt fast- ened itself upon it ; nor did he ever in after life speak of this period of negation except as an access of boyish folly, with which his mature self could have no concern. The return to religious belief did not shake his faith in his new prophet. It only made him willing to admit that he had misread him. This period of Browning's life remained, never- theless, one of rebellion and unrest, to which many circumstances may have contributed besides the influence of one mind." With the exception of the poetic awakening just recorded. Brown- ing's youthful life is uneventful. By his father's decision his education was continued at home with instruction in dancing, riding, boxing, fencing ; in French with a tutor for two years ; and in music with John Relfe for theory, and a Mr. Abel, pupil of Mc,~'"^eles, for execution, doubtless supplemented with contin- uous browsing among the rare books in his father's library. At eighteen he attended a Greek class at the London University for a term or two and with this his formal education ceased. It was while at the uni- versity that his final choice of poetry as his future profession was made. BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION-. XV That he had a bent in other artistic directions as well as that of poetry- is witnessed by his own confession written on the fly-leaf of a first edition of ' Pauline ' now treasured in the South Kensington Museum. " '■ Pauline ' written in pursuance of a foolish plan I forget, or have no wish to remember; involving the assumption of several distinct characters : the world was never to guess that such an opera, such a comedy, such a speech proceeded from the same notable person." Some idea had been entertained of the possibility of Robert's quali- fying himself for the bar, but Mr. Browning was entirely too much in sympathy with his son's interests to put any obstacles in the way of his choice, and did everything in his power to help him in establishing himself in his poetical career. When the decision was made. Brown- ing's first step was to read and digest the whole of Johnson's Dictionary. During these years of preparation his consciousness of his own latent powers, together with youthful immaturity, made him, from all accounts, a somewhat obstreperous personage. Mrs. Orr says that his mother was much distressed at his impatience and aggressiveness. ^' He set the judgments of those about him at defiance, and gratuitously pro- claimed himself everything that he was and some things that he was not." It is probable, as his sister suggests, that the life of Camberwell, in spite of the dear home to which he was much attached, and a small coterie of congenial friends, including his cousins, the Silverthornes, and Alfred Domett, did not afford sufficient scope for the expansion of his eager intelligence. In 1833 appeared the first flowering of his genius in '■ Pauline,' for the publication of which his aunt, Mrs. Silverthorne, furnished the money. It was printed with no name affixed, by Saunders and Otley. The influence of Shelley breathes through this poem ; not only is it immanent in the music of the verse, but in its general atmosphere, while one of its finest climaxes is the apostrophe to Shelley beginning, " Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever ! " These influences, however, are commingled with elements of striking originality indi- cating, in spite of some crudities of construction, that here was a new force in the poetic world. Not many recognized it at the time. Among those who did was his former friend, Mr. Fox, then editor of the Monthly Repository, who gave ' Pauline ' a sympathetic review in his magazine. Later, another article praising it was printed in the same magazine. This and one or two other inadequate notices ended its early literary history, and thus was unassumingly planted the first seed of one of the most splendid poetical growths the world has seen. How completely ' Pauline ' was forgotten is shown by the anecdote told of Rossetti's coming across it in the British Museum twenty years later, and guess- xvi BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION, ing from internal evidence that it was by the author of 'Paracelsus.' Delighted with it, he transcribed it. If he had not, it might have remained buried there to this day, for Browning was very loath to acknowledge this early child of his genius. A journey to Russia at the invitation of the Russian consul-general, Mr. Benckhausen, with whom he went as nominal secretary, and the contribution to the Monthly Repository of five short poems fills up the time until the appearance of 'Paracelsus.' Most remarkable among these short poems were ' Porphyria's Lover ' and ' Johannes Agricola in Meditation,' of which Mr. Gosse says, " It is a curious matter for reiiec- tioii that two poems so unique in their construction and conception, so modern, so interesting, so new could be printed without attracting atten- tion so far as it would appear from any living creature." Paracelsus was suggested as a subject to Browning by Count de Ripert Monclar, a young French Royalist, who, while spending his summers in England, formed a friendship with the poet. The absence of love in the story seemed to him afterwards a drawback, but Browning, having read up the literature of Paracelsus at the British Museum, decided to follow his friend's suggestion and according to promise dedicated the poem to Count Monclar. In the days when he was writing ' Paracelsus ' Browning was fond of drawing inspiration from midnight rambles in the Dulwich woods, and he used often to compose in the open air. Here we may perhaps find an explanation of the fact that in these earlier poems there is a constant interfusion of nature imagery which, later, when the poet " fared up and down amid men," gave place to the human emotions upon which his thoughts became concentred, or appeared only at rare intervals. Mr. Fox, always ready to praise the young poet whom he had been the first to recognize, was upon the publication of 'Paracelsus' seconded by John Forster, who wrote an appreciative article about it in the Exa7}iiner. If 'Paracelsus' did not win popularity, it gained the poet many friends among the literary men of the day. From this period dates the acquaintanceship of notabilities like Serjeant Talfourd, Home, Leigh Hunt, Barry Cornwall, Harriet Martineau, Miss Mitford, Monckton Milnes, Dickens, Wordsworth, Landor, and others. The most impor- tant in its consequences of his new friendships was that begun with the celebrated actor William Macready, to whom he was introduced by Mr. Fox. Macready, delighted with Browning, shortly after asked him to a New Year's party at his house at Elstree. Every one who met the poet seemed attracted by his personality. Macready said he looked more like a youthful poet than any man he BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION'. xvii had ever seen, Mr. Sharpe's description of him from hearsay is more definite. As a young man he appears to have had a certain ivory deh- cacy of coloring. He appeared taller than he was, partly because of his rare grace of movement and partly from a characteristic high poise of the head when listening intently to music or conversation. Even then he had the expressive wave of the hand which in later years was as full of various meanings as the Ecco of an Italian. A swift alertness pervaded him noticeably as much in the rapid change of expression, in the deepening and illuming colors of his singularly expressive eyes, and in his sensitive mouth as in his grey- hound-hke apprehension, which so often grasped the subject in its entirety before its propounder himself realized its significance. His hair — then of a brown so dark as to appear black — was so beautiful in its heavy, sculpturesque waves as frequently to attract attention. His voice then had a rare flute-like tone, clear, sweet, and resonant. The influence of Macready turned the poef s thoughts toward writing for the stage. A drama, 'Narses,' was discussed, but for some reason abandoned, and the subject of Strafford was decided upon in its place. The occasion upon which the decision was made gives an attractive glimpse of the young Browning receiving his first social honor. It was at a dinner at Talfourd's after the performance of ' Ion,' in which Mac- ready acted. Mr. Sharpe says : — " To his surprise and gratification. Browning found himself placed next but one to his host and immediately opposite Macready, who sat be- tween two gentlemen, one calm as a summer evening, the other with a tempestuous youth dominating his sixty years, whom the young poet at once recognized as Wordsworth and Walter Savage Landor. When Talfourd rose to propose the toast of ' The Poets of England,' every one probably expected that Wordsworth would be named to respond ; but with a kindly grace, the host, after flattering remarks upon the two great men then honoring him by sitting at his table, coupled his toast with the name of the youngest of the poets of England, Mr. Robert Browning, the author of ' Paracelsus.' According to Miss Mitford, he responded with grace and modesty, looking even younger than he was." The conversation turning upon the drama, Macready said, " Write a play, Browning, and keep me from going to America." The reply came, " Shall it be historical and English ? What do you say to a drama on Strafford?" '■ Sordello ' had already been begun, but '- Strafford ' and a journey to Italy were to intervene before it was finished. 'Strafford' was per- formed at Covent Garden, May i, 1837, with Macready as Strafford and Helen Faucit as Lady Carlisle, was well received, and would probably xviii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. have had a long run had it not been for difficulties which arose in the theatre management. If Shelley was the paramount influence of his youthful years, from the time of his Italian journey in 1838, Italy became an influence which was henceforth to exert its magic over his work. He liked to call Italy his university. In ' Sordello ' he had already chosen an Italian subject, and his journey was undertaken partly with the idea of gaining personal experience of the scenes wherein the tragedy of Bordello's soul was enacted. It was published in 1840, and except for a notice in the Eclectic Re- view^ and the appreciation of a few friends, was ignored. A world not over sensitive to the beauties of his previous work, could hardly be expected to welcome enthusiastically a poem so complex in its his- torical setting and so full of philosophy. Even the keenest intellects approach this poem with the feeling that they are about to attack a problem ; for in spite of undoubted power and many beauties, it must be confessed that the luxuriance of the poet's mental force often unduly overbalances his sense of artistic proportion. Evidently the world was frightened. The little breeze, with which Browning's career began, instead of developing as it normally should into a strong wind of uni- versal recognition, died out, and for twenty years nothing he could do seemed to win for him his just deserts, though his very next poem, ' Pippa Passes,' showed him already a consummate master of his forces both on the artistic side and in the special realm which he chose, the development of the soul. ' Pippa Passes,' ' King Victor and King Charles,' and ^ The Return of the Druses ' lay in his desk for some time without a publisher. He finally arranged with Edward Moxon to bring them out in pamphlet form, using cheap type, each issue to consist of a sixteen-page form, printed in double columns. This was the beginning of the now cele- brated series, 'Bells and Pomegranates.' They were issued from 1841 to 1846, and included all the dramas and a number of short poems. The only one of these poems with a story other than literary, is ' The Blot in the 'Scutcheon,' written for Macready, and performed at Drury Lane, on February 11, 1843. A favorite weapon in the hands of the Philistines has been the often reiterated statement that the performance was a failure. A letter from Browning to Mr. Hill, editor of the Daily News, at the time of the revival of '■ The Blot ' by Lawrence Barrett in 1884, drawn out by the same old falsehood, gives the truth in regard to the matter, and should silence once for all the ubiquitous Philis- tines. BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. xix " Macready received and accepted the play, while he was engaged at the Haymarket, and retained it for Dmry Lane, of which I was ignorant that he was about to become the manager : he accepted it at the instiga- tion of nobody. . . . When the Dnuy Lane season began, Macready informed me that he would act the play when he had brought out two others, — 'The Patrician's Daughter' and 'Plighted Troth.' Having done so, he wrote to me that the former had been unsuccessful in money- drawing, and the latter had 'smashed his arrangements altogether' : but he would still produce my play. In my ignorance of certain symptoms better understood by Macready's professional acquaintances — I had no notion that it was a proper thing, in such a case, to release him from his promise ; on the contrary, I should have fancied that such a pro- posal was offensive. Soon after, Macready begged that I would call on him : he said the play had been read to the actors the day before, 'and laughed at from beginning to end ' ; on my speaking my mind about this, he explained that the reading had been done by the prompter, a grotesque person with a red nose and wooden leg, ill at ease in the love scenes, and that he would himself make amends by reading the play next morning, — which he did, and very adequately, — but apprised me that in consequence of the state of his mind, harassed by business and various troubles, the principal character must be taken by Mr. Phelps ; and again I failed to understand, . . . that to allow at Macready's the- atre any other than Macready to play the principal part in a new piece was suicidal, and really believed I was meeting his exigencies by accept- ing the substitute. At the rehearsal. Macready announced that Mr. Phelps was ill, and that he himself would read the part : on the third rehearsal, Mr. Phelps appeared for the first time . . . while Macready more than read, rehearsed the part. The next morning Mr. Phelps waylaid me to say . . . that Macready would play Tresham on the ground that himself, Phelps, was unable to do so. . . . He added that he could not expect me to waive such an advantage, — but that if I were prepared to waive it, ' he would take ether, sit up all night, and have the words in his memory by next day.' I bade him follow me to the green- room, and hear what I decided upon — which was that as Macready had given him the part, he should keep it : this was on a Thursday ; he re- hearsed on Friday and Saturday, — the play being acted the same even- ing, — of the fifth day after the ' readhig'' by Macready. Macready at once wished to reduce the importance of the play . . . tried to leave out so much of the text, that I baffled him by getting it printed in four and twenty hours, by Moxon's assistance. He wanted me to call it ' The Sister ! ' — and I have before me . . . the stage-acting copy, with two lines of his own insertion to avoid the tragical ending — Tresham was to announce his intention of going into a monastery! all this, to keep up the belief that Macready, and Macready alone, could produce a veri- table 'tragedy' unproduced before. Not a shilling was spent on scen- ery or dresses. If your critic considers this treatment of the play an instance of ' the failure of powerful and experienced actors ' to insure its success, — I can only say that my own opinion was shown by at once XX BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. breaking off a friendship . . . which had a right to be plainly and simply told that the play I had contributed as a proo+ of it would, through a change of circumstances, no longer be to my friend's advantage. . . . Only recently, . . . when the extent of his pecuniary embarrassments at that time was made known, could I in a measure understand his mo- tives — less than ever understand why he so strangely disguised them. If ' applause,' means success, the play thus maimed and maltreated was successful enough ; it ' made way ' for Macready's own Benefit and the theatre closed a fortnight after." Browning's second visit to Italy took place in the autumn of 1844, from which he returned to meet with the supreme spiritual influence of his life. ' Lady Geraldine's Courtship ' had just been published, and Brown- ing expressing his enthusiasm for it to Mr. Kenyon, a dear friend of his and a cousin of Miss Barrett's, the latter immediately suggested that Browning should write and tell her of his delight in it. The corre- spondence soon developed into a meeting which was at first refused by Miss Barrett in a few self-depreciative words, " There is nothing to see in me, nothing to hear in me, I am a weed fit for the ground and dark- ness." Mr. Browning's fate was sealed at the first meeting, we are told, but Miss Barrett, conscious of the obstacle offered by her ill-health, was not easily won, and only consented, at last, with the proviso that their marriage should depend upon improvement in her health. Though the new joy in her life seemed to give her fresh strength, her doctor told her, in the summer of 1846, that her only hope of recovery depended upon her spending the coming winter in Italy. Her father having absolutely refused to hear of such a course, she was persuaded to consent to a private marriage with Mr. Browning, which took place on September 12, 1846, at St. Pancras Church. A week later they started for Italy. Mrs. Orr writes : — "In the late afternoon or evening of September 19, Mrs. Browning, attended by her maid and her dog, stole away from her father's house. The family were at dinner, at which meal she was not in the habit of joining them ; her sisters, Henrietta and Arabel, had been throughout in the secret of her attachment and in full sympathy with it ; in the case of the servants she was also sure of friendly connivance. There was no difficulty in her escape, but that created by the dog, which might be expected to bark its consciousness of the unusual situation. She took him into her confidence. She said, '■ O Flush, if you make a sound, I am lost.' And Flush understood, as what good dog would not, and crept after his mistress in silence." Mr. Barrett never forgave her and never saw her again. The sur- prise and consternation of Mr. Browning's family was soon transformed BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION'. xxi into love for Mrs. Browning, while Mr. Kenyon, who had not been told because, as Mrs. Browning said, she did not wish to implicate any one in the deception she was obliged to practise against her father, was overjoyed at the result of his kindly offices in bringing the two poets together. After a journey full of suffering for Mrs. Browning and the tenderest devotion on the part of Mr. Browning, they halted at Pisa, memorable as the spot where Mrs. Browning presented her husband with the matchless '■ Sonnets from the Portuguese.' Mrs. Browning's health im- proved greatly in the genial climate. The whole of their married life, with the exception of occasional summers in England and two winters in Paris, was spent in Italy, and what that married life was in its harmonious blending of two unusually congenial souls we have abundant evidence in the glimpses obtained from Mrs. Browning's let- ters, and the recollections of it in the minds of their many friends. In the summer of 1847 they established themselves in Florence in the Casa Guidi. It became practically their Italian home, varied by sojourns in Ancona, at the baths of Lucca, Venice, and winters in Rome in 1854 and 1859. In Florence, March 9, 1849, their son was born, and to Mrs. Brown- ing's life, especially, was added one more element of intense happiness. Mrs. Orr thinks that in Pompilia in ' The Ring and the Book,' is reflected the maternal joy as Browning saw it revealed in Mrs. Browning's rela- tion to her son. A shadow was at the same time cast over Browning's life by the death of his mother, who died just as the news was received of the birth of her grandchild. Mrs. Browning, writing to a friend, said, "My husband has been in the greatest anguish. . . . He has loved his mother as such passionate natures only can love, and I never saw a man so bowed down in an extremity of sorrow, — never." The first effect of Browning's marriage seems to have been to put his muse to sleep. Up to 1850 the only events in his literary career were the performance of ' The Blot ' at Sadler's Wells in 1848, and the issue of a collected edition of his works in 1849. ^"^ 1^50? in Florence, he wrote ' Christmas Eve ' and ' Easter Day,' and in Paris, 1857, the ' Essay on Shelley ' to be prefixed to twenty-five letters of Shelley's, that after- wards turned out to be spurious. The fifty poems in ' Men and Women ' complete the record of Brown- ing's work during his wife's life. They appeared in 1855, and reflect very directly new sources of inspiration which had come into his life with his marriage. Though Mr. and Mrs. Browning led a comparatively quiet life, they gathered around them, wherever they were, a distinguished circle of xxii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION, friends. In the early days at Florence, they much enjoyed the society of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Joseph Milsand and George Sand — the first a cherished friend, the last simply an acquaintance — connect themselves with their life in Paris, while in London and Rome all the bright particular stars of the time circled about them, some of whom were the Storys, the Hawthornes, the Carlyles, the Kemble sisters, Car- dinal Manning, Sir Frederick Leighton, Rossetti, Val Princeps, and Landor. Mrs. Browning's death at dawn, on the 29th of June, 1861, cut short the golden period of these Italian days. Even in his bereavement he had cause to be poignantly happy. For he had watched beside his wife on that last night, and she, weak, though suffering little and with- out presentiment of the end which even to him seemed not so immi- nent, had given him, as he wrote, — " what my heart will keep till I see her again and longer, — the most perfect expression of her love to me within my whole knowledge of her." He added, " I shall grow still, I hope, but my root is taken and remains." He left Florence never to return. His settHng in London that winter was a result of his wife's death, destined to bring him into closer touch with an English public which was to like him yet. The change was dictated by his care for his son's education, wdiose well-being he considered a trust from his wife. In 1862, he wrote from Biarritz of ' Pen's' enjoyment of his holidays, adding, " for me I have got on by having a great read at Euripides besides attending to my own matters, my new poem that is about to be and of which the whole is pretty well in my head — the Roman murder story." But the Roman murder story was long in taking shape as *The Ring and the Book.' It had been conceived in one of his last June evenings at Casa Guidi, but the rude break in his life made by Mrs. Browning's death remains marked in the record of this work's incubation. During the next years spent in London, with hoHdays in Brittany, work went steadily on, first for the three-volume collected edition of 1863 of his works, and then for < Dramatis Personas,' pub- lished in the year following, before ' The Ring and the Book ' came out at last, in 1868. With the appearance of this, and the six-volume edition of his works, the poet began to reap the abundant fruits of a slow but solidly-founded fame. It was not until 1871, however, that the "great read at Euripides" showed its significance in ^ Balaustion's Adventure ' and four years later again, in ' Aristophanes' Apology,' rounding out thus his original criticism of Greek life and literature and especially affecting ' Euripides the human,' whom his wife had been earliest to deliver from blunder- ing censure. BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION: xxiii While in the midst of this prosperous scheme of work he wrote : " I feel such comfort and delight in doing the best I can with my own object of life, poetry, — which, I think, I never could have seen the good of before, — that it shows me I have taken the root I did take well. I hope to do much more — and that the flower of it will be put into Her hand somehow." His father had died in Paris in 1866, at the age of eighty-five. Brother and sister, now each left alone, lived together thenceforth a life of tranquil uneventfulness, alternating between London and the Continent — a life rich in pleasant acquaintances and warm friendships and increasingly full of invitations and honors of all sorts for the poet. Supreme among the friendships was that with Miss Anne Egerton Smith. Music was the special bond of sympathy between her and Browning, and while they were both in London no important concert lacked their appreciation. Miss Browning, her brother, and Miss Smith spent also four successive summers together, the fourth at Saleve, near Geneva, where Miss Smith's sudden death was the occasion of Browning's poem on immortality, 'La Saisiaz.' Among the honors the poet received were the organization of the London Browning Society in 1881, degrees from Oxford and from Cambridge, and nomina- tions for the Rectorship of Glasgow University and for that of St. Andrews. The latter was a unanimous nomination from the students, and as an evidence of the younger generation's esteem of his poetic influence was more than commonly gratifying to Browning, although he declined this and all other such overtures. His activities during the remainder of his days, his social and friendly life in London and later in Venice, were habitually cheerful and genial. He sedulously cultivated happiness. This was indeed the consistent result of the fact to which those who knew him best bear witness, that he held the great lyric love of his life as sacred, and cherished it as a religion. Those who know the whole body of his work most inti- mately will be readiest to corroborate this on subtiler evidence ; for only on the hypothesis of a unique revelation of the significance of a supreme human love from whose large sureness smaller dramatic exemplifications of love in life derive their vitality can the varied overplay of his art and the deep sufficiency of his religious reconcilia- tion of Power and Love be adequately understood. As he himself once said, the romance of his life was in his own soul. To this perhaps the bibliography of his works will ever provide the most accurate outline map. After the issue of his Greek pieces, the most noticeable new features of his remaining work may be summed up as idyllic and lyric. A new XXIV BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. picturesqueness interpenetrated his dramatic pieces, as if he were dowered with a fresh pleasure in eyesight. This was shown in the * Dramatic Idyls.' A new purity intensified his lyrical faculty. This is shown in the lyrics in ' Ferishtah's Fancies ' and in ' Asolando.' To his whole achieved work add the brief final record of his content- ment in his son's marriage in 1887, his removal to the house he bought in De Vere Gardens, the gradual weakening of his robust health in his last years, his painless death in Venice in his son's Palazzo Rezzonico on the very day, December 12, 1889, of the issue of ' Asolando' in London, his burial in Westminster Abbey in Poets' Corner, December 31, and the story of Robert Browning's earthly life is told. Charlotte Porter. Helen A. Clarke. May 20, 1896. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. ** What were life Did soul stand still therein, forego her strife Through the ambiguous Present to the goal Of some all-reconciling Future ? " — 'Parleyings: With Gerard de Lairesse.' WHAT principle guided Browning in making the present Selections from his poetry ? On this interesting question there is no other light than the hint he gives in his preface, that he had strung together certain pieces "on the thread of an imaginary personality," and the internal evidence which the poems themselves offer of their suscep- tibility to an inter-relationship of this sort. ' My Star,' striking a preluding note of love, seems to usher in poems broadly capable of being grouped together on the score of their express- ing, in a fresh way, indicative of a youthful attitude toward life, various phases of love, — either as sensation or as observed or recorded experi- ence. Poems follow of a more active sort, adventurous and partisan in spirit, — the ' Good News,' the ' Lost Leader,' and others, which be- long to the outlook of manhood ; and these pass again, in subject, into the groove of love, but from the standpoint, now, of the stress and trial belonging to maturer life and thought. Larger themes succeed, related to national characteristics and history, to art, to music, to religion, and, finally, the summing up of Hfe's meanings natural to ripe vision. The second series of Selections, made by Browning eight years later, follows, in general, a similar line of evolving thought and experience. If it be granted that some such natural development of a typical experience, not personal to Browning, underlies these Selections, the clue it supplies for a brief critical consideration of the poet's distinctive traits, as shown throughout his work and representatively in this vol- ume, is peculiarly trustworthy and appropriate because it is the poet's own clue. He disclaimed a selection based on an assumption of judg- ment as to what was best ; he made a selection based upon motive. XXV xxvi CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. The poetic motive informing Browning's work is, in one word, aspiration, which moulds and develops the varied and complex per- sonalities of the humanity he depicts, as the persistent energy of the scientist, holding its never-wearying way, gives to the world of phe- nomena its infinite array of shows and shapes. Aspiration — a reach- ing on and upwards — is the primal energy underneath that law which we call progress.' Through aspiration, ideals — social, religious, artis- tic — are formed; and through it ideals perish, as it breaks away from them to seek more complete realizations of truth. Aspiration, there- fore, has its negative as well as its positive side. While it ever urges the human soul to love and achievement, through its very persistence the soul learns that the perfect flowering of its rare imaginings is not possible of attainment in this life. Assurance of the ultimate fulfilment of the ideal is one of the forms in which Browning unfolds the workings of this life principle, well illustrated in ' Abt Vogler,' who has implicit faith in his own intuitions of a final harmony ; or in those poems where the crowning of aspiration in a supreme earthly love flashes upon the understanding a clear vision of infinite love. But by far the larger number of poems discloses the underlying force at work in ways more subtle and obscure, through the conflict of good and evil, of lower with higher ideals, either as empha- sized in great social movements, in the struggle between individuals, or in struggles fought out on the battle-ground within every human soul. With a motive so all-inclusive, the whole panorama of human life, with its loves and hates, its strivings and failures, its half-reasonings and beguiling sophistries, is material ready at hand for illustration. Browning, inspired with a democratic inclusiveness, allowed his choice in subject-matter to range through fields both new and old, unploughed by any poet before him. Progress, to be imaged forth in its entirety, must be interpreted, not only through the individual soul, but through the collective soul of the human race ; wherefore many phases of civili- zation and many attitudes of mind must be detailed for service. There is no choosing a subject, as a Tennyson might, on the ground that it will best point the moral of a preconceived theory of life ; on the con- trary, every such theory is bound to be of interest as one of the phe- nomena exhibited by the transcending principle. From first to last Browning portrayed life either developing or at some cmcial moment, the outcome of past development, or the deter- minative influence for fiiture growth or decay. His interest in the phenomena of life as a whole, freed him from the trammels of any literary cult. He steps out from under the yoke of the classicist, where only gods and heroes have leave to breathe ; and, CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. xxvii equally, from that of the romanticist, where kings and persons of quality alone flourish. Wherever he found latent possibilities of char- acter, which might be made to expand under the glare of his brilliant imagination, whether in hero, king, or knave, that being he chose to set before his readers as a living individuality to show whereof he was made, either through his own ruminations or through the force of circumstances. Upon examination it will be found that the sources, many and vari- ous, of Browning's subject-matter are broadly divisible into subjects derived from history, from personal experience or biography, from true in- cidents, popular legend, the classics, and from his own fertile imagination. Of these, history proper furnishes the smallest proportion. 'Strafford' and ' King Victor and King Charles ' are his only historical dramas, and with ' Sordello,' and a few stray short poems, based on historical inci- dents, exhaust his drafts upon history. Several more have a historical setting with fictitious plot and characters, such as the ' Return of the Druses ' and ' Luria ' ; and still more have a historical atmosphere in which think and move creatures of his own fancy, such as ' My Last Duchess,' 'Count Gismond,' 'In A Gondola.' His most important work, ' The Ring and the Book,' is founded on the true story of a Roman murder case. Others of his longer poems, developed from real occurrences, are ' The Inn Album,' ' Red Cotton Night-Cap Country,' ' Ivan Ivanovitch,' and some shorter poems. The individual living to develop the mind stuff of the world rather than the individual playing a part in action, attracted Browning, and we find a large percentage of his subjects — between twenty and thirty poems — to be dramatic presentations of characters not distinguished for their part in the his- tory of action, but who have played a part more or less prominent in the history of thought or art. Such are ' Paracelsus,' ' Saul,' ' Abt Vogler,' ' Fra Lippo Lippi.' Sometimes they appear in the disguise of a name not their own, as in ' Bishop Blougram,' for whom Cardinal Wise- man sat, 'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau ' — Napoleon, Mr. Sludge — Home, the ' Spiritualist.' ' The Pied Piper,' and ' The Story of Pornic,' are familiar examples of legendary subjects. Greece is drawn upon in the translation from the Greek of ' Agamemnon,' to which must be added ' Balaustion's Adventure' and 'Aristophanes' Apology,' both of which contain transcripts from Euripides ; also ' Echetlos,' ' Pheidip- pides," Artemis Prologizes,' and 'Ixion.' There should furthermore be mentioned a few poems which grew out of suggestions furnished by poetry, music, and art, as ' Cenciaja,' ' A Toccata of Galuppi's,' ' The Guardian Angel.' And last, out of the pure stuff of imagination, have been fashioned some of his most lifelike characters. Sometimes, as xxviii CRITICAL INTRODUCTION'. already stated, they move in an actual historical environment, some- times merely in an atmosphere of history, and sometimes, detached from time and place, is pictured a human soul struggling with a passion universal to mankind. This vast range of material is not by any means chosen at random by the poet. There are several centres of human thought, around which the genius of Browning plays with exceptional power. Such, for example, are the ideas symbolized in human love and service, in art, and in the Incarnation. Clustering about the instinct of human love, gathers thickest a maze of poems bearing witness to the force, sweetness, and versatility of Browning's treatment of the purely personal emotions. The scope sweeps from primitive to consummate types, as if none conceivable were to be tabooed ; and if not all are represented, the intention towards all is evidently hospitable. Yet the unifying current is clear through all differentiations, because it is based on the vital fact of the psychical origin of the emotion of love as desire, and capable, therefore, of a never-ending tendency to impel and energize the powers and re- veal the highest potency of each individual soul. The conditions under which it acts may be favorable or not, the outgoing love may be satis- fied or not, by eliciting and enjoying love in return ; in any case, the test is equally good to make a soul declare itself — "to wit, by its fruit, the thing it does," and thus, through living out its own life, to recruit both the general plan of the race and its own individual possi- bilities. This psychical value, of which the commonest instinct towards love, in any and every human creature, is capable, relates all men to each other, and, pointing out the implicit use of each to each, permits none to be scorned as having no part in the scheme, nor any to be denied the vision of some dim descried glory "ever on before." It consti- tutes a revelation to every man of the Infinite, incarnate within his own grasp and proof, — a miracle, only to be felt, differing in this from any attempt to achieve the Absolute through act or deed or any product of effort outside oneself, one instant of human consciousness enabling the laying hold on eternity. In these Selections are poems that represent the instinct of love astir in modes that foster the transmutation of desire into force, no matter what obstacles beset it ; or that chill and obstruct its saving rule although its way be smooth. The merely selfish expression of the common in- stinct is depicted in ' The Laboratory ' and ' My Last Duchess ' ; the unselfish, in 'One Way of Love.' Its seeing faculty appears in 'Cris- tina,' and ' The Last Ride Together ' ; but its eyes are sealed until too CRITICAL IIVTRODUCTION. xxix iate in ' The Confessional ' and in Constance in ' In a Balcony.' It finds itself expressed in a conventionalized way in ' Numpholeptos ' ; in a realistic way in 'Poetics.' It is revealed in 'Count Gismond' as rudi- mentary; as ripe in 'By the Fireside.' It is stifled in 'Bifurcation,' ' The Statue and the Bust,' ' Youth and Art,' ' Dis Aliter Visum ' ; it is self-baffled in ' A Forgiveness,' and ' In a Balcony ' ; but has sway de- spite Death in 'Prospice,' and 'Never the Time and the Place.' All these separate ways of love are glimpses at parts of human experience, which, since they can be correlated, illumine the course of growth latent for any soul in a crisis of emotion. Other poems still, exemplify this by correlating various stages of development occurring in the experience of one person, the original manifestation of love adding to itself a new psychical value, as in 'James Lee's Wife.' Taken as a whole. Browning's broad and vital representations of love reveal the related values of different phases of personal experience and of each personal experience to every other ; and, also, the bearing of each and all such experiences on human progress and on an ecstatic consciousness of the Infinite. In the manifestations of human energy commonly called social, cor- responding orbits of relative values are brought to light by Browning through his reconstruction from life itself of numerous varying types of work and consequent service to humanity at large. The range exempli- fied includes the exercise of his art by a Fra Lippo Lippi, an Abt Vogler, or a Cleon, the devotion to his study of a Grammarian or the public achievement of a Pheidippides, a Herve Riel, a Pym, a Strafford, or a Luria. Browning shows a consciousness of the special influence of certain historic periods of civic enthusiasm on the development of social ideals. The grim righteousness of Pym's London, the glories of Athens and of Florence, are fitly celebrated. And in the whole pioneer period which sowed the seed and set the shape of much that is not yet ripe for fulfilment in modern civilization — in the period of the Italian Re- naissance, Browning's imaginative conception found frame and flesh. In ' Sordello ' he descried the incipient democratic tendencies of that period, anticipating the conclusions of its special historians : of Burck- hardt, who characterized it as " the awakening of the individual in love with his own possibilities " ; of Vernon Lee, who describes it as " the movement for mediaeval democratic progress " ; of Symonds, who speaks of it as " the persistent effort after liberty of the unconquerable soul of man." Browning embodies it, in the period that prepared the way for the Renaissance, in the consciousness of his hero, the warrior-poet Sordello, as the dawn and struggle for supremacy of the democratic ideal. XXX CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. About the Renaissance crystallized an important group of Browning's art poems, nearly all of which appear in this volume. ' Pictor Ignotus ' shows us the personality of the typical, often unknown monastic painter of the Renaissance period, the nature of his beautiful but cold art, and the conditions of servitude to ecclesiastical beliefs and ideals which shaped both personality and art. Fra Lippo exhibits the irresistible tendency of the art impulse to expand beyond bounds either of the church or of set laws of art and finding beauty wheresoever in life it chooses to turn the light of its gaze. The Bishop who ordered his tomb at St. Praxed's, stands for somewhat more than the typical art-patronizing priest, whose connoisseurship, strong in death, serves his vanity, worldliness, and envy. He gathers up in his person the pagan survivals, the normal grossness, the assumption of authority, which were the ecclesiastical and aristocratic clogs that dragged back the forward-tending and freedom-seeking Renaissance movement. ' Old Pictures in Florence ' shows more explicitly the relation to historic periods of various new art impulses working themselves out in schools ; the indebtedness of each to each ; and the onflowing movement be- longing to all collectively. At the same time is emphasized the supreme importance to the world of assimilating the work of the pioneering artists, from whom their successors derive vitality. There is also no mistaking the expression in favor of free democratic conditions which conduce to "art's best birth." So, throughout these poems, manifesting Browning's universal enthusiasm for all varieties of art, the relativity and unity of all art expression is shown to be perfectly reconcilable with the independent worth of the special exponent of the art of his time ; and the development both of art and the artist is shown to be depend- ent on the free play and unresting aspiration of his powers. Not less sympathetic is Browning's understanding of art as wrought out in music, though in his musical poems the historical atmosphere is not so prominent as it is in the art poems. They dwell upon the different attitudes taken toward music as the result of dilTerences in temperament, rather than upon any distinct phases of musical growth. His chief musicians, — David, Abt Vogler, Hugues, and the organist who performs his mountainous fugues, Galuppi and the man who plays his toccata, the husband in ' Fifine at the Fair,' and the musical critic of 'Charles Avison,' — all see different possibilities in music. David is more the poet than the musician since, when he reaches his highest point of inspiration, he throws his harp aside and depends entirely upon language for his effect. He uses music primarily as an awakener — through the familiarity of the tunes, he sings to Saul — of long-for- gotten memories, along with which comes the renewal of early emo- CRITICAL introduction: xxxi tions, — an effect of music often observed and used to good purpose in arousing soldiers to patriotism, through melodies that awaken mem- ories of home and childhood. David, casting aside his harp, when filled with the intense desire of adequate expression, is the exact an- tipode of the husband in ' Fifine at the Fair,' who feels that the most complete expression is only possible by means of music. This opin- ion, however, is somewhat discounted by the character of the man, sophistical as he often is in his arguments. When he finds himself pushed for logical reasons for his moral conduct, he falls back upon music, by means of which he could make all plain to his wife if she only understood its language. His dependence upon music as a re- vealer of the truth is based on the ground that it gives form to feeling, and is equivalent to his founding his arguments on feeling. That to reflect moods of feeling is among the highest offices of music is doubt- less true, but to formulate theories of moral conduct upon this fact is sophistical in the highest degree, for the all-sufficient reason that music may reflect a mood the opposite of aspiring. The critic in ' Charles Avison' recognizes to the full the limitations of music. Though it gives form to feeling, with the passage of time the form becomes ob- solete, and the feeling once expressed is no longer discernible through it. An understanding of its mood can then be gained only by recourse to the historical sense, reconstructing the time that gave it birth, and by this means obtaining a ghmpse of the mood that inspired it. Thus, music furnishes to Browning another illustration of the relativity of art form, of its failure — as of every effort of man — to touch perfection, though, none the less, the record of man's effort to give adequate ex- pression to his aspirations. ' A Toccata of Galuppi ' furnishes a fine illustration of the exercise of the historical sense on the part of the person who plays the toccata in conjuring up a lifelike picture of the pleasure-loving Venice, whose heartlessness re-lives for him in the dreary harmonies of Galuppi's music. The organist in ' Master Hugues ' is not blessed with any such historical sense, and he is therefore incapable of penetrating within the outer crust of the fugue. On the other hand, the fugue, as well as the toccata, are both examples of music which is less the outcome of aspira- tion than an intellectual playing with forms for form's sake, and as such furnish a warrant for the delicious humor which Browning expends on them. In ^Abt Vogler,' Browning has represented music from the point of view of the man who has, so to speak, fathomed the heart of the mys- tery. He has none of the misgivings of the critic. Like the man in ^ Fifine,' he, too, regards music as the most complete means of expres- xxxii CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. sion ; but it is more to him than the mere reflection of earthly emo- tions, — it is the incarnation of the wish of his soul to be in touch with the Infinite. His purer spirit feels the revelation in the inspired effort to image in entirely beautiful form the strivings upward of the soul, and in a form, moreover, which is itself evolved out of the souL Aspiration becomes, as it were, flesh and blood ; is not indirectly ex- pressed by means of symbols as in the arts of painting and poetry. So much is the form identified with the spirit in the Abbe's mind, that he thinks of his music winging its way up to God, an eternal good, to take its place in the completed round of everlasting beauty. He, in- deed, is just the needed supplement to the critic, in ' Charles Avison,' who perhaps is not sufficiently alive to the fact that a new beauty does not necessarily exclude the old. Though the importance of these poems is chiefly due to their bring- ing out the various functions which music may perform for differ- ent individuals, there is a historical element of considerable interest. David's use of music is quite in keeping with an age that had not alto- gether learned to regard music other than as a handmaid to poetry. In Hugues, there is certainly pictured the revolt against the over- learned amplifications indulged in by the old contrapuntal writers, which was triumphantly led by Palestrina. An epoch of musical decay breathes through the '■ Toccata,' which belongs to the period of the de- cline of the Italian influence in music, justly following upon a wornout inspiration, to give place to the glories of the pre-eminent German school ; while Abt Vogler is fired with the enthusiasm of a period when music, its shackles of the past rent asunder, had in the romantic school entered upon a long triumphant march of development. Browning's portraits of poets and poems illustrating in diverse ways various principles of poetic art naturally ally themselves to the groups of poems on the fine arts just considered. His early devotion to Shelley, expressed in '• Pauline,' was succeeded in ' Paracelsus ' by an imaginary representation of a poet, Aprile, who, like Shelley, was the impersonation of spiritual love and ardor. In ' Sordello ' this fervent poetic type again appears, which yearns to bury itself in what it worships. It is now con- trasted with a new self-centred type of poet which holds its own con- sciousness aloof from its dreams, yet finds no dream or function of life without as good a counterpart within itself. The distinction here made between what is called the subjective poet, such a one as Shelley, and the objective or dramatic poet, such a one as Shakespeare, recurs in his prose essay on Shelley, and some variety of one or the other or hoped- for blending of both types animates all his impersonations of poets. Eglamor in ' Sordello ' is a half-ripe bardling of the Shelley order. In CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. xxxiil 'The Glove ' Ronsard and Marot are incidentally characterized and con- trasted to the advantage of the poet more deeply versed in lore and life. Keats appears in ' Popularity/ as a poet dowering the world and many imitators with a beauty never seen before. Shelley again has a tribute of personal love in '■ Memorabilia.' Euripides and Aristophanes owe to Browning, in ' Balaustion's Adventure ' and ' Aristophanes' Apol- ogy/ the deepest appreciation and soundest criticism they have ever re- ceived at any one man's hands. Shakespeare is directly defended in ' At the Mermaid ' from charges of pessimism, derision of women, and iineasy ambition to figure in court life — charges more or less involved in some modern conceptions of him based on an autobiographical read- ing of the Sonnets and Plays. The sonnet theory is again directly com- bated in ' House ; ' and ' Shop ' may perhaps be taken as falling in with these two. Both 'At the Mermaid' and ' House' rest on a conception of Shakespeare as belonging altogether to the objective type of poet. And the Shakespeare Sonnet, ' The Names,' is in accord with a view which accepts him as supreme dramatic creator. In the verses beginning ' Touch him ne'er so lightly,' Browning sings the way of pain and obstacle through which pass the master poets who sum up great epochs of national life — such a poet as Dante — and who transmute the bitterness of sorrow into the splendor of song. In '■ Transcendentalism ' and ' How it Strikes a Contemporary ' are celebrated the vitality of the poet's gift, the keenness of the poet's sight, the warmth and humanity of his heart and office. Expressions concerning the philosophy of the poet's art and self- development are to be found in ' Sordello,' ' The Ring and the Book ' and other of his most profound works. The simple poems on poetic art given in this volume, are like the whole range of his work on this subject, in placing the poet somewhat less within the influence of the historic times to which he is related, than the artist or even the musi- cian. The poet's fortune is read aright in his intimate and loving kin- ships with humanity, his clear outsight and deep insight upon the springs of life and progress, in the dependency of his artistic power on his truth to his own highest energies and aspiration. The most exalted ideal towards which the human soul aspires is that of divine love, and this, as symbolized in the idea of the Incarnation, Browning has presented from every side. Even in so humble a thinker as Caliban, the germ of religious aspiration is discernible in his concep- tion of a God above Setebos who, if not very positive in his possession of good qualities, is at least negative so far as bad ones are concerned. This volume is rich in poems which revolve about this central idea. In David, the intensity of his human love exalts his conception of God xxxiv CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. from that of power into that of love, and with prophetic vision he sees the future attainment of a religious ideal in which love like unto human love shall have a place. What a powerful force this longing is in the human mind is again illustrated in Cleon, the cultured Greek who, de- spite his broad sympathies and deep appreciation of all forms of beauty, feels that life is not capable of affording a realization of joy such as the soul sees. Like Saul, an immortality of deed has no attractions for him ; it is the assurance of a continuing personality that he wants. Karshish, the Arab, too, is haunted by the idea of a God who is love ; but neither in him nor in Cleon has the aspiration reached such a point that they are enabled to conceive of the ideal as actual, though living at the time of Christ. In 'The Death in the Desert,' is presented the portrait of one who has seen the ideal incarnate. Other phases of doubt and faith are pictured as affected by more sophisticated stages of culture. While Cleon and Karshish belong to a phase of development wherein the mind has not fully grasped the possibilities of such a conception, a Bishop Blougram's doubts grow out of the uncertainties of the nature of proof. Far from being sure, like David, that the incarnation will become a veritable truth, he can only hope that it may have been true, and resolve to act as if he be- lieved it were. Still another phase of doubt is shown in ' Ferishtah's Fancies,' where the belief in an actual incarnation is scouted by an Oriental as preposterous. The assurance of divine love does not come to all of Browning's characters through a belief in external revelation. For instance, in the Epilogue to the first series of Selections, in the present volume, and in ' Fears and Scruples,' it is through the experiencing of human love alone, reaching out toward God, which carries the conviction that there must be a God of love to receive it, though he may never have manifested himself in the flesh. In ' Ferishtah's Fancies,' again, Fer- ishtah, who sternly reprimands the unbeliever already mentioned, seems to regard the ideal of an actual incarnation as a human conception, but, nevertheless, doing duty as a symbol of the Divine, and thus help- ing men to approach the Infinite. In giving a sketch of the general motive and content of Browning's work, we have treated it as essentially dramatic. It is to be noted, however, that he has carried his observations of the realities of life into regions never approached by any other poet, — that is, into the thoughts and motives of humanity, the very sources of world movements, — with the result that we do not see his characters in action so much as in the intellectual fermentation, which is the concomitant of action. This fact, namely; that his imagination invests the subjective side of man's life CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. xxxv with vitality, sets up a certain spiritual kinship between the poet and his characters, and justifies the search for a philosophy which may be styled Browning's own ; yet, that any such search must be conducted with the utmost discretion is evidenced by the existence of many diver- sities in opinion upon this subject. It is dangerous to regard each poem as a mask from behind which Browning in his own person peeps forth ; for the more one studies his creations, the more the peculiar individu- alisms of their natures assert themselves, and the more the poet retires into the background. Even admitting that there are certain rehgious and philosophical ideas upon which many of his dramatis personce dwell, each one presents them from his own point of view, and in a form of expression suited to the particular character and circumstance. Moreover, the ever-recurring idea in new modes of expression is abso- lutely t_iie to the life of thought in the world. It is no more surprising that David, Rabbi Ben Ezra, the husband in ^ Fifine at the Fair,' and Paracelsus should have some points of philosophy in common, than that the wits of Plato, Buddha, Herbert Spencer, and the North American Indians should occasionally jump together. We have seen how he dis- criminates against no form of doubt or faith by allowing every shade of opinion to be presented from the standpoint of one who holds it. This is external evidence of his friendHness toward all forms of effort that indicate a search for the truth. With which particular phase of truth the poet, himself, is to be identified, it would be difficult to dis- cover, but it is not so impossible to deduce general principles ; not only from the fact that aspiration is plainly the informing spirit of his work, but because from time to time this informing spirit forces itself to the surface in an expression avowedly the poet's own. From such expressions, of which the third division of the ' Epilogue ' in the pres- ent volume, ^Reverie' in 'Asolando,' passages in 'Paracelsus,' 'Bor- dello,' and ' Ferishtah's Fancies,' are examples, together with the whole trend of his work, his philosophy, broadly speaking, may be described as based upon the revelation of divine love in every human being, through experience of love reaching out toward an object which shall completely satisfy aspiration. The partial manifestations of love include the feeling of gratitude awakened through the enjoyment of benefits received, like that felt by Ferishtah when he eats a cherry for break- fast ; the creative impulse, yearning to all-express itself in art ; love seek- ing its human complement ; and love seeking expression in service to humanity. Moral failure, resulting in evil ; intellectual failure, resulting in ignorance, are simply the necessary means for the further develop- ment of the soul, and the continuance of the law of progress. While the revelation of God is thus entirely subjective, his conception of God xxxvi CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. is both subjective and objective. Looking forth upon the world, he sees Power and Law exemplified ; looking within himself, he sees Power and Law manifested as Love. God, then, must be both Power and Love, as Rabbi Ben Ezra discovered, and with this dramatic expression may be paralleled the subjective expression of the same conclusion in ' Reverie,' — the poet's last piece of profound philosophizing. The faculty for twofold gaze within and without, on which Brown- ing's reconciliation of Power and Love is built, has enabled him to effect a like reconciliation between Power in Art — the abihty to appro- priate and project into form large swaths of fresh and living material — and Love in Art — the ardor to charge and energize the whole with spiritual attractiveness and meaning. The analytic tendency, for which he is often censured, does not con- trol, it subserves a much more noticeable faculty for synthesis — for seeing and reproducing wholes. Another unusually happy balance of capabilities distinguishes Brown- ing. The moral interests which weight his work with significance are lightened with an over-play of humor — a product of his double vision. VVith what genial facility he enters, for example, into Baldinucci's sim- ple old man's nature, and lends the poet-wit to the exquisite clumsiness of his joke against the Jews ; and then again, with what easy-going, wide-sweeping sympathy he enters into the complex course of law and custom which turns the laugh on Baldinucci, after all. So, in this, as in many another such dramatic picture of poor old human nature, the moral lesson is itself made dramatic. Lend Browning but a little consideration, and the opulence of his effects will convince you that these twofold counter-poised faculties have found way in the sort of art which embodies them, because that alone was large enough to befit them. Lyric, idyl, tale, fantasy, or philo- sophic imagining, are enclosed in the all-embracing dramatic frame. His artistic invention, moreover, working within the dramatic sphere, expended itself in perfecting a poetical form peculiarly his own, — the monologue. His monologues range from expressions of mood as simple as in the song, ' Nay, but you, who do not love her,' to those in which not only the complex feelings of the speaker are expressed, but complete pictures of a second and sometimes a third character are given ; or even groups of characters as in ' Fra Lippo Lippi,' where the curious, alert, Florentine guards are not all portrayed with equal clearness, but are all made to emerge effectively in a picturesque knot, showing here a hang-dog face, and there a twinkling eye, or a brawny arm elbowing a neighbor. By dexterous weaving in of allusions, flashes of light are turned upon events CRITICAL INTRODUCTION. xxxvii and feelings of the past, so adding harmonious depths to the general effect. His diction is noticeable in that he uses a large proportion of Saxon words, and, by so doing, gives a lifelike naturalness to his speech, especially in his shorter poems, in which his characters do not talk as if they were confined within metrical limits, but seemingly as if the un- stilted ways of daily life were open to them. Yet in all this apparently natural flow of words, there is a harmony of rhythm, a recurring stress of rhyme, and a condensation of thought that produces an effect of con- summate art, frequently enhanced by a subtile symbolism underlying the words. How simple in its mere external form is the little poem, * Ap- pearances.' Two momentary scenes, a few words to each, yet there have been laid bare the worldly, ambitious heart of one person and the true heart of another, disappointed by the shattering of his idol ; and under all, symbolically, a universal truth. The obscurity with which Browning has been taxed so often is largely due to this monologue form. It is apt to be confusing at first, mainly because nothing like it has been met with before. The mind must be on the alert to catch the power of every word, to see its individual force and its relational force. Nothing, neither a scene nor an event, is de- scribed outright. Only in the course of the talk, references to events and scenes are made a part of the very warp and woof of the poem, and woven in with such skilfulness by the poet that the entire scene or event may be reconstructed by those who have eyes to see. A harmonizing of imagery and of rhythm and even rhyme with the subject in hand is a marked characteristic of Browning's verse. In the poems ^ Meeting at Night ' and ' Parting at Morning,' the wave motion of the sea is indicated in the form, not only by the arrangement of the rhymes to form a climax by bringing a couplet in the middle of the stanza like the crest of the wave, but the thought, also, gathers to a climax midway in the stanzas, and subsides toward their close. In 'Pheidippides' the measure is a mixture of dactyls and spondees, original with the poet, with a pause at the end of each line, which re- flects the firm-set eager purpose of the patriotic Greek runner and the breath-obstructed rhythm of his bounding flight. In 'James Lee's Wife,' the metre is changed in each lyric to chime in with the changing mood dictating each one ; and the imagery is in general chosen to mate every aspect of the thought dominating each mood. For example, in the second section, called ' By the Fire- side,' the fire of shipwreck wood is the metaphor made to yield the mood of the brooding wife a mould which takes the cast of every sud- den turn and cranny of her ill-foreboding reverie. xxxviii CRITICAL INTRODUCTION: In the grotesque, frequently double rhymes, and the rough rhythm of ' The Flight of the Duchess/ the bluff, blunt manner of the huntsman who tells the story is conveyed. The subtle change that passes over the spirit of the tale as the rhythm falls tranquilly, with pure rhymes, now, into the dreamy chant of the gypsy, is the more effective for the colloquial swing, stop, and start of the forester's gruff-voiced diction. As in his choice of poems for this volume Browning says he had an imaginary personality in mind to guide him, so it may be said that he has had always in mind imaginary personalities, in various guises and manifold circumstances, to guide him in fashioning his style. The marked traits of his art are keyed to attune with the theme and motive they interpret. As an artist Browning disclaimed the nice selection and employment of a style in itself beautiful. As an artist, none the less, he chose to create in every given case a style fitly proportioned to the design, find- ing in that dramatic relating of style ?nd motive a more vital beauty. Charlotte Porter. Helen A. Clarke. May 2$, 1896. ROBERT BROWNING'S POEMS. .K>>»IC MY STAR. A' LL 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 : ^ lo 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. A FACE. IF one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold, Such as the Tuscan's early art prefers! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould Of those two lips, which should be opening soft In the pure profile ; not as when she laughs, For that spoils all : but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff's Burthen of honey-coloured buds, to kiss And capture 'twixt the lips apart for this. lo Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround. How it should waver, on the pale gold ground, Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts! I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb : MV LAST DUCHESS. But these are only massed there, I should think, Waiting to see some wonder momently Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky, (That 's the pale ground you Yl see this sweet face by) AH heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink. MY LAST DUCHESS. FERRARA. T HAT 'S my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now : P"ra Pandolf s hands Worked busily a day, and there she stands. Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said "Fra Pandolf" by design : for never read Strangers like you that pictured countenance, The depth and passion of its earnest glance, But to myself they turned (since none puts by The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) lo And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there ; so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not Her husband's presence only, called that spot Of joy into the Duchess' cheek : perhaps Frk Pandolf chanced to say '' Her mantle laps Over my ladj^'s wrist too much," or "Paint Must never hope to reproduce the faint Half-flush that dies along her throat : " such stuff Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20 For calling up that spot of joy. She had A heart — how shall I say.-* — too soon made glad, Too easily impressed ; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 't was all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace — all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody's gift. Who 'd stoop to blame SONG FROM ''PIPPA PASSES:' 3 This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, " Just this Or that in you disgusts me ; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark " — and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40 Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, — E^en then would be some stooping ; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I passed her ; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew ; I gave commands ; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive. Will 't please you rise? We '11 meet The company below, then. I repeat, The Count your master's known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretence 50 Of mine for dowry will be disallowed ; Though his fair daugliter's self, as I avowed At starting, is my object. Nay, we '11 go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! SONG FROM "PIPPA PASSES.' GIVE her but a least excuse to love me ! When — where — How — can this arm establish her above me, If fortune fixed her as my lady there. There already, to eternally reprove me ? (" Hist ! " — said Kate the queen ; But " Oh," cried the maiden, binding her tresses, " 'T is only a page that carols unseen, Crumbling your hounds their messes ! ") II. ♦ Is she wronged ? — To the rescue of her honour, My heart ! Is she poor? — What costs it to be styled a donor? Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her! (" Nay, list ! " — bade Kate the queen ; And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, " 'T is only a page that carols unseen, Fitting your hawks their jesses! ") 4 CRISTIN-A. CRISTINA. I. 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. II. 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." III. Oh, we 're sunk enough here, God knows ! but not quite so sunk that moments. Sure tho' seldom, are denied us, when the spirit's true endowments lo 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. IV. There are flashes struck from midnights, there are fire-flames noondays kindle. Whereby piled-up honours perish, whereby swollen ambitions dwindle, While just this or that poor impulse, which for once had play unstifled, Seems the sole work of a life-time 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? 20 VI. 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? COUNT GISMOND. VII. Oh, observe ! Of course, next moment, the world's honours, in derision, Trampled out the light for ever. Never fear but there's provision Of the deviPs to quench knovi'ledge, lest we walk the earth in rapture ! — Making those who catch God's secret, just so much more prize their capture ! VIII. 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 re- mainder. 30 Life will just hold out the proving both our powers, alone and blended : And then, come next life quickly ! This world's use will have been ended. COUNT GISMOND. AIX IN PROVENCE. CHRIST God who savest man, save most Of men Count Gismond who saved me ! Count Gauthier, when he chose his post. Chose time and place and company To suit it ; when he struck at length My honour, 't was with all his strength. II. And doubtlessly, ere he could draw All points to one, he must have schemed! That miserable morning saw Few half so happy as I seemed, While being dressed in queen's array To give our tourney prize away. III. I thought they loved me, did me grace To please themselves ; 't was all their deed ; God makes, or fair or foul, our face ; If showing mine so caused to bleed My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped. COUNT GISMOND. IV. They, too, so beauteous ! Each a queen By virtue of her brow and breast ; 20 Not needing to be crowned, I mean, As I do. E'en when I was dressed, Had either of them spoke, instead Of glancing sideways with still head! V. But no : they let me laugh, and sing My birthday song quite through, adjust The last rose in my garland, fling A last look on the mirror, trust My arms to each an arm of theirs. And so descend the castle-stairs — 30 And come out on the morning troop Of merry friends who kissed my cheek. And called me queen, and made me stoop Under the canopy — (a streak That pierced it, of the outside sun. Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun) - And they could let me take my state And foolish throne amid applause Of all come there to celebrate My queen's-day — Oh I think the cause 40 Of much was, they forgot no crowd Makes up for parents in their shroud! However that be, all eyes were bent Upon me, when my cousins cast Theirs down ; 't was time I should present The victor's crown, but . . . there, 't will last No long time . . . the old mist again Blinds me as then it did. How vain! IX. See ! Gismond 's at the gate, in talk With his two boys : I can proceed. 50 COUNT GISMOND. Well, at that moment, who should stalk Forth boldly — to my face, indeed — But Gauthier ? and he thundered " Stay ! " And all stayed. " Bring no crowns, I say ! " Bring torches ! Wind the penance-sheet About her ! Let her shun the chaste, Or lay herself before their feet ! Shall she, whose body I embraced A night long, queen it in the day ? For honour's sake no crowns, I say ! " 60 XI. I ? What I answered ? As I live, I never fancied such a thing As answer possible to give. What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it ? No more says the soul. XII. Till out strode Gismond ; then I knew That I was saved. I never met His face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set 70 Himself to Satan : who would spend A minute's mistrust on the end ? XIII. He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead. And damned, and truth stood up instead. XIV. This glads me most, that I enjoyed The heart of the joy, with my content 80 In watching Gismond unalloyed By any doubt of the event : God took that on him — I was bid Watch Gismond for my part : I did. COUNT GISMOND. XV. Did I not watch him while he let His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while ! His foot . . . my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. 90 XVI. And e'en before the trumpet's sound Was finished, prone lay the false knight, Prone as his lie, upon the ground : Gismond flew at him, used no sleight O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, Cleaving till out the truth he clove. XVII. Which done, he dragged him to my feet And said, " Here die, but end thy breath In full confession, lest thou fleet From my first, to God's second death ! 100 Say, hast thou lied ? " And, " I have lied To God and her," he said, and died. XVIII. Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked — What safe my heart holds, though no word Could I repeat now, if I tasked My powers for ever, to a third Dear even as you are. Pass the rest Until I sank upon his breast. XIX. Over my head his arm he flung Against the world ; and scarce I felt no His sword (that dripped by me and swung) A little shifted in its belt : For he began to say the while How South our home lay many a mile. So, 'mid the shouting multitude We two walked forth to never more EUR YD ICE TO ORPHEUS. 9 Return. My cousins have pursued Their life, untroubled as before I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place God lighten ! May his soul find grace ! 120 XXI. Our elder boy has got the clear Great brow ; tho' when his brother's black Full eye shows scorn, it . . . Gismond here ? And have you brought my tercel back ? I was just telling Adela How many birds it struck since May. EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS. A PICTURE BY FREDERICK LEIGHTON, R.A. BUT give them me, the mouth, the eyes, the brow ! Let them once more absorb me ! One look now Will lap me round for ever, not to pass Out of its light, though darkness lie beyond : Hold me but safe again within the bond Of one immortal look ! All woe that was. Forgotten, and all terror that may be. Defied, — no past is mine, no future : look at me ! THE GLOVE. (PETER RONSARD loquitur.) u TJEIGHO! "yawned one day King Francis, il " Distance all value enhances ! When a man 's busy, why, leisure Strikes him as wonderful pleasure : 'Faith, and at leisure once is he ? Straightway he wants to be busy. Here we 've got peace ; and aghast I 'm Caught thinking war the true pastime. Is there a reason in metre? Give us your speech, master Peter ! " 10 I who, if mortal dare say so, lO THE GLOVE. Ne^er am at loss with my Naso, "Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets: Men are the merest Ixions " — Here the King whistled aloud, " Let 's . . . Heigho ... go look at our lions ! " Such are the sorrowful chances If you talk fine to King Francis. And so, to the courtyard proceeding, Our company, Francis was leading, Increased by new followers tenfold Before he arrived at the penfold ; Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen At sunset the western horizon. And SirDe Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost With the dame he professed to adore most. Oh, what a face ! One by fits eyed Her, and the horrible pitside ; For the penfold surrounded a hollow Which led where the eye scarce dared follow, 30 And shelved to the chamber secluded Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded. The King hailed his keeper, an Arab As glossy and black as a scarab. And bade him make sport and at once stir Up and out of his den the old monster. They opened a hole in the wire-work Across it, and dropped there a firework, And fled : one's heart's beating redoubled ; A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, 40 \ The blackness and silence so utter. By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter ; Then earth in a sudden contortion Gave out to our gaze her abortion. Such a brute ! Were I friend Clement Marot (Whose experience of nature's but narrow, And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist) I should study that brute to describe you Illiwi Juda Leo f I em de Tribu. 50 One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy To see the black mane, vast and heapy. The tail in the air stiff and straining. The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning, As over the barrier which bounded His platform, and us who surrounded The barrier, they reached and they rested On space that might stand him in best stead : THE GLOVE. II For who knew, he thought, what the amazement, The eruption of clatter and blaze meant, 60 And if, in this minute of wonder, No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder. Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered, The lion at last was delivered ? Ay, that was the open sky overhead ! And you saw by the flash on his forehead, By the hope in those eyes wide and steady. He was leagues in the desert already, Driving the flocks up the mountain. Or catlike couched hard by the fountain 70 To waylay the date-gathering negress : So guarded he entrance or egress. " How he stands ! " quoth the King : " we may well swear, (No novice, we Ve won our spurs elsewhere And so can aff"ord the confession,) We exercise wholesome discretion In keeping aloof from his threshold ; Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold, Their first would too pleasantly purloin The visitor's brisket or sirloin : 80 But who 's he would prove so fool-hardy ? Not the best man of Marignan, pardie ! " The sentence no sooner was uttered. Than over the rails a glove fluttered, Fell close to the lion, and rested : The dame 't was, who flung it and jested With life so, De Lorge had been wooing For months past ; he sat there pursuing His suit, weighing out with nonchalance Fine speeches like gold from a balance. 90 Sound the trumpet, no true knight 's a tarrier ! De Lorge made one leap at the barrier, Walked straight to the glove, — while the lion Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire, And the musky oiled skin of the Kaflir, — Picked it up, and as calmly retreated. Leaped back where the lady was seated And full in the face of its owner Flung the glove. "Your heart's queen, you dethrone her ? 100 So should I ! " — cried the King — '^ 't was mere vanity. Not love, set that task to humanity ! " 12 THE GLOVE. Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing. Not so, I ; for I caught an expression In her brow's undisturbed self-possession Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment, — As if from no pleasing experiment She rose, yet of pain not much heedful So long as the process was needful, — no As if she had tried, in a crucible. To what '*■ speeches like gold " were reducible, And, finding the finest prove copper, Felt the smoke in her face was but proper ; To know what she had 7iot to trust to. Was worth all the ashes and dust too. She went out 'mid hooting and laughter; Clement Marot stayed ; I followed after. And asked, as a grace, what it all meant ? If she wished not the rash deed's recalment? 120 " For I " — so I spoke — " am a poet : Human nature — behoves that I know it ! " She told me, " Too long had I heard Of the deed proved alone by the word : For my love — what De Lorge would not dare ! With my scorn — what De Lorge could compare ! And the endless descriptions of death He would brave when my lip formed a breath, I must reckon as braved, or, of course. Doubt his word — and moreover, perforce, 130 For such gifts as no lady could spurn. Must offer my love in return. When I looked on your lion, it brought All the dangers at once to my thought, Encountered by all sorts of men, Before he was lodged in his den, — From the poor slave whose club or bare hands Dug the trap, set the snare on the sands. With no King and no Court to applaud. By no shame, should he shrink, overawed, 140 Yet to capture the creature made shift, That his rude boys might laugh at the gift, — To the page who last leaped o'er the fence Of the pit, on no greater pretence Than to get back the bonnet he dropped. Lest his pay for a week should be stopped. So, wiser I judged it to make One trial what * death for my sake ' THE GLOVE. 13 Really meant, while the power was yet mine, Than to wait until time should define 150 Such a phrase not so simply as I, Who took it to mean just ' to die.' The blow a glove gives is but weak : Does the mark yet discolour my cheek? But when the heart suffers a blow, Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?" I looked, as away she was sweeping, And saw a youth eagerly keeping As close as he dared to the doorway. No doubt that a noble should more weigh 160 His life than befits a plebeian ; And yet, had our brute been Nemean — (I judge by a certain calm fervour The youth stepped with, forward to serve her) — He 'd have scarce thought you did him the worst turn If you whispered, '' Friend, what you 'd get, first earn ! " And when, shortly after, she carried Her shame from the Court, and they married, To that marriage some happiness, maugre The voice of the Court, I dared augur. For De Lorge, he made women with men vie, Those in wonder and praise, these in envy ; And, in short, stood so plain a head taller That he wooed and won . . . how do you call her? The beauty, that rose in the sequel To the King's love, who loved her a week well. And 't was noticed he never would honour De Lorge (who looked daggers upon her) With the easy commission of stretching His legs in the service, and fetching 180 His wife, from her chamber, those straying Sad gloves she was always mislaying. While the King took the closet to chat in, — But of course this adventure came pat in. And never the King told the story. How bringing a glove brought such glory. But the wife smiled — " His nerves are grown firmer ; Mine he brings now and utters no murmur." Venienti occurrite morbo ! With which moral I drop my theorbo. 190 14 SONG, 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 ; i To praise, you search the wide world over : { Then why not witness, calmly gazing, If earth holds aught — speak truth — above her? lo Above this tress, and this, I touch But cannot praise, I love so much! 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. II. Not a twinkle from the fly. Not a glimmer from the worm ; When the crickets stopped their cry, When the owls forbore a term, You heard music; that was I. lo III. 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. A SERENADE AT THE VILLA. IV. 15 What they could my words expressed, O my love, my all, my one ! Singing helped the verses best, And vfhtn singing's best was done, To my lute I left the rest. 20 V. 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, — 30 VII. " 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." VIII. 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! 40 IX. " 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 — l6 YOUTH AND ART. " 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? 50 XI. " 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 ? " XII. 41 4 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 ! 60 YOUTH AND ART. IT once might have been, once only : We lodged in a street together, You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely, I, a lone she-bird of his feather. Your trade was with sticks and clay, You thumbed, thrust, patted and poHshed, Then laughed "They will see, some day. Smith made, and Gibson demolished." III. My business v/as song, song, song ; I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered, lO " Kate Brown 's on the boards ere long, And Grisi's existence embittered ! " YOUTH AND ART. IV. I earned no more by a warble Than you by a sketch in plaster ; You wanted a piece of marble, I needed a music-master. We studied hard in our styles, Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, For air, looked out on the tiles, For fun, watched each other's windows. 20 VI. You lounged, like a boy of the South, Cap and blouse — nay, a bit of beard too ; Or you got it, rubbing your mouth With fingers the clay adhered to. VII. And I — soon managed to find Weak points in the flower-fence facing, Was torced to put up a blind And be safe in my corset-lacing. VIII. No harm ! It was not my fault If you never turned your eye's tail up 30 As I shook upon E in alt, Or ran the chromatic scale up : IX. For spring bade the sparrows pair. And the boys and girls gave guesses. And stalls in our street looked rare With bulrush and watercresses. X. Why did not you pinch a flower In a pellet of clay and fling it? Why did not I put a power Of thanks in a look, or sing it? 40 l8 YOUTH AND ART. XI. I did look, sharp as a lynx, (And yet the memory rankles) When models arrived, some minx Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles. XII. But I think I gave you as good ! "That foreign fellow, — who can know How she pays, in a playful mood, For his tuning her that piano?" XIII. Could you say so, and never say " Suppose we join hands and fortunes, 50 And I fetch her from over the way, Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes ? " XIV. No, no : you would not be rash, Nor I rasher and something over; You Ve to settle yet Gibson's hash, And Grisi yet lives in clover. XV. But you meet the Prince at the Board, I 'm queen myself at bals-pares, I 've married a rich old lord, And you 're dubbed knight and an R.A. 60 XVI. Each life unfulfilled, you see ; It hangs still, patchy and scrappy : We have not sighed deep, laughed free, Starved, feasted, despaired, — been happy. XVII. And nobody calls you a dunce, And people suppose me clever ; This could but have happened once, And we missed it, lost it for ever. THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 19 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. YOU 'RE my friend : I was the man the Duke spoke to ; I helped the Duchess to cast off his yoke, too ; So, here 's the tale from beginning to end, My friend ! Ours is a great wild country : If you climb to our castle's top, I don't see where your eye can stop ; For when you've passed the corn-field country, Where vineyards leave off, flocks are packed, 10 And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract. And cattle-tract to open-chase. And open-chase to the very base Of the mountain where, at a funeral pace, Round about, solemn and slow. One by one, row after row. Up and up the pine-trees go, So, like black priests up, and so Down the other side again To another greater, wilder country, 20 That 's one vast red drear burnt-up plain. Branched through and through with many a vein Whence iron 's dug, and copper 's dealt ; Look right, look left, look straight before,— Beneath they mine, above they smelt. Copper-ore and iron-ore, And forge and furnace mould and melt. And so on, more and ever more, Till at the last, for a bounding belt. Comes the salt sand hoar of the great sea-shore, 3° — And the whole is our Duke's country. III. I was born the day this present Duke was — (And O, says the song, ere I was old!) In the castle where the other Duke was — (When I was happy and young, not old!) I in the kennel, he in the bower : We are of like age to an hour. My father was huntsman in that day ; 20 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Who has not heard my father say That, when a boar was brought to bay, 40 Three times, four times out of five, With his huntspear he 'd contrive To get the killing-place transfixed. And pin him true, both eyes betwixt? And that 's why the old Duke would rather He lost a salt-pit than my father. And loved to have him ever in call ; That 's why my father stood in the hall When the old Duke brought his infant out To show the people, and while they passed 50 The wondrous bantling round about. Was first to start at the outside blast As the Kaiser's courier blew his horn, Just a month after the babe was born. " And," quoth the Kaiser's courier, " since The Duke has got an heir, our Prince Needs the Duke's self at his side : " The Duke looked down and seemed to wince, But he thought of wars o'er the world wide, Castles a-fire, men on their march, 60 The toppling tower, the crashing arch ; And up he looked, and awhile he eyed The row of crests and shields and banners Of all achievements after all manners, And "ay," said the Duke with a surly pride. The more was his comfort when he died At next year's end, in a velvet suit. With a gilt glove on his hand, his foot In a silken shoe for a leather boot, Petticoated like a herald, 70 In a chamber next to an ante-room, Where he breathed the breath of page and groom, What he called stink, and they, perfume : — They should have set him on red Berold Mad with pride, like fire to manage ! They should have got his cheek fresh tannage Such a day as to-day in the merry sunshine ! Had they stuck on his fist a rough-foot merlin! (Hark, the wind 's on the heath at its game! Oh for a noble falcon-lanner 80 To flap each broad wing like a banner. And turn in the wind, and dance like flame!) Had they broached a white-beer cask from Berlin — Or if you incline to prescribe mere wine Put to his lips, when they saw him pine, A cup of our own Moldavia fine, THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 2 1 Cotnar for instance, green as May sorrel And ropy with sweet, — we shall not quarrel. IV. So, at home, the sick tall yellow Duchess Was left with the infant in her clutches, 90 She being the daughter of God knows who : And now was the time to revisit her tribe. Abroad and afar they went, the two, And let our people rail and gibe At the empty hall and extinguished fire, As loud as we liked, but ever in vain, Till after long years we had our desire. And back came the Duke and his mother again. V. And he came back the pertest little ape That ever affronted human shape ; 100 Full of his travel, struck at himself. You 'd say, he despised our bluff old ways? — Not he ! For in Paris they told the elf Our rough North land was the Land of Lays, The one good thing left in evil days ; Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time, And only in wild nooks like ours Could you taste of it yet as in its prime, And see true castles with proper towers. Young-hearted women, old-minded men, no And manners now as manners were then. So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it, This Duke would fain know he was, without being it ; 'T was not for the joy's self, but the joy of his showing it, Nor for the pride's self, but the pride of our seeing it. He revived all usages thoroughly worn-out. The souls of them fumed-forth, the hearts of them torn-out : And chief in the chase his neck he perilled, On a lathy horse, all legs and length. With blood for bone, all speed, no strength ; 120 — They should have set him on red Berold With the red eye slow consuming in fire. And the thin stiff ear like an abbey spire! VI. Well, such as he was, he must marry, we heard : And out of a convent, at the word, 22 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Came the lady, in time of spring. — Oh, old thoughts they cling, they cling! That day, I know, with a dozen oaths I clad myself in thick hunting-clothes Fit for the chase of urochs or buffle 130 In winter-time when you need to muffle. But the Duke had a mind we should cut a figure, And so we saw the lady arrive : My friend, I have seen a white crane bigger! She was the smallest lady alive, Made in a piece of nature's madness. Too small, almost, for the life and gladness That over-filled her, as some hive Out of the bears' reach on the high trees Is crowded with its safe merry bees : 140 In truth, she was not hard to please! Up she looked, down she looked, round at the mead, Straight at the castle, that 's best indeed To look at from outside the walls : As for us, styled the ^' serfs and thralls," She as much thanked me as if she had said it, (With her eyes, do you understand?) Because I patted her horse while I led it ; And Max, who rode on her other hand, Said, no bird flew past but she inquired 150 What its true name was, nor ever seemed tired — If that was an eagle she saw hover. And the green and gray bird on the field was the plover. When suddenly appeared the Duke : And as down she sprung, the small foot pointed On to my hand, — as with a rebuke, And as if his backbone were not jointed. The Duke stepped rather aside than forward, And welcomed her with his grandest smile ; And, mind you, his mother all the while 160 Chilled in the rear, like a wind to Nor' ward ; And up, like a weary yawn, with its pullies Went, in a shriek, the rusty portcullis : And, like a glad sky the north-wind sullies, The lady's face stopped its play. As if her first hair had grown gray ; For such things must begin some one day. VII. In a day or two she was well again ; As who should say, "You labour in vain! This is all a jest against God, who meant 170 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 23 1 should ever be, as I am, content And glad in his sight ; therefore, glad I will be." So, smiling as at first went she. VIII. She was active, stirring, all fire — Could not rest, could not tire — To a stone she might have given life ! (I myself loved once, in my day) — For a shepherd's, miner's, huntsman's wife, (I had a wife, I know what I say) Never in all the world such an one! 180 And here was plenty to be done. And she that could do it, great or small, She was to do nothing at all. There was already this man in his post, This in his station, and that in his office, And the Duke's plan admitted a wife, at most, To meet his eye with the other trophies. Now outside the hall, now in it. To sit thus, stand thus, see and be seen. At the proper place in the proper minute, 190 And die away the life between. And it was amusing enough, each infraction Of rule — (but for after-sadness that came) To hear the consummate self-satisfaction With which the young Duke and the old dame Would let her advise, and criticise, And, being a fool, instruct the wise, And, child-like, parcel out praise or blame. They bore it all in complacent guise. As though an artificer, after contriving 200 A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him ! So found the Duke, and his mother like him : The lady hardly got a rebuff — That had not been contemptuous enough, With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off the old mother-cat's claws. IX. So, the little lady grew silent and thin, Paling and ever paling. As the way is with a hid chagrin ; 210 And the Duke perceived that she was ailing. And said in his heart, " 'T is done to spite me, 24 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. But I shall find in my power to right me ! " Don't swear, friend! The old one, many a year, Is in hell, and the Duke's self . . . you shall hear. X. Well, early in autumn, at first winter-warning. When the stag had to break with his foot, of a morning A drinking-hole out of the fresh tender ice. That covered the pond till the sun, in a trice. Loosening it, let out a ripple of gold, 220 And another and another, and faster and faster, Till, dimpling to blindness, the wide water rolled, — Then it so chanced that the Duke our master Asked himself what were the pleasures in season, And found, since the calendar bade him be hearty, He should do the Middle Age no treason In resolving on a hunting-party. Always provided, old books showed the way of it ! What meant old poets by their strictures ? And when old poets had said their say of it, 230 How taught old painters in their pictures? We must revert to the proper channels, Workings in tapestry, paintings on panels, And gather up woodcraft's authentic traditions. Here was food for our various ambitions. As on each case, exactly stated — To encourage your dog, now, the properest chirrup. Or best prayer to St. Hubert ^n mounting your stirrup — We of the household took thought and debated. Blessed was he whose back ached with the jerkin 240 His sire was wont to do forest- work in ; Blesseder he who nobly sunk " ohs " And " ahs " while he tugged on his grandsire's trunk-hose ; What signified hats if they had no rims on. Each slouching before and behind like the scallop. And able to serve at sea for a shallop. Loaded with lacquer and looped with crimson? So that the deer now, to make a short rhyme on 't, What with our Venerers, Prickers and Verderers, Might hope for real hunters at length and not murderers, 250 And oh the Duke's tailor, he had a hot time on't! XI. Now you must know that when the first dizziness Of flap-hats and buff-coats and jack-boots subsided, The Duke put this question, ^' The Duke's part provided, THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 25 Had not the Duchess some share in the business ? " For out of the mouth of two or three witnesses Did he establish all fit-or-unfitnesses : And, after much laying of heads together, Somebody's cap got a notable feather By the announcement with proper unction 260 That he had discovered the lady's function ; Since ancient authors gave this tenet, " When horns wind a mort and the deer is at siege, Let the dame of the castle prick forth on her jennet, And with water to wash the hands of her liege In a clean ewer with a fair toweling. Let her preside at the disembowehng." Now, my friend, if you had so little religion As to catch a hawk, some falcon-lanner. And thrust her broad wings like a banner 270 Into a coop for a vulgar pigeon ; And if day by day and week by week You cut her claws, and sealed her eyes. And clipped her wings, and tied her beak, Would it cause you any great surprise If, when you decided to give her an airing, You found she needed a little preparing ? — I say, should you be such a curmudgeon. If she clung to the perch, as to take it in dudgeon? Yet when the Duke to his lady signified, 280 Just a day before, as he judged most dignified, In what a pleasure she was to participate, — And, instead of leaping wide in flashes. Her eyes just lifted their long lashes. As if pressed by fatigue even he could not dissipate, And duly acknowledged the Duke's forethought, But spoke of her health, if her health were worth aught, Of the weight by day and the watch by night, And much wrong now that used to be right. So, thanking him, declined the hunting, — 290 Was conduct ever more affronting? With all the ceremony settled — With the towel ready, and the sewer Polishing up his oldest ewer. And the jennet pitched upon, a piebald, Black-barred, cream-coated and pink eye-balled, — No wonder if the Duke was nettled! And when she persisted nevertheless, — Well, I suppose here 's the time to confess That there ran half round our lady's chamber 300 A balcony none of the hardest to clamber ; And that Jacynth the tire-woman, ready in waiting. 26 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Stayed in call outside, what need of relating ? And since Jacynth was like a June rose, why, a fervent Adorer of Jacynth of course was your servant ; And if she had the habit to peep through the casement, How could I keep at any vast distance? And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence, The Duke, dumb stricken with amazement. Stood for a while in a sultry smother, 310 And then, with a smile that partook of the awful. Turned her over to his yellow mother To learn what was held decorous and lawful ; And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct. As her cheek quick whitened thro' all its quince-tinct. Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once! What meant she? — Who was she? — Her duty and station, The wisdom of age and the folly of youth, at once, Its decent regard and its fitting relation — In brief, my friend, set all the devils in hell free 320 And turn them out to carouse in a belfry And treat the priests to a fifty-part canon. And then you may guess how that tongue of hers ran on! Well, somehow or other it ended at last. And, licking her whiskers, out she passed ; And after her, — making (he hoped) a face Like Emperor Nero or Sultan Saladin, Stalked the Duke's self with the austere grace j Of ancient hero or modern paladin, | From door to staircase — oh such a solemn 330 • Unbending of the vertebral column! XII. However, at sunrise our company mustered ; And here was the huntsman bidding unkennel, And there 'neath his bonnet the pricker blustered, With feather dank as a bough of wet fennel ; For the court-yard walls were filled with fog You might have cut as an axe chops a log — Like so much wool for colour and bulkiness ; And out rode the Duke in a perfect sulkiness. Since, before breakfast, a man feels but queasily, 340 And a sinking at the lower abdomen Begins the day with indifferent omen. And lo, as he looked around uneasily. The sun ploughed the fog up and drove it asunder, This way and that, from the valley under ; And, looking through the court-yard arch, Down in the valley, what should meet him THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 27 But a troop of Gipsies on their march ? No doubt with the annual gifts to greet him. XIII. Now, in your land, Gipsies reach you, only 350 After reaching all lands beside ; North they go, South they go, trooping or lonely, And still, as they travel far and wide, Catch they and keep now a trace here, a trace there, That puts you in mind of a place here, a place there. But with us, I believe they rise out of the ground, And nowhere else, I take it, are found With the earth-tint yet so freshly embrowned ; Born, no doubt, like insects which breed on The very fruit they are meant to feed on, 360 For the earth — not a use to which they don't turn it, The ore that grows in the mountain's womb. Or the sand in the pits like a honeycomb, They sift and soften it, bake it and burn it — Whether they weld you, for instance, a snaffle With side-bars never a brute can baffle ; Or a lock that's a puzzle of wards within wards ; Or, if your colt's forefoot inclines to curve inwards, Horseshoes they hammer which turn on a swivel And won't allow the hoof to shrivel. 370 Then they cast bells like the shell of the winkle That keep a stout heart in the ram with their tinkle ; But the sand — they pinch and pound it like otters ; Commend me to Gipsy glass-makers and potters! Glasses they '11 blow you, crystal-clear. Where just a faint cloud of rose shall appear. As if in pure water you dropped and let die A bruised black-blooded mulberry ; And that other sort, their crowning pride, With long white threads distinct inside, 380 Like the lake-flower's fibrous roots which dangle Loose such a length and never tangle. Where the bold sword-lily cuts the clear waters, And the cup-lily couches with all the white daughters : Such are the works they put their hand to. The uses they turn and twist iron and sand to. And these made the troop, which our Duke saw sally Toward his castle from out of the valley. Men and women, like new-hatched spiders. Come out with the morning to greet our riders. 390 And up they wound till they reached the ditch, Whereat all stopped save one, a witch 28 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. That I knew, as she hobbled from the group, By her gait directly and her stoop, I, whom Jacynth was used to importune To let that same witch tell us our fortune. The oldest Gipsy then above ground ; And, sure as the autumn season came round, She paid us a visit for profit or pastime. And every time, as she swore, for the last time. 400 And presently she was seen to sidle Up to the Duke till she touched his bridle, So that the horse of a sudden reared up As under its nose the old witch peered up With her worn-out eyes, or rather eye-holes Of no use now but to gather brine, And began a kind of level whine Such as they used to sing to their viols When their ditties they go grinding Up and down with nobody minding. 410 And then, as of old, at the end of the humming Her usual presents were forthcoming — A dog-whistle blowing the fiercest of trebles, (Just a sea-shore stone holding a dozen fine pebbles, Or a porcelain mouth-piece to screw on a pipe-end, — And so she awaited her annual stipend. But this time, the Duke would scarcely vouchsafe A word in reply ; and in vain she felt With twitching fingers at her belt For the purse of sleek pine-martin pelt, 420 Ready to put what he gave in her pouch safe, — Till, either to quicken his apprehension, Or possibly with an after-intention. She was come, she said, to pay her duty To the new Duchess, the youthful beauty. No sooner had she named his lady. Than a shine lit up the face so shady, And its smirk returned with a novel meaning : For it struck him, the babe just wanted weaning ; If one gave her a taste of what life was and sorrow 430 She, foolish to-day, would be wiser to-morrow ; And who so fit a teacher of trouble As this sordid crone bent well-nigh double? So, glancing at her wolf-skin vesture, (If such it was, for they grow so hirsute That their own fleece serves for natural fur-suit) He was contrasting, 't was plain from his gesture, The life of the lady so flower-like and delicate With the loathsome squalor of this helicat. I, in brief, was the man the Duke beckoned 440 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 29 From out of the throng : and while I drew near He told the crone — as I since have reckoned By the way he bent and spoke into her ear With circumspection and mystery — The main of the lady's history, Her frowardness and ingratitude ; And for all the crone's submissive attitude I could see round her mouth the loose plaits tightening, And her brow with assenting intelligence brightening, As though she engaged with hearty goodwill 450 Whatever he now might enjoin to fulfil, And promised the lady a thorough frightening. And so, just giving her a glimpse Of a purse, with the air of a man who imps The wing of the hawk that shall fetch the hernshaw, He bade me take the Gipsy mother And set her telling some story or other Of hill or dale, oak-wood or fernshaw, To wile away a weary hour For the lady left alone in her bower, 46a Whose mind and body craved exertion And yet shrank from all better diversion. XIV. Then clapping heel to his horse, the mere curveter, Out rode the Duke, and after his hollo Horses and hounds swept, huntsman and servitor, And back I turned and bade the crone follow. And what makes me confident what 's to be told you Had all along been of this crone's devising, Is, that, on looking round sharply, behold you, There was a novelty quick as surprising : 470 For first, she had shot up a full head in stature, And her step kept pace with mine nor faltered, As if age had foregone its usurpature, And the ignoble mien was wholly altered, And the face looked quite of another nature. And the change reached too, whatever the change meant, Her shaggy wolf-skin cloak's arrangement : For where its tatters hung loose like sedges, Gold coins were glittering on the edges. Like the band-roll strung with tomans 480 Which proves the veil a Persian woman's : And under her brow, like a snail's horns newly Come out as after the rain he paces. Two unmistakable eye-points duly Live and aware looked out of their places. 30 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. I So, we went and found Jacynth at the entry Of the lady's chamber standing sentry. I told the command and produced my companion, And Jacynth rejoiced to admit any one, For since last night, by the same token, 490 Not a single word had the lady spoken. They went in both to the presence together, While I in the balcony watched the weather. XV. And now, what took place at the very first of all, I cannot tell, as I never could learn it : Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall On that little head of hers and burn it If she knew how she came to drop so soundly Asleep of a sudden, and there continue The whole time sleeping as profoundly 500 As one of the boars my father would pin you 'Twixt the eyes where life holds garrison, — Jacynth, forgive me the comparison! But where I begin my own narration Is a little after I took my station To breathe the fresh air from the balcony, And, having in those days a falcon eye. To follow the hunt thro' the open country, From where the bushes thinlier crested The hillocks, to a plain where 's not one tree. 510 When, in a moment, my ear was arrested By — was it singing, or was it saying, Or a strange musical instrument playing In the chamber? — and to be certain I pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain, And there lay Jacynth asleep, Yet as if a watch she tried to keep, In a rosy sleep along the floor With her head against the door ; While in the midst, on the seat of state, 520 Was a queen — the Gipsy woman late, With head and face downbent On the lady's head and face intent : For, coiled at her feet like a child at ease. The lady sat between her knees, And o'er them the lady's clasped hands met, And on those hands her chin was set, And her upturned face met the face of the crone • Wherein the eyes had grown and grown As if she could double and quadruple 530 i 4 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 31 At pleasure the play of either pupil — Very like, by her hands' slow fanning, As up and down like a gor-crow's flappers They moved to measure, or like bell-clappers. Isaid, "Is it blessing, is it banning, Do they applaud you or burlesque you — Those hands and fingers with no flesh on? " But, just as I thought to spring in to the rescue, At once I was stopped by the lady's expression : For it was life her eyes were drinking 540 From the crone's wide pair above unwinking, — Life's pure fire, received without shrinking, Into the heart and breast whose heaving Told you no single drop they were leaving, — Life, that filling her, passed redundant Into her very hair, back swerving Over each shoulder, loose and abundant. As her head thrown back showed the white throat curving ; And the very tresses shared in the pleasure, Moving to the mystic measure, 550 Bounding as the bosom bounded. I stopped short, more and more confounded. As still her cheeks burned and eyes glistened, As she listened and she listened. When all at once a hand detained me, The selfsame contagion gained me. And I kept time to the wondrous chime, Making out words and prose and rhyme. Till it seemed that the music furled Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped 560 From under the words it first had propped, And left them midway in the world. Word took word as hand takes hand, I could hear at last, and understand ; And when I held the unbroken thread, The Gipsy said : — " And so at last we find my tribe, And so I set thee in the midst. And to one and all of them describe What thou saidst and what thou didst, 570 Our long and terrible journey through, And all thou art ready to say and do In the trials that remain. I trace them the vein and the other vein That meet on thy brow and part again Making our rapid mystic mark ; And I bid my people prove and probe 32 i THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Each eye^s profound and glorious globe Till they detect the kindred spark In those depths so dear and dark, Like the spots that snap and burst and flee, Circling over the midnight sea. And on that round young cheek of thine I make them recognise the tinge, As when of the costly scarlet wine They drip so much as will impinge And spread in a thinnest scale afloat One thick gold drop from the olive's coat Over a silver plate whose sheen Still thro' the mixture shall be seen. 590 For so I prove thee, to one and all. Fit, when my people ope their breast. To see the sign, and hear the call, And take the vow, and stand the test Which adds one more child to the rest — When the breast is bare and the arms are wide, And the world is left outside. For there is probation to decree, And many and long must the trials be Thou shalt victoriously endure, 600 If that brow is true and those eyes are sure. Like a jewel-finder's fierce assay Of the prize he dug from its mountain-tomb, — Let once the vindicating ray Leap out amid the anxious gloom. And steel and fire have done their part. And the prize falls on its finder's heart : So, trial after trial past. Wilt thou fall at the very last Breathless, half in trance 610 With the thrill of the great deliverance, I Into our arms for evermore ; I And thou shalt know, those arms once curled About thee, what we knew before, How love is the only good in the world. Henceforth be loved as heart can love. Or brain devise, or hand approve! Stand up, look below, It is our life at thy feet we throw To step with into light and joy ; 620 Not a power of life but we employ To satisfy thy nature's want. Art thou the tree that props the plant, Or the climbing plant that seeks the tree — \ Canst thou help us, must we help thee? J THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 33 If any two creatures grew into one, They would do more than the world has done ; Though each apart were never so weak, Ye vainly through the world should seek For the knowledge and the might 630 Which in such union grew their right : So, to approach at least that end, And blend, — as much as may be, blend Thee with us or us with thee, — As climbing plant or propping tree, Shall some one deck thee over and down, Up and about, with blossoms and leaves? Fix his heart's fruit for thy garland-crown, Cling with his soul as the gourd-vine cleaves Die on thy boughs and disappear 640 While not a leaf of thine is sere? Or is the other fate in store, And art thou fitted to adore. To give thy wondrous self away, And take a stronger nature's sway ? I foresee and could foretell Thy future portion, sure and well : But those passionate eyes speak true, speak true. Let them say what thou shalt do! Only be sure thy daily Ufe, 650 In its peace or in its strife. Never shall be unobserved ; We pursue thy whole career. And hope for it, or doubt, or fear, — Lo, hast thou kept thy path or swerved, We are beside thee in all thy ways, With our blame, with our praise. Our shame to feel, our pride to show, Glad, angry — but indifferent, no! Whether it be thy lot to go, 660 For the good of us all, where the haters meet In the crowded city's horrible street ; Or thou step alone through the morass Where never sound yet was Save the dry quick clap of the stork's bill. For the air is still, and the water still, When the blue breast of the dipping coot Dives under, and all is mute. So, at the last shall come old age. Decrepit as befits that stage ; 670 How else wouldst thou retire apart With the hoarded memories of thy heart, And gather all to the very least 34 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Of the fragments of life's earlier feast, Let fall through eagerness to find The crowning dainties yet behind? Ponder on the entire past Laid together thus at last, When the twilight helps to fuse The first fresh with the faded hues, 680 And the outline of the whole. As round eve's shades their framework roll, Grandly fronts for once thy soul! And then as, 'mid the dark, a gleam Of yet another morning breaks, And like the hand which ends a dream, Death, with the might of his sunbeam. Touches the flesh and the soul awakes. Then — " Ay, then indeed something would happen! But what ? For here her voice changed like a bird's ; 690 There grew more of the music and less of the words ; Had Jacynth only been by me to clap pen To paper and put you down every syllable With those clever clerkly fingers. All I 've forgotten as well as what lingers In this old brain of mine that 's but ill able To give you even this poor version Of the speech I spoil, as it were, with stammering — More fault of those who had the hammering Of prosody into me and syntax, 700 And did it, pf^t with hobnails but tintacks ! But to return from this excursion, — Just, do you mark, when the song was sweetest, The peace most deep and the charm completest, There came, shall I say, a snap — And the charm vanished! And my sense returned, so strangely banished, And, starting as from a nap, I knew the crone was bewitching my lady, With Jacynth asleep ; and but one spring made I Down from the casement, round to the portal, — Another minute and I had entered, — When the door opened, and more than mortal Stood, with a face where to my mind centred All beauties I ever saw or shall see. The Duchess : I stopped as if struck by palsy. She was so different, happy and beautiful, I felt at once that all was best. And that I had nothing to do, for the rest. But wait her commands, obey and be dutiful. 720 710 I THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 35 Not that, in fact, there was any commanding ; I saw the glory of her eye, And the brow's height and the breast's expanding, And I was hers to live or to die. As for finding what she wanted. You know God Almighty granted Such little signs should serve wild creatures To tell one another all their desires, So that each knows what his friend requires, And does its bidding without teachers. 730 I preceded her ; the crone Followed silent and alone ; I spoke to h-er, but she merely jabbered In the old style ; both her eyes had slunk Back to their pits ; her stature shrunk ; In short, the soul in its body sunk Like a blade sent home to its scabbard. We descended, I preceding ; Crossed the court with nobody heeding ; All the world was at the chase, 74° The court-yard like a desert-place. The stable emptied of its small fry ; I saddled myself the very palfrey I remember patting while it carried her. The day she arrived and the Duke married her. And, do you know, though it 's easy deceiving Oneself in such matters, I can't help believing The lady had not forgotten it either. And knew the poor devil so much beneath her Would have been only too glad, for her service, 750 To dance on hot ploughshares like a Turk dervise, But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it. Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it : For though the moment I began setting His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting, (Not that I meant to be obtrusive) She stopped me, while his rug was shifting. By a single rapid finger's lifting. And, with a gesture kind but conclusive, And a little shake of the head, refused me, — 760 I say, although she never used me. Yet when she was mounted, the Gipsy behind her, And I ventured to remind her, I suppose with a voice of less steadiness Than usual, for my feeling exceeded me, — Something to the effect that I was in readiness Whenever God should please she needed me, — Then, do you know, her face looked down on me 36 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. With a look that placed a crown on me, And she felt in her bosom, — mark, her bosom — 770 And, as a flower-tree drops its blossom. Dropped me . . . ah, had it been a purse Of silver, my friend, or gold that's worse, Why, you see, as soon as I found myself So understood, — that a true heart so may gain Such a reward, — I should have gone home again, Kissed Jacynth, and soberly drowned myself! It was a little plait of hair Such as friends in a convent make To wear, each for the other's sake, — 780 This, see, which at my breast 1 wear. Ever did (rather to Jacynth's grudgment), And ever shall, till the Day of Judgment. And then, — and then, — to cut short, — this is idle, These are feelings it is not good to foster, — I pushed the gate wide, she shook the bridle, And the palfrey bounded, — and so we lost her. XVI. When the liquor's out why clink the cannikin? I did think to describe you the panic in The redoubtable breast of our master the mannikin, 790 And what was the pitch of his mother's yellowness, How she turned as a shark to snap the spare-rib Clean off", sailors say, from a pearl-diving Carib, When she heard, what she called the flight of the feloness — But it seems such child's play. What they said and did with the lady away! And to dance on, when we 've lost the music, Always made me — and no doubt makes you — sick. Nay, to my mind, the world's face looked so stern As that sweet form disappeared through the postern, 800 She that kept it in constant good humour, It ought to have stopped ; there seemed nothing to do more. But the world thought otherwise and went on, And my head 's one that its spite was spent on : Thirty years are fled since that morning. And with them all my head's adorning. Nor did the old Duchess die outright. As you expect, of suppressed spite, The natural end of every adder Not suff"ered to empty its poison-bladder; 810 But she and her son agreed, I take it, That no one should touch on the story to wake it, For the wound in the Duke's pride rankled fiery ; THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. 37 So, they made no search and small inquiry : And when fresh Gipsies have paid us a visit, I 've Noticed the couple were never inquisitive, But told them they 're folks the Duke don't want here, And bade them make haste and cross the frontier. Brief, the Duchess was gone and the Duke was glad of it, And the old one was in the young one's stead, 820 And took, in her place, the household's head, And a blessed time the household had of it! And were I not, as a man may say, cautious How I trench, more than needs, on the nauseous, I could favour you with sundry touches Of the paint-smutches with which the Duchess Heightened the mellowness of her cheek's yellowness (To get on faster) until at last her Cheek grew to be one master-plaster Of mucus and fucus from mere use of ceruse : 830 In short, she grew from scalp to udder Just the object to make you shudder. XVII. You 're my friend — What a thing friendship is, world without end! How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet. And poured out, all lovelily, sparklingly, sunlit. Our green Moldavia, the streaky syrup, Cotnar as old as the time of the Druids — Friendship may match with that monarch of fluids ; 840 Each supples a dry brain, fills you its ins-and-outs. Gives your life's hour-glass a shake when the thin sand doubts Whether to run on or stop short, and guarantees Age is not all made of stark sloth and arrant ease. I have seen my little lady once more, Jacynth, the Gipsy, Berold, and the rest of it. For to me spoke the Duke, as I told you before ; I always wanted to make a clean breast of it : And now it is made — why, my heart's blood, that went trickle. Trickle, but anon, in such muddy driblets, 850 Is pumped up brisk now, through the main ventricle. And genially floats me about the giblets. I '11 tell you what I intend to do : I must see this fellow his sad life through — He is our Duke, after all. And I, as he says, but a serf and thrall. My father was born here, and I inherit His feme, a chain he bound his son with ; 38 THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS. Could I pay in a lump I should prefer it, But there \s no mine to blow up and get done with : 860 So, I must stay till the end of the chapter. For, as to our middle-age-manners-adapter, Be it a thing to be glad on or sorry on, Some day or other, his head in a morion And breast in a hauberk, his heels he '11 kick up, Slain by an onslaught fierce of hiccup. And then, when red doth the sword of our Duke rust, And its leathern sheath lie overgrown with a blue crust, Then I shall scrape together my earnings ; For, you see, in the churchyard Jacynth reposes, 870 And our children all went the way of the roses ; It 's a long lane that knows no turnings. One needs but little tackle to travel in ; So, just one stout cloak shall I indue : And for a staff, what beats the javelin With which his boars my father pinned you? And then, for a purpose you shall hear presently. Taking some Cotnar, a tight plump skinful, J shall go journeying, who but I, pleasantly! Sorrow is vain and despondency sinful. 880 What 's a man's age? He must hurry more, that 's all ; Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold : When we mind labour, then only, we 're too old — What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul? And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees, (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil) I hope to get safely out of the turmoil And arrive one day at the land of the Gipsies, And find my lady, or hear the last news of her From some old thief and son of Lucifer, 890 His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop. Sunburned all over like an ^thiop. And when my Cotnar begins to operate And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate, And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent, I shall drop in with — as if by accident — " You never knew then, how it all ended. What fortune good or bad attended The little lady your Queen befriended ? " — And when that 's told me, what 's remaining? 900 This world 's too hard for my explaining. The same wise judge of matters equine . Who still preferred some slim four-year-old To the big-boned stock of mighty Berold, And, for strong Cotnar, drank French weak wine, He also must be such a lady's scorner! SONG FROM ''PIPPA PASSES: 39 Smooth Jacob still robs homely Esau : Now up, now down, the world's one see-saw. — So, I shall find out some snug corner Under a hedge, like Orson the wood-knight, 910 Turn myself round and bid the world good night ; And sleep a sound sleep till the trumpet's blowing Wakes me (unless priests cheat us laymen) To a world where will be no further throwing Pearls before swine that can't value them. Amen! SONG FROM "PIPPA PASSES.' THE year 's at the spring, And day 's at the morn ; Morning 's at seven ; The hill-side 's dew-pearled; The lark 's on the wing ; The snail 's on the thorn ; God 's in His heaven — All 's risht with the world ! "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX." [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. II. 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, 10 Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 40 ''HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS III. '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 Duifeld, '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, 20 To stare thro' 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 : V. 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. 30 By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris " Stay spur! Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her, We '11 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. VII. 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; 40 Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, And " Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight!" VIII. " How they '11 greet us ! " — and all in a moment his roan Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; FROM GHENT TO AIXy 41 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 buff-coat, each holster let fall. Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 50 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. X. 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. 60 SONG FROM "PARACELSUS." HEAP cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls. Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair : such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals. From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island gain. II. And strew faint sweetness from some old Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud 10 Which breaks to dust when once unrolled ; Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed. With mothed and dropping arras hung, Mouldering her lute and books among. As when a queen, long dead, was young. 42 THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR. THROUGH THE METIDJA TO ABD-EL-KADR. 1842. 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, 10 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? III. As I ride, as I ride, When an inner voice has cried, The sands sHde, nor abide (As I ride, as I ride) 20 O'er each visioned homicide That came vaunting (has he lied?) To reside — where he died. As I ride, as I ride. IV. 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 — 30 How has vied stride with stride As I ride, as I ride ! INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. 43 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! 40 INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP. YOU know, we French stormed Ratisbon A mile or so away On a little mound, Napoleon Stood on our storming-day ; With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, Legs wide, arms locked behind, As if to balance the prone brow Oppressive with its mind. II. Just as perhaps he mused " My plans That soar, to earth may fall, Let once my army-leader Lannes Waver at yonder wall " — Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew A rider, bound on bound Full-galloping; nor bridle drew Until he reached the mound. III. Then off there flung in smiling joy, And held himself erect By just his horse's mane, a boy : You hardly could suspect — 20 (So tight he kept his lips compressed, Scarce any blood came through) You looked twice ere you saw his breast Was all but shot in two. 44 THE LOST LEADER. IV. " Well," cried he, " Emperor, by God's grace We Ve got you Ratisbon ! The Marshal 's in the market-place, And you '11 be there anon To see your flag-bird flap his vans Where I, to heart's desire, 30 Perched him ! " The chief's eye flashed ; his plans Soared up again like fire. V. The chief's eye flashed ; but presently Softened itself, as sheathes A film the mother-eagle's eye When her bruised eaglet breathes. " You 're wounded ! " " Nay," the soldier's pride Touched to the quick, he said : " I 'm killed. Sire! " And his chief beside, Smiling the boy fell dead. 40 THE LOST LEADER. JUST for a handful of silver he left us. Just for a riband to stick in his coat — jf'ound 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 : i How all our copper had gone for his service! I Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud! I We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him, ] Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, io» Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, \ Made him our pattern to live and to die ! '' Shakespeare was of us, Milton w.as 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 thro' his presence ; Songs naay inspirit us, — not from his lyre ; IN A GONDOLA. 45 Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire : 20 Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devil's-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 ghmmer 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 ; 30 Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne! IN A GONDOLA. He sings. I SEND my heart up to thee, all my heart In this my singmg. For the stars help me, and the sea bears part ; The very night is cHnging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space Above me, whence thy face May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place. She speaks. Say after me, and try to say My very words, as if each word Came from you of your own accord, 10 In your own voice, in your own way : " This woman's heart and soul and brain Are mine as much as this gold chain She bids me wear ; which " (say again) " I choose to make by cherishing A precious thing, or choose to fling Over the boat-side, ring by ring." And yet once more say ... no word more! Since words are only words. Give o'er! Unless you call me, all the same, 20 Familiarly by my pet name. Which if the Three should hear you call, And me reply to, would proclaim 46 /^ ^ GONDOLA. At once our secret to them all. Ask of me, too, command me, blame — Do, break down the partition-wall 'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds Curtained in dusk and splendid folds! What 's left but — all of me to take ? I am the Three's : prevent them, slake Your thirst! 'T is said, the Arab sage In practising with gems, can loose Their subtle spirit in his cruce And leave but ashes : so, sweet mage, Leave them my ashes when thy use Sucks out my soul, thy heritage! He sings. I. Past we glide, and past, and past ! What 's that poor Agnese doing Where they make the shutters fast? Gray Zanobi's just a-wooing To his couch the purchased bride : Past we glide ! II. Past we glide, and past, and past! Why's the Pucci Palace flaring Like a beacon to the blast? Guests by hundreds, not one caring If the dear host's neck were wried : Past we glide ! She sings. I. The moth's kiss, first! Kiss me as if you made believe You were not sure, this eve. How my face, your flower, had pursed Its petals up ; so, here and there You brush it, till I grow aware Who wants me, and wide ope I burgt. II. The bee's kiss, now ! Kiss me as if you entered gay IN A GONDOLA. 47 My heart at some noonday, — A bud that dares not disallow The claim, so all is rendered up, 60 And passively its shattered cup Over your head to sleep I bow. He sings. I. What are we two ? I am a Jew, And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue, To a feast of our tribe ; Where they need thee to bribe The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe Thy . . . Scatter the vision for ever ! And now, As of old, I am I, thou art thou! ^o Say again, what we are? The sprite of a star, I lure thee above where the destinies bar My plumes their full play Till a ruddier ray Than my pale one announce there is withering away Some . . . Scatter the vision for ever! And now, As of old, I am I, thou art thou! He muses. Oh, which were best, to roam or rest? The land's lap or the water's breast? 80 To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves. Or swim in lucid shallows just Eluding water-lily leaves, An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust To lock you, whom release he must ; Which life were best on Summer eves ? He speaks^ musing. Lie back : could thought of mine improve you ? From this shoulder let there spring A wing ; from this, another wing ; Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you! 90 Snow-white must they spring, to blend With your flesh, but I intend 48 /^ ^ GONDOLA. They shall deepen to the end, Broader, into burning gold, Till both wings crescent-wise enfold Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet As if a million sword-blades hurled Defiance from you to the world ! Rescue me thou, the only real ! loo And scare away this mad ideal That came, nor motions to depart ! Thanks ! Now, stay ever as thou art ! Still he 7mises. What if the Three should catch at last Thy serenader? While there 's cast PauPs cloak about my head, and fast Gian pinions me, Himself has past His stylet through my back ; I reel ; And ... is it thou I feel? They trail me, these three godless knaves, no Past every church that saints and saves, Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves By Lido's wet accursed graves. They scoop mine, roll me to its brink, And ... on thy breast I sink! She replies, mitsing. Dip your arm o'er the boat side, elbow-deep. As I do*; thus : were death so unlike sleep. Caught this way ? Death 's to fear from flame or steel, Or poison doubtless ; but from water — feel! Go find the bottom! Would you stay me ? There! 120 Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass To plait in where the foolish jewel was, ] I flung away : since you have praised my hair, 'T is proper to be choice in what I wear. IN" A GONDOLA. 49 He speaks. Row home? must we row home? Too surely Know I where its front 's demurely Over the Guidecca piled ; Window just with window mating, Door on door exactly waiting, All 's the set face of a child : 13° But behind it, where 's a trace Of the staidness and reserve. And formal lines without a curve, In the same child's playing-face ? No two windows look one way O'er the small sea-water thread Below them. Ah, the autumn day I, passing, saw you overhead ! First, out a cloud of curtain blew. Then a sweet cry, and last came you— 140 To catch your lory that must needs Escape just then, of all times then, To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds And make me happiest of men. I scarce could breathe to see you reach So far back o'er the balcony, To catch him ere he climbed too high Above you in the Smyrna peach. That quick the round smooth cord of gold, This coiled hair on your head, unrolled, 15° Fell down you like a gorgeous snake The Roman girls were wont, of old, When Rome there was, for coolness' sake To let he curling o'er their bosoms. Dear lory, may his beak retain Ever its delicate rose stain. As if the wounded lotus-blossoms Had marked their thief to know again ! Stay longer yet, for others' sake , ^ ^ . Than mine! What should your chamber do ? 100 — With all its rarities that ache In silence while day lasts, but wake At night-time and their life renew. Suspended just to pleasure you Who brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether That dumb they look : your harp, believe With all the sensitive tight strings £ 50 IN A GONDOLA. Which dare not speak, now to itself 170 Breathes slumberously, as if some elf Went in and out the chords, his wings Make murmur, wheresoe'er they graze, As an angel may, between the maze Of midnight palace-pillars, on And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone Through guilty glorious Babylon. And while such murmurs flow, the nymph Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell As the dry Hmpet for the lymph 180 Come with a tune he knows so well. And how your statues' hearts must swell ! And how your pictures must descend To see each other, friend with friend ! Oh, could you take them by surprise, You 'd find Schidone's eager Duke Doing the quaintest courtesies To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke! And, deeper into her rock den. Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen 190 You 'd find retreated from the ken Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser — As if the Tizian thinks of her. And is not, rather, gravely bent On seeing for himself what toys Are these, his progeny invent. What litter now the board employs Whereon he signed a document That got him murdered! Each enjoys Its night so well, you cannot break 200 The sport up : so, indeed must make More stay with me, for others' sake. She speaks. I. To-morrow, if a harp-string, say. Is used to tie the jasmine back That overfloods my room with sweets, Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets My Zanze! If the ribbon 's black, The Three are watching : keep away! Your gondola — let Zorzi wreathe A mesh of water-weeds about 210 ^ A LOVERS' QUARREL. 5 1 Its prow, as if he unaware Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair! That I may throw a paper out As you and he go underneath. There 's Zanze's vigilant taper ; safe are we. Only one minute more to-night with me? Resume your past self of a month ago! Be you the bashful gallant, I will be The lady with the colder breast than snow. Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand 220 More than I touch yours when I step to land. And say, "All thanks, Siora!" — Heart to heart And hps to lips! Yet once more, ere we part, Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art! He is surprised, and stabbed. It was ordained to be so, sweet! — and best Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast. Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care Only to put aside thy beauteous hair My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn To death, because they never lived : but I 230 Have lived indeed, and so — (yet one more kiss) — can die! A LOVERS' QUARREL. O' 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 10 On the beryl bed Paven smooth as a hermit's cell: Each with a tale to tell. Could my Love but attend as, welL 52 A LOVERS' QUARREL. III. Dearest, three months ago! When we Hved 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, 20 Where we loved each the other so! IV. 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 ; 30 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 — 40 Black neck and eyeballs keen, Up a wild horse leaps between! VII. Try, will our table turn? Lay your hands there light, and yearn Till the yearning slips Thro' the finger-tips In a fire which a few discern, And a very few feel burn, And the rest, they may live and learn ! A LOVERS' QUARREL, 53 VIII. Then we would up and pace, 50 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 '11 embrace. IX. See, how she looks now, dressed In a sledging-cap and vest ! 'T is a huge fur cloak — Like a reindeer's yoke 60 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. 70 XI. 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 Avas earth to know, Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro? XII. Dearest, three months ago, When we loved each other so, Lived and loved the same 80 Till an evening came When a shaft from the devil's bow Pierced to our ingle-glow, And the friends were friend and foe! 54 A LOVERS' QUARREL. XIII. 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 Ufe and death 90 In the tongue, as the Preacher saith! XIV. 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? XV. Love, if you knew the light That your soul casts in my sight, lOO 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! XVI. 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 — ilQf Ear, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd ! XVII. Foul be the world or fak 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! A LOVERS' QUARREL. 55 XVIII. Here 's the spring back or close, 120 When the ahiiond-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. XIX. Could but November come, Were the noisy birds struck dumb At the warning slash Of his driver's-lash — 130 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! 140 XXI. 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!" XXII. So, she 'd eiface the score, And forgive me as before. It is twelve o'clock: 150 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! 56 EARTH'S IMMORTALITIES. 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 for ever !) lo All March begun with, April's endeavour ; May-wreaths that bound me June needs must sever ; Now snows fall round me. Quenching June's fever — (Love me for ever I) THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER I SAID Since now at length my fate I know. Since nothing all my love avails. Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails. Since this was written and needs must be — My whole heart rises up to bless Your name in pride and thankfulness! Take back the hope you gave, — I claim Only a memory of the same, — And this beside, if you will not blame. Your leave for one more last ride with mc. My mistress bent that brow of hers ; Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER. 57 When pity would be softening through, Fixed me a breathing-while or two With life or death in the balance : right! The blood replenished me again ; My last thought was at least not vain : I and my mistress, side by side Shall be together, breathe and ride, 20 So, one day more am I deified. Who knows but the world may end to-night? III. Hush ! if you saw some western cloud All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed By many benedictions — sun's And moon's and evening star's at once — And so, you, looking and loving best, Conscious grew, your passion drew Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, Down on you, near and yet more near, 30 Till flesh must fade for heaven was here! — Thus leant she and lingered — joy and fear! Thus lay she a moment on my breast. IV. Then we began to ride. My soul Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll Freshening and fluttering in the wind. Past hopes already lay behind. What need to strive with a life awry? Had I said that, had I done this. So might I gain, so might I miss. 40 Might she have loved me? just as well She might have hated, who can tell! Where had I been now if the worst befell? Fail I alone, in words and deeds ? Why, all men strive and who succeeds? We rode ; it seemed my spirit flew. Saw other regions, cities new, As the world rushed by on either side. I thought, — All labour, yet no less 50 Bear up beneath their unsuccess. Look at the end of work, contrast The petty done, the uoidone vast, 58 THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER. This present of theirs with the hopeful past! I hoped she would love me ; here we ride. VI. What hand and brain went ever paired ? What heart alike conceived and dared ? What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen ? We ride and I see her bosom heave. There 's many a crown for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman's life in each ! The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing! what atones? They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. My riding is better, by their leave. VII. What does it all mean, poet? Well, Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell What we felt only ; you expressed You hold things beautiful the best, And pace them in rhyme so, side by side. 'T is something, nay 't is much : but then. Have you yourself what 's best for men ? Are you — poor, sick, old ere your time — Nearer one whit your own sublime Than we who never have turned a rhyme ? Sing, riding 's a joy! For me, I ride. VIII. And you, great sculptor — so, you gave A score of years to Art, her slave, And that 's your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn! You acquiesce, and shall I repine? What, man of music, you grown gray With notes and nothing else to say. Is this your sole praise from a friend, " Greatly his opera's strains intend, But in music we know how fashions end!" I gave my youth ; but we ride, in fine. Who knows what 's fit for us ? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate MESMERISM. ^^ My being — had I signed the bond — Still one must lead some life beyond, Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul. Could I descry such ? Try and test ! I sink back shuddering from the quest. Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride. And yet — she has not spoke so long! lOO What if heaven be that, fair and strong At life's best, with our eyes upturned Whither life's flower is first discerned, We, fixed so, ever should so abide ? What if we still ride on, we two, With life for ever old yet new, Changed not in kind but in degree, The instant made eternity, — And heaven just prove that I and she Ride, ride together, for ever ride? no MESMERISM. I. ALL I believed is true! I am able yet All I want, to get By a method as strange as new : Dare I trust the same to you ? If at night, when doors are shut, And the wood-worm picks, And the death-watch ticks, And the bar has a flag of smut. And a cat 's in the water-butt — lo III. And the socket floats and flares. And the house-beams groan, And a foot unknown 6o MESMERISM. Is surmised on the garret-stairs, And the locks slip unawares — IV. And the spider, to serve his ends, By a sudden thread, Arms and legs outspread, On the table's midst descends, Comes to find, God knows what friends! — 20 V. If since eve drew in, I say, I have sat and brought (So to speak) my thought To bear on the woman away. Till I felt my hair turn gray — VI. Till I seemed to have and hold, In the vacancy ' Twixt the wall and me From the hair-plait's chestnut-gold To the foot in its muslin fold — 30 VII. Have and hold, then and there. Her, from head to foot. Breathing and mute. Passive and yet aware. In the grasp of my steady stare — VIII. Hold and have, there and then. All her body and soul That completes my whole. All that women add to men, In the clutch of my steady ken - IX. Having and holding, till I imprint her fast On the void at last As the sun does whom he will By the calotypist's skill — %. MESMERISM. 6i Then, — if my heart's strength serve, And thro' all and each Of the veils I reach To her soul and never swerve, Knitting an iron nerve — 50 XI. Command her soul to advance And inform the shape Which has made escape And before my countenance Answers me glance for glance - XII. I, still with a gesture fit Of my hands that best Do my soul's behest, Pointing the power from it, While myself do steadfast sit — 60 Steadfast and still the same On my object bent, While the hands give vent To my ardour and my aim And break into very flame — xrv. Then I reach, I must believe^ Not her soul in vain, For to me again It reaches, and past retrieve Is wound in the toils I weave ; 70 XV. And must follow as I require, As befits a thrall, Bringing flesh and all, Essence and earth-attire. To the source of the tractile fire : • 62 MESMERISM. XVI. Till the house called hers, not mine, With a growing weight Seems to suffocate If she break not its leaden line And escape from its close confine. XVII. Out of doors into the night ! On to the maze Of the wild wood-ways, Not turning to left nor right From the pathway, blind with sight - XVIII. 1 Making thro' rain and wind O'er the broken shrubs, 'Twixt the stems and stubs, With a still, composed, strong mind, Not a care for the world behind — 90, XIX. Swifter and still more swift, As the crowding peace Doth to joy increase In the wide blind eyes uplift Thro' the darkness and the drift! XX. While I — to the shape, I too Feel my soul dilate : Not a whit abate. And relax not a gesture due, As I see my belief come true. 100 XXI. For, there ! have I drawn or no Life to that lip ? Do my fingers dip In a flame which again they throw On the cheek that breaks a-glow? MESMERISM. 63 Ha! was the hair so first? What, unfilleted, Made alive, and spread Thro' the void with a rich outburst, Chestnut gold-interspersed? no XXIII. Like the doors of a casket-shrine, See, on either side, Her two arms divide Till the heart betwixt makes sign, XXIV. " Now — now " — the door is heard! Hark, the stairs! and near — Nearer — and here — "Now ! " and, at call the third. She enters without a word. On doth she march and on To the fancied shape ; It is, past escape, Herself, now: the dream is done And the shadow and she are one. First, I will pray. Do Thou That ownest the soul, Yet wilt grant control To another, nor disallow For a time, restrain me now ! 130 XXVII. I admonish me while I may, Not to squander guilt. Since require Thou wilt At my hand its price one day! What the price is, who can say? 64 BV THE FIRESIDE. BY THE FIRESIDE. I. 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 ! II. 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! lo III. 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 ! " IV. 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. 2o| 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. VI. 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 ! 30; BY THE FIRESIDE. 6$ VII. 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? VIII. 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, Thro' the ravage some torrent brings! IX. 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! X. On our other side is the straight-up rock ; And a path is kept Hwixt 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. 50 XI. Oh the sense of the yellow mountain-flowers, And thorny balls, 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. XII. 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, 60 66 BV THE FIRESIDE. xni. By the rose-flesh mushrooms, imdivulged Last evening — nay, in to-day's first dew Yon sudden coral nipple bulged, Where a freaked fawn-coloured flaky crew Of toad-stools peep indulged. XIV. 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. 70 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 ! XVI. 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 — 80 XVII. To drop from the charcoal-burners' huts. Or climb from the hemp-dresser's 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. XVIII. 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 — 90 BY THE FIRESIDE. 67 XIX. 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. 100 XXI. My perfect wife, my Leonor, Oh heart, my own, oh eyes, mine too, Whom else could I dare look backward for, With whom besides should I dare pursue The path gray heads abhor? XXII. 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 ! XXIII. With me,, youth led ... I will speak now, No longer watch you as you sit Reading by firelight, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it, Mutely, my heart knows how — XXIV. 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. 120 68 BY THE FIRESIDE, XXV. My own, confirm me ! If I tread This path back, is it not in pride To think how httle I dreamed it led To an age so blest that, by its side, Youth seems the waste instead? XXVI. My own, see where the years conduct ! At first, \ was something our two souls Should mix as mists do ; each is sucked In each now : on, the new stream rolls, Whatever rocks obstruct. 130 XXVII. 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 ? XXVIII. 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 ! 140 XXIX. 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 ? XXX. 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 ! 150 J BV THE FIRESIDE. 69 XXXI. 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 noon-day glare You count the streaks and rings. XXXII. 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. ^°° XXXIII. 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. XXXIV. 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. 17° XXXV. 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. XXXVI. 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 ! i^o 70 BY THE FIRESIDE. XXXVII. 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 ! XXXVIII. 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. 190 XXXIX. 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 ! XL. 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. 200 XLI. 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. XLII. 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! 210 BY THE FIRESIDE. J I XLIII. 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 ! XLIV. 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! 220 XLV. 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. XLVI. 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. 230 XLVII. 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. XLVIII. 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. 240 72 AATV WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. XLIX. 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 ! L. 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. 250 LI. 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! LII. And to watch you sink by the fireside now Back again, as you mutely sit Musing by firelight, that great brow And the spirit-small hand propping it. Yonder, my heart knows how! 260 LIII. 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 ncvr As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say — Shouldst love so truly, and couldst love me still ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. 73 A whole long life through, had but love its will, Would death that leads me from thee brook delay. II. 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? 10 When cry for the old comfort and find none? Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face. III. Oh, I should fade — 't is 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. IV. It would not be because my eye grew dim Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him 20 Who never is dishonoured in the spark He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade Remember whence it sprang, nor be afraid While that burns on, tho' all the rest grow dark. V. So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean Outside as inside, soul and souPs demesne Alike, this body given to show it by! Oh, three-parts thro' the worst of life's abyss, What plaudits from the next world after this, Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky! 30 VI. And is it not the bitterer to think That, disengage our hands and thou wilt sink Altho' 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. 74 ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. VII. 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, 40 Or viewed me from a window, not so soon With thee would such things fade as with the rest. VIII. 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 shght a call : And for all this, one little hour to thank! IX. But now, because the hour thro' years was fixed, Because our inmost beings met and mixed, 50 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? " 60 XI. Is it so helpful to thee? Canst thou take The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake. Put gently by such eff'orts at a beam ? Is the remainder of the way so long. Thou need'st the Httle solace, thou the strong? Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream. XII. — Ah, but the fresher faces ! " Is it true," Thou 'It ask, "some eyes are beautiful and new? Some hair, — how can one choose but grasp such wealth? 1 ANY WIFE TO ANY HUSBAND. 75 And if a man would press his lips to lips 70 Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth? XIII. " 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?" XIV. So must I see, from where I sit and watch, My own self sell myself, my hand attach 80 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! XV. 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 ! 90 XVI. 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 ! XVII. 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, 100 And talk together, '• Such the look and such The smile he used to love with, then as now! " 76 /^^ A YEAR. XVIII. 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! XIX. Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er Within my mind each look, get more and more no By heart each word, too much to learn at first ; And join thee all the fitter for the pause 'Neath the low door-way's lintel. That were cause For lingering, though thou calledst, if I durst! XX. 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 '11 say then, here 's a trial and a task ; Is it to bear? — if easy, I '11 not ask : Tho' love fail, I can trust on in thy pride. 120 XXI. 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! IN A YEAR. I. 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. IN A YEAR. yy Was it something said, Something done, lo Vexed him? was it touch of hand, Turn of head? Strange ! that very way Love begun : I as little understand Love's decay. III. When I sewed or drew, I recall How he looked as if I sung, — Sweetly too. 20 If I spoke a word, First of all Up his cheek the colour sprung. Then he heard. IV. Sitting by my side. At my feet, So he breathed but air I breathed. Satisfied! I, too, at love''s brim Touched the sweet : 30 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! " 40 Was it wrong to own. Being truth ? Why should all the giving prove His alone ? 78 I^ A YEAR. I had wealth and ease, Beauty, youth : Since my lover gave me love, I gave these. VII. — To be just, 50 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 ? VIII. Would he loved me yet. On and on. While I found some way undreamed — Paid my debt ! 6o| Gave more life and more, Till all gone, He should smile " She never seemed Mine before. IX. " 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! 70 Can't we touch these bubbles then But they break ? " X. 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? 80 SOA^G FROM ''JAMES LEE'S WIFE?' 79 SONG FROM "JAMES LEE'S WIFE." I. OH, good gigantic smile o' the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth : Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. II. That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true ; Such is life's trial, as old earth smiles and knows. If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you. 10 Make the low nature better by your throes! Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! A WOMAN'S LAST WORD. LET 'S contend no more, Love, Strive nor weep : All be as before. Love, — Only sleep ! II. What so wild as words are? I and thou In debate, as birds are. Hawk on bough ! III. See the creature stalking While we speak! lo Hush and hide the talking, Cheek on cheek. 8o A IVOA/AJV'S LAST WORD. IV. 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. 20 Be a god and hold me With a charm ! Be a man and fold me With thine arm! VII. Teach me, only teach, Love! As I ought I will speak thy speech, Love, Think thy thought — VIII. Meet, if thou require it, Both demands, 30 Laying flesh and spirit In thy hands. IX. 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. MEETING AT NIGHT. 82 MEETING AT NIGHT. I. 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. II. 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, lo And a voice less loud, thro' 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. WOMEN AND ROSES. I I DREAM of a red-rose tree. And which of its roses three Is the dearest rose to me? Round and round, like a dance of snow In a dazzling drift, as its ouardians, 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. G 82 WOMEN AND ROSES. Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens, lo 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. 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! 20 Hearts that beat ^neath each pallid breast! Once but of love, the poesy, the passion, Drink but once and die! They circle their rose on my rose tree. D^ar rose, thy joy's undimmed : Tny 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. 1 Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear! 40 What is far conquers what is near. 4 MISCONCEPTIONS, 83 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. 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, 10 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, profi'ered to, spent on! A PRETTY WOMAN. I. 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 t 84 A PRETTY WOMAN. III. 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. IV. 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, Tho' we prayed you. Paid you, brayed you In a mortar — for you could not. Sweet! VII. So, we leave the sweet face fondly there, Be its beauty Its sole duty! Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there! VIII. And while the face lies quiet there, Who shall wonder That I ponder A conclusion ? I will try it there. IX. As, — why must one, for the love foregone Scout mere liking? Thunder-striking Earth, — the heaven, we looked above for, gone! A PRETTY WOMAN. 85 X. Why, with beauty, needs there money be, Love with liking? Crush the fly-king In his gauze, because no honey-bee? 40 XI. May not liking be so simple-sweet, If love grew there 'T would undo there All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet? XII. Is the creature too imperfect, say ? Would you mend it And so end it? Since not all addition perfects aye! XIII. Or is it of its kind, perhaps. Just perfection — 5° Whence, rejection Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps? XIV. Shall we burn up, tread that face at once Into tinder. And so hinder Sparks from kindling all the place at once? XV. Or else kiss away one^s soul on her? Your love-fancies ! — A sick man sees Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her! 60 XVI. Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,- Plucks a mould-flower For his gold flower, Uses fine things that efface the rose. 36 A LIGHT WOMAN-. XVII. Rosy rubies make its cup more rose, Precious metals Ape the petals, — Last, some old king locks it up, morose ! XVIII. Then how grace a rose ? I know a way ! Leave it, rather. 70 Must you gather? Smell, kiss, wear it — at last, throw away. A LIGHT WOMAN. SO far as our story approaches the end, Which do you pity the most of us three? My friend, or the mistress of my friend With her wanton eyes, or me ? My friend was already too good to lose. And seemed in the way of improvement yet, When she crossed his path with her hunting-noose And over him drew her net. III. When I saw him tangled in her toils, A shame, said I, if she adds just him 10 To her nine-and-ninety other spoils, The hundredth for a whim ! And before my friend be wholly hers, 1 How easy to prove to him, I said, ! An eagle 's the game her pride prefers, f Tho' she snaps at a wren instead ! V. So, I gave her eyes my own eyes to take, My nand sought hers as in earnest need, A LIGHT woman: 87 And round she turned for my noble sake, And gave me herself indeed! 20 VI. The eagle am I, with my fame in the world, The wren is he, with his maiden face. — You look away and your lip is curled ? Patience, a moment's space ! VII. For see, my friend goes shaking and white, He eyes me as the basilisk : I have turned, it appears, his day to night, Eclipsing his sun's disk. VIII. And I did it, he thinks, as a very thief: "Tho' I love her — that, he comprehends — 30 One should master one's passions, (love, in chief) And be loyal to one's friends ! " And she, — she lies in my hand as tame As a pear late basking over a wall ; Just a touch to try, and off it came ; 'T is mine, — can I let it fall ? With no mind to eat it, that 's the worst ! Were it thrown in the road, would the case assist ? 'T was quenching a dozen blue-flies' thirst When I gave its stalk a twist. 40 XI. And I, — what I seem to my friend, you see ; What I soon shall seem to his love, you guess : What I seem to myself, do you ask of me? XII. 'T is an awkward thing to play with souls, And matter enough to save one's own : Yet think of my friend, and the burning coals He played with for bits of stone ! SB LOVE IN A LIFE. XIII. One likes to show the truth for the truth ; That the woman was Hght is very true : 50 But suppose she says, — Never mind that youth! What wrong have I done to you? XIV. Well, any how, here the story stays, So far at least as I understand ; And, Robert Browning, you writer of plays, Here 's a subject made to your hand ! LOVE IN A LIFE. I. ROOM after room, j 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. II. Yet the day wears, And door succeeds door ; lo 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, THE LABORATORY. 89 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. lo 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 chace 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 self-same mark, I shape me — 20 Ever Removed! THE LABORATORY. ANCIEN Rl^GIME. I. NOW that I, tying thy glass mask tightly. May gaze thro' these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy — Which is the poison to poison her, prithee ? II. 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 ! 10 Better sit thus and observe thy strange things, Than go where men wait me, and dance at the King's. IV. That in the mortar — you call it a gum ? Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come! 90 THE LABORATORY. 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! 20 VI. 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! VII. Quick — is it finished ? The colour 's too grim! Why not soft like the phiaPs, enticing and dim? Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir, And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer! VIII. What a drop! She 's not little, no minion like me! That's why she ensnared him : this never will free 30 The soul from those masculine eyes, — say, " No! " To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go. IX. 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! 40 XI. Is it done? Take my mask off ! Nay, be not morose ; It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close : The dehcate droplet, my whole fortune's fee! If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me ? GOLD HAIR. 91 XII. 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! GOLD HAIR: A STORY OF PORNIC. OH, the beautiful girl, too white, Who lived at Pornic down by the sea, Just where the sea and the Loire unite ! And a boasted name in Brittany She bore, which I will not write. Too white, for the flower of life is red ; Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen Of a soul that is meant (her parents said) To just see earth, and hardly be seen, And blossom in heaven instead. 10 III. Yet earth saw one thing, one ho^v^ fair! One grace that grew to its full on earth : Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare, And her waist want half a girdle's girth, But she had her great gold hair. IV. Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss. Freshness and fragrance — floods of it, tool Gold, did I say ? Nay, gold's mere dross : Here, Life smiled, '' Think what I meant to do ! " And Love sighed, '^ Fancy my loss ! " 20 So, when she died, it was scarce more strange Than that, when delicate evening dies. And you follow its spent sun's pallid range, 92 GOLD HAIR. With sudden, violent change, — j There 's a shoot of colour startles the skies That, while the breath was nearly to seek, As they put the little cross to her lips, She changed ; a spot came out on her cheek, A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse, ] And she broke forth, " I must speak ! " - 30 ■i VII. ) " Not my hair ! " made the girl her moan — " All the rest is gone or to go ; But the last, last grace, my all, my own, Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know! Leave my poor gold hair alone! "' VIII. The passion thus vented, dead lay she : Her parents sobbed their worst on that, ; All friends joined in, nor observed degree : For indeed the hair was to wonder at, As it spread — not flowing free, 40 IX. But curled around her brow, like a crown, And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap, And calmed about her neck — ay, down | To her breasc, pressed flat, without a gap 1 r the gold, it reached her gown. I t X. All kissed that face, like a silver wedge Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair : E'en the priest allowed death's privilege. As he planted the crucifix with care j On her breast, 'twixt edge and edge. 5*f XI. And thus was she buried, inviolate Of body and soul, in the very space By the altar ; keeping saintly state In Pornic church, for her pride of race, Pure life and piteous fate. GOLD HAIR. 93 XII. And in after-time would your fresh tear fall, Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile, As they told you of gold, both robe and pall, How she prayed them leave it alone awhile. So it never was touched at all. 60 Years flew ; this legend grew at last The life of the lady ; all she had done, All been, in the memories fading fast Of lover and friend, was summed in one Sentence survivors passed : — XIV. To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth ; Had turned an angel before the time : Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearth Of frailty, all you could count a crime Was — she knew her gold hair's worth. 70 XV. At little pleasant Pornic church, It chanced, the pavement wanted repair, Was taken to pieces : left in the lurch, A certain sacred space lay bare, And the boys began research. XVI. 'T was the space where our sires would lay a saint, A benefactor, — a bishop, suppose, A baron with armour-adornments quaint. Dame with chased ring and jewelled rose, Things sanctity saves from taint ; 80 So we come to find them in after-days When the corpse is presumed to have done with gauds Of use to the living, in many ways : For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds. And the church deserves the praise. 94 GOLD HAIR. XVIII. They grubbed with a will : and at length — O cor Humaman^ pectora cceca, and the rest ! — They found — no gaud they were prying for, No ring, no rose, but — who would have guessed? A double Louis-d'or! XIX. Here was a case for the priest : he heard, Marked, inwardly digested, laid Finger on nose, smiled, " There 's a bird Chirps in my ear : " then, " Bring a spade, Dig deeper! " — he gave the word. XX. And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid, Or rotten planks which composed it once, Why, there lay the girl's skull wedged amid A mint of money, it served for the nonce To hold in its hair-heaps hid! XXI. Hid there ? Why ? Could the girl be wont (She the stainless soul) to treasure up Money, earth's trash and heaven's affront ? Had a spider found out the communion-cup, Was a toad in the christening-font ? XXII. Truth is truth : too true it was. Gold! She hoarded and hugged it first, Longed for it, leaned o'er it, loved it — alas — Till the humour grew to a head and burst. And she cried, at the final pass, — XXIII. " Talk not of God, my heart is stone! Nor lover nor friend — be gold for both ! Gold I lack ; and, my all, my own, It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die loth If they let my hair alone ! " GOLD HAIR, XXIV. 95 Louis-d'or, some six, times five, And duly double, every piece. Now, do you see? With the priest to shrive, With parents preventing her souPs release By kisses that kept alive, — I20 XXV. With heaven^s gold gates about to ope, With friends' praise, gold-like, lingering still, An instinct had bidden the girl's hand grope For gold, the true sort — '' Gold in heaven, if you will But I keep earth's too, I hope." XXVI. Enough ! The priest took the grave's grim yield : The parents, they eyed that price of sin As if thirty pieces lay revealed On the place to bury strangers in, The hideous Potter's Field. 130 XXVII. But the priest bethought him : " ' Milk that 's spilt* — You know the adage! Watch and pray ! Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt ! It would build a new altar ; that, we may ! " And the altar therewith was built. XXVIII. Why I deliver this horrible verse ,'* As the text of a sermon, which now I preach : Evil or good may be better or worse In the human heart, but the mixture of each Is a marvel and a curse. 140 XXIX. The candid incline to surmise of late That the Christian faith proves false, I find ; For our Essays-and-Reviews' debate Begins to tell on the public mind. And Colenso's words have weight : 96 THE STATUE AND THE BUST. XXX. I still, to suppose it true, for my part, See reasons and reasons ; this^ to begin : 'T is the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie — taught Original Sin, The Corruption of Man's Heart. 150 THE STATUE AND THE BUST. THERE 'S a palace in Florence, the world knows well, And a statue watches it from the square, And this story of both do our townsmen tell. Ages ago, a lady there, At the farthest window facing the East Asked, ''Who rides by with the royal air?" The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased ; She leaned forth, one on either hand ; They saw how the blush of the bride increased — They felt by its beats her heart expand — 10 As one at each ear and both in a breath Whispered, " The Great Duke Ferdinand." That self-same instant, underneath. The Duke rode past in his idle way, Empty and fine like a swordless sheath. Gay he rode, with a friend as gay, Till he threw his head back — " Who is she? " — ''A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day." Hair in heaps lay heavily Over a pale brow spirit-pure — 20 Carved like the heart of the coal-black tree, Crisped like a war-steed's encolure — And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes Of the blackest black our eyes endure. And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise Filled the fine empty sheath of a man, — The Duke grew straightway brave and wise. % THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 97 He looked at her, as a lover can ; She looked at him, as one who awakes : The Past was a sleep, and her life began. 30 Now, love so ordered for both their sakes, A feast was held, that self-same night, In the pile which the mighty shadow makes. (For Via Larga is three parts light, But the palace overshadows one. Because of a crime which may God requite! To Florence and God the wrong was done, Thro' the first republic's murder there By Cosimo and his cursed son.) The Duke (with the statue's face in the square) 40 Turned, in the midst of his multitude. At the bright approach of the bridal pair. Face to face the lovers stood A single minute and no more. While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued — Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor — For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred. As the courtly custom was of yore. In a minute can lovers exchange a word? If a word did pass, which I do not think, 50 Only one out of the thousand heard. That was the bridegroom. At day's brink He and his bride were alone at last In a bed-chamber by a taper's blink. Calmly he said that her lot was cast, That the door she had passed was shut on her Till the final catafalk repassed. The world meanwhile, its noise and stir, Thro' a certain window facing the East, She could watch like a convent's chronicler. 60 Since passing the door might lead to a feast, And a feast might lead to so much beside, He, of many evils, chose the least. H ^ THE STATUE AND THE BUST. " Freely I choose too," said the bride : " Your window and its world suffice," Replied the tongue, while the heart replied — " If I spend the night with that devil twice, May his window serve as my loop of hell Whence a damned soul looks on paradise! " I fly to the Duke who loves me well, 70 Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow Ere I count another ave-bell. '^ 'T is only the coat of a page to borrow, And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim, And I save my soul — but not to-morrow" — (She checked herself and her eye grew dim) " My father tarries to bless my state : I must keep it one day more for him. " Is one day more so long to wait ? Moreover the Duke rides past, I know ; 80 We shall see each other, sure as fate." She turned on her side and slept. Just so! So we resolve on a thing, and sleep : So did the lady, ages ago. That night the Duke said, " Dear or cheap As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove To body or soul, I will drain it deep." And on the morrow, bold with love. He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call, As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove) 90 And smiled " 'T was a very funeral, Your lady wilHhink, this feast of ours, — ~ whatever befall! " What if we break from the Arno bowers. And try if Petraja, cool and green. Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?" The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen On his steady brow and quiet mouth, Said, " Too much favour for me so mean! THE STATUE AND THE BUST. 99 "But, alas! my lady leaves the South; 100 Each wind that comes from the Apennine Is a menace to her tender youth : *' Nor a way exists, the wise opine. If she quits her palace twice this year, To avert the flower of life's decline." Quoth the Duke, " A sage and a kindly fear. Moreover Petraja is cold this spring : Be our feast to-night as usual here! " And then to himself — "Which night shall bring Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool — no Or I am the fool, and thou art the king! " Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool For to-night the Envoy arrives from France Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool. " I need thee still and might miss perchance. To-day is not wholly lost, beside. With its hope of my lady's countenance : " For I ride — what should I do but ride? And, passing her palace, if I list, May glance at its window — well betide ! " 120 So said, so done : nor the lady missed One ray that broke from the ardent brow, Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed. Be sure that each renewed the vow, No morrow's sun should arise and set And leave them then as it left them now. But next day passed, and next day yet. With still fresh cause to wait one day more Ere each leaped over the parapet. And still, as love's brief morning wore, 130 With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh, They found love not as it seemed before. They thought it would work infallibly, But not in despite of heaven and earth : The rose would blow when the storm passed by. 100 THE STATUE AND THE BUST. Meantime they could profit, in winter's dearth, By store of fruits that supplant the rose : The world and its ways have a certain worth : And to press a point while these oppose Were simple policy ; better wait : 140 We lose no friends and we gain no foes. Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate, Who daily may ride and pass and look Where his lady watches behind the grate ! And she — she watched the square like a book Holding one picture and only one. Which daily to find she undertook : When the picture was reached the book was done. And she turned from the picture at night to scheme Of tearing it out for herself next sun. 150 So weeks grew months, years ; gleam by gleam The glory dropped from their youth and love, And both perceived they had dreamed a dream ; Which hovered as dreams do, still above : But who can take a dream for a truth? Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove ! One day as the lady saw her youth Depart, and the silver thread that streaked Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth, The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked, — 160 And wondered who the woman was. Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked. Fronting her silent in the glass — " Summon here," she suddenly said, " Before the rest of my old self pass, " Him, the Carver, a hand to aid, | Who fashions the clay no love will change, And fixes a beauty never to fade. " Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange Arrest the remains of young and fair, 170 And rivet them while the seasons range. THE STATUE AND THE BUST. loi " Make me a face on the window there, Waiting as ever, mute the while, My love to pass below in the square ! "And let me think that it may beguile Dreary days which the dead must spend Down in their darkness under the aisle, "To say, ^What matters it at the end? I did no more while my heart was warm Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.' i8o " Where is the use of the lip's red charm, The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, And the blood that blues the inside arm — The earthly gift to an end divine? A lady of clay is as good, I trow." But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine, With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace, Was set where now is the empty shrine — (And, leaning out of a bright blue space, 190 As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky, The passionate pale lady's face — Eyeing ever, with earnest eye And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch. Some one who ever is passing by — ) The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch In Florence, "Youth — my dream escapes ! Will its record stay ? " and he bade them fetch Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes — " Can the soul, the will, die out of a man 2oa Ere his body find the grave that gapes ? " John of Douay shall effect my plan. Set me on horseback here aloft, Alive, as the crafty sculptor can, " In the very square I have crossed so oft : That men may admire, when future suns Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft, 102 THE STATUE AMD THE BUST. "While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze — Admire and say, ' When he was alive How he would take his pleasure once ! ' 210 " And it shall go hard but I contrive To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb At idleness which aspires to strive." So! While these wait the trump of doom, How do their spirits pass, I wonder, Nights and days in the narrow room ? Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder What a gift life was, ages ago. Six steps out of the chapel yonder. Only they see not God, I know, 220 Nor all that chivalry of his, The soldier-saints who, row on row, Burn upward each to his point of bliss — Since, the end of life being manifest. He had burned his way thro' the world to this. I hear you reproach, " But delay was best. For their end was a crime." — Oh, a crime will do As well, I reply, to serve for a test. As a virtue golden through and through. Sufficient to vindicate itself 230 And prove its worth at a moment's view ! Must a game be played for the sake of pelf ? Where a button goes, 't were an epigram To offer the stamp of the very Guelph. The true has no value beyond the sham : As well the counter as coin, I submit. When your table 's a hat, and your prize, a dram. Stake your counter as boldly every whit, Venture as warily, use the same skill. Do your best, whether winning or losing it, 240 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. 103 If you choose to play ! —is my principle. Let a man contend to the uttermost For his lifers set prize, be it what it will. The counter our lovers staked was lost As surely as if it were lawful coin : And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Tho' the end in sight was a vice, I say. You of the virtue (we issue join) How strive you ? Detejabulal 250 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. I. WHERE the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward thro' 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 tar Peace or war. Now, — the country does not even boast a tree. As you see. To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain nils 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. 10 104 LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. III. 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 — 30 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. IV. Now, — the single little turret that remains On the plains, By the caper overrooted, by the gourd Overscored, 40 While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks Thro' 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. V. And I know — while thus the quiet-coloured eve Smiles to leave t;oj 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. 60 VI. But he looked upon the city, every side, Far and wide, TIME'S REVENGES. 105 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, 70 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 80 For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin ! Shut them in. With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best. TIME'S REVENGES. I'VE a Friend, over the sea ; I like him, but he loves me. It all grew out of the books I write ; They find such favour in his sight That he slaughters you with savage looks Because you don't admire my books. He does himself though, — and if some vein Were to snap to-night in this heavy brain, To-morrow month, if I lived to try. Round should I just turn quietly, 10 Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand Till I found him, come from his foreign land To be my nurse in this poor place. And make my broth and wash my face And light my fire and, all the while, Bear with his old good-humoured smile That I told him " Better have kept away Than come and kill me, night and day, With, worse than fever throbs and shoots, [06 TIME'S REVENGES. The creaking of his clumsy boots." 20 I am as sure that this he would do, As that Saint PauPs is striking two. And I think I rather . . . woe is me ! — Yes, rather would see him than not see If lifting a hand could seat him there Before me in the empty chair To-night, when my head aches indeed. And I can neither think nor read Nor make these purple fingers hold The pen ; this garret 's freezing cold! 30 And I 've a Lady — there he wakes, The laughing fiend and prince of snakes Within m-, at her name, to pray Fate send some creature in the way Of my love for her, to be down-torn, Upthrust and outward-borne. So I might prove myself that sea Of passion whi^h I needs must be! Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint And my style infirm and its figures faint, 40 All the critics say, and more blame yet. And not --ne angry word you get. But, please you, wonder I would put My cheek beneath that lady's foot Rather than trample under mine The laurels of the Florentine, And you shall see how the devil spends A fire God gave for other ends! I tell you, I stride up and down This garret, crowned with love's best crown, 50 And feasted with love's perfect feast. To think I kill for her, at least. Body and soul and peace and fame. Alike youth's end and manhood's aim, — So is my spirit, as flesh with sin. Filled full, eaten out and in With the face of her, the eyes of her, The lips, the little chin, the stir Of shadow round her mouth ; and she — I '11 tell you, — calmly would decree 60 That I should roast at a slow fire. If that would compass her desire And make her one whom they invite To the famous ball to-morrow night. There may be heaven ; there must be hell ; Meantime, there is our earth here — well! WARING. 107 WARING. I. WHAT 'S become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip, Chose land-travel or seafaring. Boots and chest or staff and scrip, Rather than pace up and down Any longer London town? II. Who 'd have guessed it from his lip Or his brow's accustomed bearing, On the night he thus took ship Or started landward? — little carmg For us, it seems, who supped together (Friends of his too, I remember) And walked home thro' the merry weather. The snowiest in all December. I left his arm that night myself For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet Who wrote the book there on the shelf— How, forsooth, was I to know it If Waring meant to glide away Like a ghost at break of day? Never looked he half so gay! 10 20 III. He was prouder than the devil : How he must have cursed our revel! Ay and many other meetings. Indoor visits, outdoor greetings, As up and down he paced this London, With no work done, but great works undone, Where scarce twenty knew his name. Whv not, then, have earlier spoken, WriUen, bustled? Who 's to blame 3° If your silence kept unbroken? ^ '' True, but there were sundry jottings, ^ Stray-leaves, fragments, blurrs and blottings, Certain first steps were achieved ^ Already which"— (is that your meaning?) " Had well borne out whoe'er beheved I08 WARING. In more to come! " But who goes gleaning Hedge-side chance-blades, while full-sheaved Stand cornfields by him? Pride, overweening Pride alone, puts forth such claims 40 O'er the day's distinguished names. Meantime, how much I loved him, I find out now I 've lost him. I who cared not if I moved him, Who could so carelessly accost him, Henceforth never shall get free Of his ghostly company. His eyes that just a little wink As deep I go into the merit Of this and that distinguished spirit — 50 His cheeks' raised colour, soon to sink, As long I dwell on some stupendous And tremendous (Heaven defend us!) Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous Demoniaco-seraphic Penman's latest piece of graphic. Nay, my very wrist grows warm With his dragging weight of arm. E'en so, swimmingly appears, Thro' one's after-supper musings, 60 Some lost lady of old years With her beauteous vain endeavour And goodness unrepaid as ever ; The face, accustomed to refusings. We, puppies that we were . . . Oh never Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled > Being aught like false, forsooth, to ? Telling aught but honest truth to ? What a sin, had we centupled Its possessor's grace and sweetness! 70 No! she heard in its completeness Truth, for truth 's a weighty matter And truth, at issue, we can't flatter ! Well, 't is done with ; she 's exempt From damning us thro' such a sally ; And so she glides, as down a valley, Taking up with her contempt, Past our reach ; and in, the flowers Shut her unregarded hours. Oh, could I have him back once more, 80 This Waring, but one half-day more! iVARING. 109 Back, with the quiet face of yore, So hungry for acknowledgment Like mine! I 'd fool him to his bent. Feed, should not he, to heart's content? I 'd say, " To only have conceived, Planned your great works, apart from progress, Surpasses little works achieved ! '' I 'd lie so, I should be believed. I 'd make such havoc of the claims 90 Of the day's distinguished names To feast him with, as feasts an ogress Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child ! Or as one feasts a creature rarely Captured here, unreconciled To capture ; and completely gives Its pettish humours license, barely Requiring that it lives. VI. Ichabod, Ichabod, The glory is departed ! loo Travels Waring East away ? Who, of knowledge, by hearsay, Reports a man upstarted Somewhere as a god, Hordes grown European-hearted, Millions of the wild made tame On a sudden at his fame? In Vishnu-land what Avatar? Or who in Moscow, toward the Tsar, With the demurest of footfalls no Over the Kremlin's pavement bright With serpentine and syenite, Steps, with five other Generals That simultaneously take snuff. For each to have pretext enough And kerchiefwise unfold his sash Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff To hold fast where a steel chain snaps. And leave the grand white neck no gash? Waring in Moscow, to those rough 120 Cold northern natures borne perhaps, Like the lambwhite maiden dear From the circle of mute kings Unable to repress the tear. Each as his sceptre down he flings. To Dian's fane at Taurica, Where now a captive priestess, she alway no WARING. \ Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech ' With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands 130 Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter! In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter! Ay, most likely \ is in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid All fire and shine, abrupt as when there 's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall 140 From some black coffin-lid. Or, best of all, I love to think The leaving us was just a feint ; Back here to London did he sHnk, And now works on without a wink Of sleep, and we are on the brink Of something great in fresco-paint : Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor, Up and down and o'er and o'er 150 He splashes, as none splashed before Since great Caldara Polidore. Or Music means this land of ours Some favour yet, to pity won By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers, — " Give me my so-long promised son, Let Waring end what I begun ! " Then down he creeps and out he steals. Only when the night conceals His face ; in Kent 't is cherry-time, 160 Or hops are picking : or at prime Of March he wanders as, too happy, Years ago when he was young, Some mild eve when woods grew sappy And the early moths had sprung To life from many a trembling sheath Woven the warm boughs beneath ; While small birds said to themselves What should soon be actual song. And young gnats, by tens and twelves 170 Made as if they were the throng That crowd around and carry aloft The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure Out of a myriad noises soft, Into a tone that can endure WARING. 1 1 1 Amid the noise of a July noon When all God's creatures crave their boon, All at once, and all in tune, And get it, happy as Waring then, Having first within his ken l8o What a man might do with men : And far too glad, in the even-glow, To mix with the world he meant to take Into his hand, he told you, so — And out of it his world to make. To contract and to expand As he shut or oped his hand. Oh Waring, what 's to really be ? A clear stage and a crowd to see ! Some Garrick, say, out shall not he 190 The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck? Or, where most unclean beasts are rife. Some Junius — am I right? — shall tuck His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife ! Some Chatterton shall have the luck Of calling Rowley into life ! Someone shall somehow run a muck With this old world, for want of strife Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive To rouse us. Waring! Who's alive? 200 Our men scarce seem in earnest now. Distinguished names ! but 't is, somehow. As if they played at being names Still more distinguished, like the games Of children. Turn our sport to earnest With a visage of the sternest! Bring the real times back, confessed Still better than our very best! II. I. ^' When I last saw Waring . . ." (How all turned to him who spoke! 210 You saw Waring ? Truth or joke? In land-travel or seafaring ?) II. " We were sailing by Triest Where a day or two we harboured : A sunset was in the West, When, looking over the vessel's side, 112 WARTNG. One of our company espied | A sudden speck to larboard. And as a sea-duck flies and swims At once, so came the light craft up, 220 With its sole lateen sail that trims And turns (the water round its rims Dancing, as round a sinking cup) And by us like a fish it curled, And drew itself up close beside, Its great sail on the instant furled. And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried, (A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's) ' Buy wine of us, you English Brig? Or fruit, tobacco and cigars ? 230 A pilot for you to Triest ? Without one, look you ne'er so big. They '11 never let you up the bay ! We natives should know best.' I turned, and ' Just those fellows' way,' Our captain said, ' the 'long-shore thieves Are laughing at us in their sleeves.' III. " In truth, the boy leaned laughing back ; And one, half-hidden by his side Under the furled sail, soon I spied, 240 With great grass hat and kerchief black, Who looked up with his kingly throat. Said somewhat, wdiile the other shook His hair back from his eyes to look Their longest at us ; then the boat, I know not how, turned sharply round, Laying her whole side on the sea As a leaping fish does ; from the lee Into the weather, cut somehow Her sparkling path beneath our bow, 250 And so went off, as with a bound. Into the rosy and golden half O' the sky, to overtake the sun And reach the shore, like the sea-calf Its singing cave ; yet I caught one Glance ere away the boat quite passed, And neither time nor toil could mar Those features : so I saw the last Of Waring ! " — You ? Oh, never star Was lost here but it rose afar! 260 Look East where whole new thousands are ! In Vishnu-land what Avatar? HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD. HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD. "3 OH, to be in England now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England — now ! And after April, when May follows And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 10 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, tho' 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! THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. THAT second time they hunted me From hill to plain, from shore to sea, And Austria, hounding far and wide Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side. Breathed hot an instant on my trace, — I made, six days, a hiding-place Of that dry green old aqueduct Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked The fire-flies from the roof above. Bright creeping thro' the moss they love : 10 — How long it seems since Charles was lost! Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed The country in my very sight ; And when that peril ceased at night, The sky broke out in red dismay With signal-fires. Well, there I lay Close covered o'er in my recess. Up to the neck in ferns and cress. Thinking on Metternich our friend, And Charles's miserable end, 20 I 114 THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. And much beside, two days ; the third, Hunger overcame me when I heard The peasants from the village go To work among the maize : you know, With us in Lombardy, they bring Provisions packed on mules, a string, With little bells that cheer their task, And casks, and boughs on every cask To keep the sun^s heat from the wine ; These I let pass in jingling line ; 30 And, close on them, dear noisy crew. The peasants from the village, too ; For at the very rear would troop Their wives and sisters in a group To help, I knew. When these had passed, I threw my glove to strike the last. Taking the chance : she did not start, Much less cry out, but stooped apart, One instant rapidly glanced round. And saw me beckon from the ground. 40 A wild bush grows and hides my crypt ; She picked my glove up while she stripped A branch off, then rejoined the rest With that ; my glove lay in her breast : Then I drew breath ; they disappeared : It was for Italy I feared. An hour, and she returned alone Exactly where my glove was thrown. Meanwhile came many thoughts : on me Rested the hopes of Italy. 50 I had devised a certain tale Which, when 't was told her, could not fail Persuade a peasant of its truth ; I meant to call a freak of youth This hiding, and give hopes of pay, And no temptation to betray. But when I saw that woman's face, Its calm simplicity of grace, Our Italy's own attitude In which she walked thus far, and stood, 60 Planting each naked foot so firm, To crush the snake and spare the worm — At first sight of her eyes, I said, " I am that man upon whose head They fix the price, because I hate The Austrians over us ; the State Will give you gold — oh, gold so much! — THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. 115 If you betray me to their clutch, And be your death, for aught I know. If once they find you saved their foe. 70 Now, you must bring me food and drink, And also paper, pen and ink, And carry safe what I shall write To Padua, which you '11 reach at night Before the duomo shuts ; go in, And wait till Tenebree begin ; Walk to the third confessional, Between the pillar and the wall. And kneeling whisper, Whence conies peace ? Say it a second time, then cease ; 80 And if the voice inside returns, From Christ and Freedom; what concerns The cause of Peace f — for answer, slip My letter where you placed your lip ; Then come back happy we have done Our mother service — I, the son. As you the daughter of our land! " Three mornings more, she took her stand In the same place, with the same eyes : I was no surer of sun-rise 90 Than of her coming. We conferred Of her own prospects, and I heard She had a lover — stout and tall. She said — then let her eyelids fall, " He could do much " — as if some doubt Entered her heart, — then, passing out, " She could not speak for others, who Had other thoughts ; herself she knew : " And so she brought me drink and food. After four days, the scouts pursued loo Another path ; at last arrived The help my Paduan friends contrived To furnish me : she brought the news. For the first time I could not choose But kiss her hand, and lay my own Upon her head — " This faith was shown To Italy, our mother ; she Uses my hand and blesses thee." She followed down to the sea-shore ; I left and never saw her more. 1 10 How very long since I have thought Concerning — much less wished for — aught Beside the good of Italy. Il6 THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND. For which I live and mean to die! I never was in love ; and since Charles proved false, what shall now convince My inmost heart I have a friend? However, if I pleased to spend Real wishes on myself — say, three — I know at least what one should be. 120 I would grasp Metternich until I felt his red wet throat distil In blood thro' these two hands. And next, — Nor much for that am I perplexed — Charles, perjured traitor, for his part, Should die slow of a broken heart Under his new employers. Last — Ah, there, what should I wish ? For fast Do I grow old and out of strength. If I resolved to seek at length 130 My father's house again, how scared They all would look, and unprepared! My brothers live in Austria's pay — Disowned me long ago, men say; And all my early mates who used To praise me so — perhaps induced More than one early step of mine — Are turning wise : while some opine " Freedom grows license," some suspect <' Haste breeds delay," and recollect 140 They always said, such premature Beginnings never could endure! So, with a sullen " All 's for best," The land seems settling to its rest. I think then, I should wish to stand This evening in that dear, lost land, Over the sea the thousand miles. And know if yet that woman smiles With the calm smile ; some little farm She lives in there, no doubt : what harm 150 If I sat on the door-side bench, And while her spindle made a trench Fantastically in the dust. Inquired of all her fortunes — just Her children's ages and their names, And what may be the husband's aims For each of them. I 'd talk this out, And sit there, for an hour about, Then kiss her hand once more, and lay Mine on her head, and go my way. 160 So much for idle wishing — how It steals the time! To business now. THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. ny THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. PIANO DI SORRENTO. FORTU, Fortu, my beloved one, sit here by my side, On my knees put up both Httle feet ! I was sure, if I tried, I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco. Now, open your eyes, Let me keep you amused, till he vanish in black from the skies. With telling my memories over, as you tell your beads ; All the Plain saw me gather, I garland — the flowers or the weeds. Time for rain ! for your long hot dry Autumn had networked with brown Tlie white skin of each grape on the bunches, marked like a quail's crown. Those creatures you make such account of, whose heads, — speckled white Over brown like a great spider's back, as I told you last night, — lo Your mother bites off for her supper. Red-ripe as could be, Pomegranates were chapping and splitting in halves on the tree. And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone, or in the thick dust On the path, or straight out of the rock-side, wherever could thrust Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower its yellow face up. For the prize were great butterflies fighting, some five for one cup. So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning, what change was in store, By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets which woke me before I could open my shutter, made fast Avith a bough and a stone. And look thro' the twisted dead vine-twigs, sole lattice that 's known. 20 Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles, while, busy beneath, Your priest and his brother tugged at them, the rain in their teeth. And out upon all the flat house-roofs, where split figs lay drying, The girls took the frails under cover : nor use seemed in trying To get out the boats and go fishing, for, under the cliff. Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind-rock. No seeing our skiff Arrive about noon from Amalfi! — our fisher arrive, And pitch down his basket before us, all trembling alive With pink and gray jellies, your sea-fruit ; you touch the strange lumps. And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner of horns and of humps, 30 Which only the fisher looks grave at, while round him like imps Cling screaming the children as naked and brown as his shrimps ; Himself too as bare to the middle — you see round his neck The string and its brass coin suspended, that saves him from wreck. But to-day not a boat reached Salerno : so back, to a man, Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards grape-harvest began. 1 18 THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. In the vat, halfway up in our house-side, like blood the juice spins, While your brother all bare-legged is dancing till breathless he grins Dead-beaten in effort on effort to keep the grapes under, Since still, when he seems all but master, in pours the fresh plunder 40 From girls who keep coming and going with basket on shoulder. And eyes shut against the rain's driving ; your girls that are older, — For under the hedges of aloe, and where, on its bed Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple lies pulpy and red, All the young ones are kneeling and filling their laps with the snails Tempted out by this first rainy weather, — your best of regales. As to-night will be proved to my sorrow, when, supping in state. We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen, three over one plate) With lasagne so tempting to swallow in slippery ropes. And gourds fried in great purple slices, that colour of popes. 50 Meantime, see the grape bunch they 've brought you : the rain-water slips O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe which the wasp to your lips Still follows with fretful persistence. Nay, taste, while awake. This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball that peels, flake by flake, Like an onion, each smoother and whiter : next, sip this weak wine From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper, a leaf of the vine ; And end with the prickly-pear's red flesh that leaves thro' its juice The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth. Scirocco is loose! Hark, the quick, whistling pelt of the olives which, thick in one's track, Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them, tho' not yet half black! 60 How the old twisted olive trunks shudder, the medlars let fall Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees snap off, figs and all, For here comes the whole of the tempest! no refuge, but creep Back again to my side and my shoulder, and listen or sleep. O how will your country show next week, when all the vine-boughs Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture the mules and the cows? Last eve, I rode over the mountains ; your brother, my guide, Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles that offered, each side. Their fruit-balls, black, glossy, and luscious, — or strip from the sorbs A treasure, or, rosy and wondrous, those hairy gold orbs! 70 But my mule picked his sure sober path out, just stopping to neigh When he recognized down in the valley his mates on their way With the faggots and barrels of water. And soon we emerged From the plain where the woods could scarce follow ; and still, as we urged Our way, the woods wondered, and left us, as up still we trudged, Tho' the wild path grew wilder each instant, and place was e'en grudged 'Mid the rock-chasms and piles of loose stones like the loose broken teeth THE ENGLISHMAN IN ITALY. II9 Of some monster which climbed there to die, from the ocean beneath — Place was grudged to the silver-gray fume-weed that clung to the path, And dark rosemary ever a-dying, that, 'spite the wind's wrath, 80 So loves the salt rock's face to seaward, and lentisks as stanch To the stone where they root and bear berries : and . . . what shows a branch Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets of pale seagreen leaves ; Over all trod my mule with the caution of gleaners o'er sheaves. Still, foot after foot like a lady, till, round after round. He climbed to the top of Calvano : and God's own profound Was above me, and round me the mountains, and under, the sea, And within me my heart to bear witness what was and shall be. Oh, heaven and the terrible crystal! no rampart excludes Your eye from the life to be lived in the blue solitudes. 90 Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement! still moving with you; For, ever some new head and breast of them thrusts into view To observe the intruder ; you see it if quickly you turn And, before they escape you, surprise them. They gmdge you should learn How the soft plains they look on, lean over and love (they pretend) — Cower beneath them, the flat sea-pine crouches, the wild fruit-trees bend. E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut : all is silent and grave : 'T is a sensual and timorous beauty, — how fair! but a slave. So, I turned to the sea ; and there slumbered, as greenly as ever, Those isles of the siren, your Galli. No ages can sever 100 The Three, nor enable their sister to join them, — halfway On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses — no farther to-day ! Tho' the small one, just launched in the wave, watches breast-high and steady From under the rock her bold sister, swum halfway already. Fortu, shall we sail there together, and see, from the sides, Quite new rocks show their faces, new haunts where the siren abides ? Shall we sail round and round them, close over the rocks, tho' unseen, That ruffle the gray glassy water to glorious green ? Then scramble from splinter to splinter, reach land, and explore. On the largest, the strange square black turret with never a door, 1 10 Just a loop to admit the quick lizards ; then, stand there and hear The birds' quiet singing, that tells us what life is, so clear ? — The secret they sang to Ulysses when, ages ago. He heard and he knew this life's secret I hear and I know. Ah, see ! The sun breaks o'er Calvano ; he strikes the great gloom And flutters it o'er the mount's summit in airy gold fume. All is over. Look out, see the gipsy, our tinker and smith. Has arrived, set up bellows and forge, and down-squatted forthwith To his hammering under the wall there ; one eye keeps aloof The urchins that itch to be putting his jews'-harps to proof, 120 120 UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY. ing how sl< Chew, abbot's own cheek ! All is over. Wake up and come out now, and down let us go, And see the fine things got in order at church for the show Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening. To-morrow 's the Feast Of the Rosary's Virgin, by no means of Virgins the least, As you '11 hear in the off-hand discourse which (all nature, no art) The Dominican brother, these three weeks, was getting by heart. Not a pillar nor post but is dizened with red and blue papers ; All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar a-blaze with long tapers. 130 But the great masterpiece is the scaffold rigged glorious to hold All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers and trumpeters bold Not afraid of .Bellini nor Auber, who, when the priest 's hoarse. Will strike us up something that 's brisk for the feast's second course. And then will the flaxen-wigged Image be carried in pomp Thro' the plain, while, in gallant procession, the priests mean to stomp. All round the glad church lie old bottles with gunpowder stopped, Which will be, when the Image re-enters, religiously popped. And at night from the crest of Calvano great bonfires will hang : On the plain will the trumpets join chorus, and more poppers bang. 140 At all events, come — to the garden as far as the wall ; See me tap with a hoe on the plaster, till out there shall fall A scorpion with wide angry nippers ! — " Such trifles ! " you say ? Fortu, in my England at home, men meet gravely to-day And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws be righteous and wise ! — If 't were proper, Scirocco should vanish in black from the skies! 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. UP AT A VILLA — DOWJSr IN THE CITY 121 III. 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. 10 IV. But the city, oh the city — the square with the houses! Why? They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there 's something to take the eye! Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry ; You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by ; Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high ; And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. What of a villa? Tho' winter be over in March by rights, 'T is May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well oif 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. 20 VI. 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. VII. Is it ever hot in the square ? There 's a fountain to spout and splash! In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such foam-bows flash On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do not abash, Tho' all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash. 3a All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger. Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the corn and mingle, Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill, 122 UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY. 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. IX. 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. 40 By and by there 's the traveling doctor gives pills, lets blood, draws teeth ; Oi- 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, St. Jerome and Cicero, ^' And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the skirts of St. Paul has reached, Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than ever he preached." 50 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-ivhang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife ; No keeping one's haunches still : it's the greatest pleasure in life. X. 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 ; 6° 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-whafig-ijuhang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife._ Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life ! PICTOR IGNOTUS. 123 PICTOR IGNOTUS. FLORENCE, 1 5 — . I COULD have painted pictures like that youth's Ye praise so. How my soul springs up ! No bar Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while it soothes ! — Never did fate forbid me, star by star, To outburst on your night, with all my gift Of fires from God : nor would my flesh have shrunk From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk To the centre, of an instant ; or around Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan lo The license and the limit, space and bound, Allowed to truth made visible in man. And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw, Over the canvas could my hand have flung, Each face obedient to its passion's law, Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue ; Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace, Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place ; 20 Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up. And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved, — O human faces, hath it spilt, my cup ? What did ye give me that I have not saved ? Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!) Of going — I, in each new picture, — forth. As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell. To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went, 30 Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight, Thro' old streets named afresh from the event. Till it reached home, where learned age should greet My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct Above his hair, He learning at my feet! — Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked With love about, and praise, till life should end, And then not go to heaven, but linger here, Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend, The thought grew frightful, 't was so wildly dear ! 40 But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights Have scared me, like the revels thro' a door Of some strange house of idols at its rites! 124 ERA LIPPO LIPPT. This world seemed not the world it was before. Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped . . . Who summoned those cold faces that begun To press on me and judge me? Tho' I stooped Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, They drew me forth, and spite of me . . enough ! These buy and sell our pictures, take and give, 50 Count them for garniture and household-stuff, And where they live needs must our pictures live And see their faces, listen to their prate, Partakers of their daily pettiness. Discussed of, — " This I love, or this I hate This likes me more, and this affects me less!" Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint These endless cloisters and eternal aisles With the same series. Virgin, Babe, and Saint, 60 With the same cold calm beautiful regard, — At least no merchant traffics in my heart ; The sanctuary''s gloom at least shall ward Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart : Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 'Mid echoes the light footstep never woke. So, die my pictures ! surely, gently die ! O youth, men praise so, — holds their praise its worth ? 70 Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry? Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth ? FRA LIPPO LIPPI. I AM poor brother Lippo, by your leave ! You need not clap your torches to my face. Zooks, what 's to blame ? you think you see a monk ! IWhat, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds, And here you catch me at an alley's end Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? The Carmine 's my cloister : hunt it up. Do, — harry out, if you must show your zeal, Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole. And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 10 Weke, weke, that 's crept to keep him company! Aha, you know your betters? Then, you '11 take Your hand away that 's fiddling on my throat, FRA LIPPO LIPPI. J 25 And please to know me likewise. Who am I ? Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend Three streets off — he 's a certain . . . how d' ye call? Master — a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, V the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best! Remember and tell me, the day you 're hanged, How you aifected such a gullet's-gripe ! 20 But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves Pick up a manner nor discredit you : Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets And count fair prize what comes into their net? He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is ! Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. Lord, I 'm not angry ! Bid your hangdogs go Drink out this quarter-florin to the health Of the munificent House that harbours me (And many more beside, lads! more beside!) 30 And all 's come square again. I 'd like his face — His, elbowing on his comrade in the door With the pike and lantern, — for the slave that holds John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair With one hand (" Look you, now," as who should say) And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped! It 's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, A wood-coal or the like ? or you should see ! Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so. What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, 40 You know them, and they take you? like enough! I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. Let 's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. Here 's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands To roam the town and sing out carnival, And I 've been three weeks shut within my mew, A-painting for the great man, saints and saints And saints again. I could not paint all night — Ouf ! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 50 There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song^ Flower d' the broofn, Take away love, and our earth is a tomb I Flower o'' the quince, I let Lisa go, and what good in life since f Flower o^ the thyme — and so on. Round they went. Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight, — three slim shapes, And a face that looked up . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood, 60 That 's all I 'm made of I Into shreds it went, 126 FR^ LIPPO LIPPL Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, All the bed-furniture — a dozen knots, There was a ladder! Down I let myself, Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, And after them. I came up with the fun Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met, — Flower d' the rose, If I ''ve been 7nerry, what tnatter who knows ? And so, as I was stealing back again, 70 To get to bed and have a bit of sleep Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! Tho' your eye twinkles still, you shake your head — Mine 's shaved — a monk, you say — the sting 's in that! If Master Cosimo announced himself. Mum 's the word naturally ; but a monk! Come, what am I a beast for? tell us, now! 80 I was a baby when my mother died And father died and left me in the street. I starved there, God knows how, a year or two On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day. My stomach being empty as your hat, The wind doubled me up and down I went. Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, (Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) And so along the wall, over the bridge, 90 By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there, While I stood munching my first bread that month : " So, boy, you 're minded," quoth the good fat father Wiping his own mouth, 't was refection-time, — " To quit this very miserable world ? Will you renounce " . . . " the mouthful of bread ? " thought I ; By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me ; I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, Palace, farm, villa, shop and banking-house, Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 100 Have given their hearts to — all at eight years old. Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 'T was not for nothing — the good bellyful, The warm serge and the rope that goes all round. And day-long blessed idleness beside ! " Let 's see what the urchin 's fit for " — that came next. Not overmuch their way, I must confess. Such a to-do! They tried me with their books : FRA LIFFO LIFFI. 1 27 Lord, they 'd have taught me Latin in pure waste! Flower o' the clove, no All the Latin I construe is, '' aino " / love ! But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets Eight years together, as my fortune was, Watching folk's faces to know who will fling The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, And who will curse or kick him for his pains, — Which gentleman processional and fin^, Holding a candle to the Sacrament, Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch The droppings of the wax to sell again, 120 Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, — How say I? — nay, which dog bites, which lets drop His bone from the heap of offal in the street, — Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, He learns the look of things, and none the less For admonition from the hunger-pinch. I had a store of such remarks, be sure. Which, after I found leisure, turned to use : I drew men's faces on my copy-books. Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, 130 Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes. Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's And made a string of pictures of the world Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun, On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. "Nay," quoth the Prior, " turn him out, d' ye say.'* In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. What if at last we get our man of parts, We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine 140 And put the front on it that ought to be!" And hereupon he bade me daub away. Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, Never was such prompt disemburdening. First every sort of monk, the black and white, I drew them, fat and lean : then, folk at church, From good old gossips waiting to confess Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, — To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 150 With the little children round him in a row Of admiration, half for his beard, and half For that white anger of his victim's son Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm. Signing himself with the other because of Christ 128 FRA LIPPO LI PPT. (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this After the passion of a thousand years) Till some poor girl, her apron o^er her head, (Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, i6o Her pair of ear-rings and a bunch of flowers (The brute took growling) prayed, and so was gone. I painted all, then cried, " 'T is ask and have ; Choose, for more 's ready! " — laid the ladder flat, And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. The monks closed in a circle and praised loud Till checked, taught what to see and not to see, Being simple bodies, — "That's the very man! Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog! That woman 's like the Prior's niece who comes 170 To care about his asthma : it 's the life! " But there my triumph 's straw-fire flared and funked ; Their betters took their turn to see and say : The Prior and the learned pulled a face And stopped all that in no time. "How! what's here? Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all! Faces, arms, legs and bodies like the true As much as pea and pea ! it 's devil's game! Your business is not to catch men with show, With homage to the perishable clay, 180 But lift them over it, ignore it all. Make them forget there \s such a thing as flesh. Your business is to paint the souls of men — Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . no, it's not . . It 's vapour done up like a new-born babe — (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) It's . . well, what matters talking, it 's the soul! Give us no more of body than shows soul! Here 's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, That sets us praising, — why not stop with him.'' 190 Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head With wonder at lines, colours, and what not? Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms! Rub all out, try at it a second time! Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts, She 's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say, — Who went and danced, and got men's heads cut off! Have it all out! " Now, is this sense, I ask? A fine v/ay to paint soul, by painting body So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further 200 And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white When what you put for yellow 's simply black, And any sort of meaning looks intense FRA LIPPO LIPPI. I2Q When all beside itself means and looks naught. Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, Left foot and right foot, go a double step, JVIake his flesh liker and his soul more like, Both in their order? Take the prettiest face, The Prior's niece . . . patron-saint — is it so pretty You can't discover if it means hope, fear, 2io Sorrow or joy? won't beauty go with these? Suppose I 've made her eyes all right and blue, Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash, And then add soul and heighten them threefold? Or say there 's beauty with no soul at all — (I never saw it — put the case the same — ) If you get simple beauty and naught else. You get about the best thing God invents : That 's somewhat : and you '11 find the soul you have missed. Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 220 " Rub all out ! " Well, well, there 's my life, in short, And so the thing has gone on ever since. I 'm grown a man no doubt, I 've broken bounds : You should not take a fellow eight yc -xrs old And make him swear to never kiss the girls. I 'm my own master, paint now as I please — Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! Lord, it 's fast holding by the rings in front — Jhose great rings serve more purposes than just To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse! 230 And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, The heads shake still — " It 's art's decline, my son! You 're not of the true painters, great and old ; Brother Angelico 's the man, you '11 find ; Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer : Fag on at flesh, you '11 never make the third! " Flower d' the pine, Yo7c keep yo2ir mistr . . . manners, and I'll stick to 7nine I I 'm not the third, then : bless us, they must know! 240 Don't you think they 're the likeliest to know. They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them — sometimes do, and sometimes don't ; For, doing most, there 's pretty sure to come A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints — A laugh, a cry, the business of the world — (^Flower ;?«4N %, -,^^%^^^ A^ ^' Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process *• "^ ' v\ , 1 « '^. ' , .. ■'^ ^0 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide ^^ ,«'">? ^ O^ ,0^ ^ o N c ^ Treatment Date: March 2009 ^^' ^^^7^^- '"oo^ '' ^'^^-^' PreservationTechnologies ^^. : W^^ : ^H -^ * '"°"'-" ''Ti?;" '"' ' ■='^""'"5 PRESERVATION ^^HV^^ C ^^ '^ 111 Thomson Park Drive C' y ^Xiiir^o o."^ ". "^ ^"^aM' pi'anberry Township, pa 16066 , , %/ S ^ \^^ %, ^ ,7^^ , ^ (724) 779-2,11 /, C' •5^ . 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