Epilogue

Epilogue

μεστοι ... οἱ δ' ἀμφορῆς οἴνου μέλανος ἀνθοσμίου

"The poets pour us wine--" Said the dearest poet I ever knew, Dearest and greatest and best to me. You clamor athirst for poetry-- We pour. "But when shall a vintage be"-- You cry--"strong grape, squeezed gold from screw. Yet sweet juice, flavored flowery-fine? That were indeed the wine!"

One pours your cup--stark strength, Meat for a man; and you eye the pulp Strained, turbid still, from the viscous blood Of the snaky bough: and you grumble "Good! For it swells resolve, breeds hardihood; Dispatch it, then, in a single gulp!" So, down, with a wry face, goes at length The liquor: stuff for strength.

One pours your cup--sheer sweet, The fragrant fumes of a year condensed: Suspicion of all that 's ripe or rathe, From the bud on branch to the grass in swathe. "We suck mere milk of the seasons," saith A curl of each nostril--"dew, dispensed Nowise for nerving man to feat: Boys sip such honeyed sweet!"

And thus who wants wine strong, Waves each sweet smell of the year away; Who likes to swoon as the sweets suffuse His train with a mixture of beams and dews Turned syrupy drink--rough strength eschews: "What though in our veins your wine-stock stay? The lack of the bloom does our palate wrong. Give us wine sweet, not strong!"

Yet wine is--some affirm-- Prime wine is found in the world somewhere, Of portable strength with sweet to match. You double your heart its dose, yet catch-- As the draught descends--a violet-smatch, Softness--however it came there, Through drops expressed by the fire and worm: Strong sweet wine--some affirm.

Body and bouquet both? 'T is easy to ticket a bottle so; But what was the case in the cask, my friends? Cask? Nay, the vat--where the maker mends His strong with his sweet (you suppose) and blends His rough with his smooth, till none can know How it comes you may tipple, nothing loth, Body and bouquet both.

"You" being just--the world. No poets--who turn, themselves, the winch Of the press; no critics--I 'll even say, (Being flustered and easy of faith, to-day,) Who for love of the work have learned the way Till themselves produce home-made, at a pinch: No! You are the world, and wine ne'er purled Except to please the world!

"For, oh the common heart! And, ah the irremissible sin Of poets who please themselves, not us! Strong wine yet sweet wine pouring thus, How please still--Pindar and Æschylus!-- Drink--dipt into by the bearded chin Alike and the bloomy lip--no part Denied the common heart!

"And might we get such grace, And did you moderns but stock our vault With the true half-brandy half-attar-gul, How would seniors indulge at a hearty pull While juniors tossed off their thimbleful! Our Shakespeare and Milton escaped your fault, So, they reign supreme o'er the weaker race That wants the ancient grace!"

If I paid myself with words (As the French say well) I were dupe indeed! I were found in belief that you quaffed and bowsed At your Shakespeare the whole day long, caroused In your Milton pottle-deep nor drowsed A moment of night--toped on, took heed Of nothing like modern cream-and-curds. Pay me with deeds, not words!

For--see your cellarage! There are forty barrels with Shakespeare's brand. Some five or six are abroach: the rest Stand spigoted, fauceted. Try and test What yourselves call best of the very best! How comes it that still untouched they stand? Why don't you try tap, advance a stage With the rest in cellerage?

For--see your cellarage! There are four big butts of Milton's brew. How comes it you make old drips and drops Do duty, and there devotion stops? Leave such an abyss of malt and hops Embellied in butts which bungs still glue? You hate your bard! A fig for your rage! Free him from cellarage!

'T is said I brew stiff drink, But the deuce a flavor of grape is there. Hardly a May-go-down, 't is just A sort of a gruff Go-down-it-must-- No Merry-go-down, no gracious gust Commingles the racy with Springtide's rare! "What wonder," say you, "that we cough, and blink At Autumn's heady drink?"

Is it a fancy, friends? Mighty and mellow are never mixed, Though mighty and mellow be born at once. Sweet for the future,--strong for the nonce! Stuff you should stow away, ensconce In the deep and dark, to be found fast-fixed At the century's close: such time strength spends A-sweetening for my friends!

And then--why, what you quaff With a smack of lip and a cluck of tongue, Is leakage and leavings--just what haps From the tun some learned taster taps With a promise "Prepare your watery chaps! Here 's properest wine for old and young! Dispute its perfection--you make us laugh! Have faith, give thanks, but--quaff!"

Leakage, I say, or--worse-- Leavings suffice pot-valiant souls. Somebody, brimful, long ago, Frothed flagon he drained to the dregs; and, lo, Down whisker and beard what an overflow! Lick spilth that has trickled from classic jowls, Sup the single scene, sip the only verse-- Old wine, not new and worse!

I grant you: worse by much! Renounce that new where you never gained One glow at heart, one gleam at head, And stick to the warrant of age instead! No dwarfs-lap! Fatten, by giants fed! You fatten, with oceans of drink undrained? You feed--who would choke did a cobweb smutch The Age you love so much?

A mine's beneath a moor: Acres of moor roof fathoms of mine Which diamonds dot where you please to dig; Yet who plies spade for the bright and big? Your product is--truffles, you hunt with a pig! Since bright-and-big, when a man would dine, Suits badly: and therefore the Koh-i-noor May sleep in mine 'neath moor!

Wine, pulse in might from me! It may never emerge in must from vat, Never fill cask nor furnish can, Never end sweet, which strong began-- God's gift to gladden the heart of man; But spirit 's at proof, I promise that! No sparing of juice spoils what should be Fit brewage--mine for me.

Man's thoughts and loves and hates! Earth is my vineyard, these grew there: From grape of the ground, I made or marred My vintage; easy the task or hard, Who set it--his praise be my reward! Earth's yield! Who yearn for the Dark Blue Sea's, Let them "lay, pray, bray"--the addle-pates! Mine be Man's thoughts, loves, hates!

But some one says, "Good Sir!" ('T is a worthy versed in what concerns The making such labor turn out well,) "You don't suppose that the nosegay-smell Needs always come from the grape? Each bell At your foot, each bud that your culture spurns, The very cowslip would act like myrrh On the stiffest brew--good Sir!

"Cowslips, abundant birth O'er meadow and hillside, vineyard too, --Like a schoolboy's scrawlings in and out Distasteful lesson-book--all about Greece and Rome, victory and rout-- Love-verses instead of such vain ado! So, fancies frolic it o'er the earth Where thoughts have rightlier birth.

"Nay, thoughtlings they themselves: Loves, hates--in little and less and least! Thoughts? 'What is a man beside a mount!' Loves? 'Absent--poor lovers the minutes count!' Hates? 'Fie--Pope's letters to Martha Blount!' These furnish a wine for a children's-feast: Insipid to man, they suit the elves Like thoughts, loves, hates themselves."

And, friends, beyond dispute I too have the cowslips dewy and dear. Punctual as Springtide forth peep they: I leave them to make my meadow gay. But I ought to pluck and impound them, eh? Not let them alone, but deftly shear And shred and reduce to--what may suit Children, beyond dispute?

And, here 's May-month, all bloom, All bounty: what if I sacrifice? If I out with shears and shear, nor stop Shearing till prostrate, lo, the crop? And will you prefer it to ginger-pop When I 've made you wine of the memories Which leave as bare as a churchyard tomb My meadow, late all bloom?

Nay, what ingratitude Should I hesitate to amuse the wits That have pulled so long at my flask, nor grudged The headache that paid their pains, nor budged From bunghole before they sighed and judged "Too rough for our taste, to-day, befits The racy and right when the years conclude!" Out on ingratitude!

Grateful or ingrate--none, No cowslip of all my fairy crew Shall help to concoct what makes you wink, And goes to your head till you think you think! I like them alive: the printer's ink Would sensibly tell on the perfume too. I may use up my nettles, ere I 've done; But of cowslips--friends get none!

Don't nettles make a broth Wholesome for blood grown lazy and thick? Maws out of sorts make mouths out of taste. My Thirty-four Port--no need to waste On a tongue that 's fur and a palate--paste! A magnum for friends who are sound! the sick-- I 'll posset and cosset them, nothing loth, Henceforward with nettle-broth!

THE AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS

May I be permitted to chat a little, by way of recreation, at the end of a somewhat toilsome and perhaps fruitless adventure?

If, because of the immense fame of the following Tragedy, I wished to acquaint myself with it, and could only do so by the help of a translator, I should require him to be literal at every cost save that of absolute violence to our language. The use of certain allowable constructions which, happening to be out of daily favor, are all the more appropriate to archaic workmanship, is no violence: but I would be tolerant for once--in the case of so immensely famous an original--of even a clumsy attempt to furnish me with the very turn of each phrase in as Greek a fashion as English will bear: while, with respect to amplifications and embellishments,--anything rather than, with the good farmer, experience that most signal of mortifications, "to gape for Æschylus and get Theognis." I should especially decline--what may appear to brighten up a passage--the employment of a new word for some old one,--πόνος, or μέγας, or τέλοσ, with its congeners, recurring four times in three lines: for though such substitution may be in itself perfectly justifiable, yet this exercise of ingenuity ought to be within the competence of the unaided English reader if he likes to show himself ingenious. Learning Greek teaches Greek, and nothing else: certainly not common sense, if that have failed to precede the teaching. Further,--if I obtained a mere strict bald version of thing by thing, or at least word pregnant with thing, I should hardly look for an impossible transmission of the reputed magniloquence and sonority of the Greek; and this with the less regret, inasmuch as there is abundant musicality elsewhere, but nowhere else than in his poem the ideas of the poet. And lastly, when presented with these ideas, I should expect the result to prove very hard reading indeed if it were meant to resemble Æschylus, ξυμβαλεῖν οὐ ῥᾴδιος, "not easy to understand," in the opinion of his stoutest advocate among the ancients; while, I suppose, even modern scholarship sympathizes with that early declaration of the redoubtable Salmasius, when, looking about for an example of the truly obscure for the benefit of those who found obscurity in the sacred books, he protested that this particular play leaves them all behind in this respect, with their "Hebraisms, Syriasms, Hellenisms, and the whole of such bag and baggage."[6] For, over and above the proposed ambiguity of the Chorus, the text is sadly corrupt, probably interpolated, and certainly mutilated; and no unlearned person enjoys the scholar's privilege of trying his fancy upon each obstacle whenever he comes to a stoppage, and effectually clearing the way by suppressing what seems to lie in it.

All I can say for the present performance is, that I have done as I would be done by, if need were. Should anybody, without need, honor my translation by a comparison with the original, I beg him to observe that, following no editor exclusively, I keep to the earlier readings so long as sense can be made out of them, but disregard, I hope, little of importance in recent criticism so far as I have fallen in with it. Fortunately, the poorest translation, provided only it be faithful,--though it reproduce all the artistic confusion of tenses, moods, and persons, with which the original teems,--will not only suffice to display what an eloquent friend maintains to be the all-in-all of poetry--"the action of the piece"--but may help to illustrate his assurance that "the Greeks are the highest models of expression, the unapproached masters of the grand style: their expression is so excellent because it is so admirably kept in its right degree of prominence, because it is so simple and so well subordinated, because it draws its force directly from the pregnancy of the matter which it conveys ... not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown in, stroke on stroke"[7] So may all happen!

Just a word more on the subject of my spelling--in a transcript from the Greek and there exclusively--Greek names and places precisely as does the Greek author. I began this practice, with great innocency of intention, some six-and-thirty years ago. Leigh Hunt, I remember, was accustomed to speak of his gratitude, when ignorant of Greek, to those writers (like Goldsmith) who had obliged him by using English characters, so that he might relish, for instance, the smooth quality of such a phrase as "hapalunetai galené;" he said also that Shelley was indignant at "Firenze" having displaced the Dantesque "Fiorenza," and would contemptuously English the intruder "Firence." I supposed I was doing a simple thing enough: but there has been till lately much astonishment at os and us, ai and oi, representing the same letters in Greek. Of a sudden, however, whether in translation or out of it, everybody seems committing the offence, although the adoption of u for υ still presents such difficulty that it is a wonder how we have hitherto escaped "Eyripides." But there existed a sturdy Briton who, Ben Jonson informs us, wrote "The Life of the Emperor Anthony Pie"--whom we now acquiesce in as Antoninus Pius: for "with time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes satin." Yet there is on all sides much profession of respect for what Keats called "vowelled Greek"--"consonanted," one would expect; and, in a criticism upon a late admirable translation of something of my own, it was deplored that, in a certain verse corresponding in measure to the fourteenth of the sixth Pythian Ode, "neither Professor Jebb in his Greek, nor Mr. Browning in his English, could emulate that matchlessly musical γόνον ἰδὼν κάλλιστον ἀνδρῶν." Now, undoubtedly, "Seeing her son the fairest of men" has more sense than sound to boast of: but then, would not an Italian roll us out "Rimirando il figliuolo bellissimo degli uomini?" whereat Pindar, no less than Professor Jebb and Mr. Browning, τριακτῆρος οἴχεται τυχών.

It is recorded in the Annals of Art[8] that there was once upon a time, practising so far north as Stockholm, a painter and picture-cleaner--sire of a less unhappy son--Old Muytens: and the annalist, Baron de Tessé, has not concealed his profound dissatisfaction at Old Muytens' conceit "to have himself had something to do with the work of whatever master of eminence might pass through his hands." Whence it was--the Baron goes on to deplore--that much detriment was done to that excellent piece "The Recognition of Achilles," by Rubens, through the perversity of Old Muytens, "who must needs take on him to beautify every nymph of the twenty by the bestowment of a widened eye and an enlarged mouth." I, at least, have left eyes and mouths everywhere as I found them, and this conservatism is all that claims praise for--what is, after all ἀκέλευστος ἄμισθος ἀοιδά. No, neither "uncommanded" nor "unrewarded:" since it was commanded of me by my venerated friend Thomas Carlyle, and rewarded will it indeed become, if I am permitted to dignify it by the prefatory insertion of his dear and noble name.

R. B.

LONDON, October 1, 1877.

AGAMEMNON

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

WARDER. CHOROS OF OLD MEN. KLUTAIMNESTRA. TALTHUBIOS, Herald. AGAMEMNON. AIGISTHOS. KASSANDRA.

Warder. The gods I ask deliverance from these labors, Watch of a year's length whereby, slumbering through it On the Atreidai's roofs on elbow,--dog-like-- I know of nightly star-groups the assemblage, And those that bring to men winter and summer, Bright dynasts, as they pride them in the æther --Stars, when they wither, and the uprisings of them. And now on ward I wait the torch's token, The glow of fire, shall bring from Troia message And word of capture: so prevails audacious The man's-way-planning hoping heart of woman. But when I, driven from night-rest, dew-drenched, hold to This couch of mine--not looked upon by visions, Since fear instead of sleep still stands beside me, So as that fast I fix in sleep no eyelids-- And when to sing or chirp a tune I fancy, For slumber such song-remedy infusing, I wail then, for this House's fortune groaning, Not, as of old, after the best ways governed. Now, lucky be deliverance from these labors, At good news--the appearing dusky fire! O hail, thou lamp of night, a day-long lightness Revealing, and of dances the ordainment! Halloo, halloo! To Agamemnon's wife I show, by shouting, That, from bed starting up at once, i' the household Joyous acclaim, good-omened to this torch-blaze, She send aloft if haply Ilion's city Be taken, as the beacon boasts announcing. Ay, and, for me, myself will dance a prelude, For, that my masters' dice drop right, I 'll reckon: Since thrice-six has it thrown to me, this signal. Well, may it hap that, as he comes, the love hand O' the household's lord I may sustain with this hand! As for the rest, I 'm mute: on tongue a big ox Has trodden. Yet this House, if voice it take should, Most plain would speak. So, willing I myself speak To those who know: to who know not--I 'm blankness.

Choros. The tenth year this, since Priamos' great match, King Menelaos, Agamemnon King, --The strenuous yoke-pair of the Atreidai's honor Two-throned, two-sceptred, whereof Zeus was donor-- Did from this land the aid, the armament dispatch, The thousand-sailored force of Argives clamoring "Ares" from out the indignant breast, as fling Passion forth vultures which, because of grief Away,--as are their young ones,--with the thief, Lofty above their brood-nests wheel in ring, Row round and round with oar of either wing, Lament the bedded chicks, lost labor that was love: Which hearing, one above --Whether Apollon, Pan or Zeus--that wail, Sharp-piercing bird-shriek of the guests who fare Housemates with gods in air-- Such-an-one sends, against who these assail, What, late-sent, shall not fail Of punishing--Erinus. Here as there, The Guardian of the Guest Zeus, the excelling one, Sends against Alexandros either son Of Atreus: for that wife, the many-husbanded, Appointing many a tug that tries the limb, While the knee plays the prop in dust, while, shred To morsels, lies the spear-shaft; in those grim Marriage-prolusions when their Fury wed Danaoi and Troes, both alike. All 's said: Things are where things are, and, as fate has willed, So shall they be fulfilled. Not gently-grieving, not just doling out The drops of expiation--no, nor tears distilled-- Shall he we know of bring the hard about To soft--that intense ire At those mock rites unsanctified by fire. But we pay naught here: through our flesh, age-weighed, Left out from who gave aid In that day,--we remain, Staying on staves a strength The equal of a child's at length. For when young marrow in the breast doth reign, That 's the old man's match,--Ares out of place In either: but in oldest age's case, Foliage a-fading, why, he wends his way On three feet, and, no stronger than a child, Wanders about gone wild, A dream in day. But thou, Tundareus' daughter, Klutaimnestra queen, What need? What new? What having heard or seen, By what announcement's tidings, everywhere Settest thou, round about, the sacrifice aflare? For, of all gods the city-swaying, Those supernal, those infernal, Those of the fields', those of the mart's obeying,-- The altars blaze with gifts; And here and there, heaven-high the torch uplifts Flame--medicated with persuasions mild, With foul admixture unbeguiled-- Of holy unguent, from the clotted chrism Brought from the palace, safe in its abysm. Of these things, speaking what may be indeed Both possible and lawful to concede, Healer do thou become!--of this solicitude Which, now, stands plainly forth of evil mood, And, then ... but from oblations, hope, to-day Gracious appearing, wards away From soul the insatiate care, The sorrow at my breast, devouring there!

Empowered am I to sing The omens, what their force which, journeying, Rejoiced the potentates: (For still, from God, inflates My breast, song-suasion: age, Born to the business, still such war can wage) --How the fierce bird against the Teukris land Dispatched, with spear and executing hand, The Achaian's two-throned empery--o'er Hellas' youth Two rulers with one mind: The birds' king to these kings of ships, on high, --The black sort, and the sort that's white behind,-- Appearing by the palace, on the spear-throw side, In right sky-regions, visible far and wide,-- Devouring a hare-creature, great with young, Balked of more racings they, as she from whom they sprung! Ah, Linos, say--ah, Linos, song of wail! But may the good prevail!

The prudent army-prophet seeing two The Atreidai, two their tempers, knew Those feasting on the hare The armament-conductors were; And thus he spoke, explaining signs in view. "In time, this outset takes the town of Priamos: But all before its towers,--the people's wealth that was, Of flocks and herds,--as sure, shall booty-sharing thence Drain to the dregs away, by battle violence. Only, have care lest grudge of any god disturb With cloud the unsullied shine of that great force, the curb Of Troia, struck with damp Beforehand in the camp! For envyingly is The virgin Artemis Toward--her father's flying hounds--this House-- The sacrificers of the piteous And cowering beast, Brood and all, ere the birth: she hates the eagles' feast. Ah, Linos, say--ah, Linos, song of wail! But may the good prevail!

"Thus ready is the beauteous one with help To those small dewdrop things fierce lions whelp, And udder-loving litter of each brute That roams the mead; and therefore makes she suit, The fair one, for fulfilment to the end Of things these signs portend-- Which partly smile, indeed, but partly scowl-- The phantasms of the fowl. I call Ieïos Paian to avert She work the Danaoi hurt By any thwarting waftures, long and fast Holdings from sail of ships: And sacrifice, another than the last, She for herself precipitate-- Something unlawful, feast for no man's lips, Builder of quarrels, with the House cognate-- Having in awe no husband: for remains A frightful, backward-darting in the path, Wily house-keeping chronicler of wrath, That has to punish that old children's fate!" Such things did Kalchas,--with abundant gains As well,--vociferate, Predictions from the birds, in journeying, Above the abode of either king. With these, symphonious, sing-- Ah, Linos, say--ah, Linos, song of wail! But may the good prevail!

Zeus, whosoe'er he be,--if that express Aught dear to him on whom I call-- So do I him address. I cannot liken out, by all Admeasurement of powers, Any but Zeus for refuge at such hours, If veritably needs I must From off my soul its vague care-burden thrust.

Not--whosoever was the great of yore, Bursting to bloom with bravery all round-- Is in our mouths: he was, but is no more. And who it was that after came to be, Met the thrice-throwing wrestler,--he Is also gone to ground. But "Zeus"--if any, heart and soul, that name-- Shouting the triumph-praise--proclaim, Complete in judgment shall that man be found. Zeus, who leads onward mortals to be wise, Appoints that suffering masterfully teach, in sleep, before the heart of each, A woe-remembering travail sheds in dew Discretion,--ay, and melts the unwilling too By what, perchance, may be a graciousness Of gods, enforced no less,-- As they, commanders of the crew, Assume the awful seat.

And then the old leader of the Achaian fleet, Disparaging no seer-- With bated breath to suit misfortune's inrush here --(What time it labored, that Achaian host, By stay from sailing,--every pulse at length Emptied of vital strength,-- Hard over Kalchis shore-bound, current-crost In Aulis station,--while the winds which post From Strumon, ill-delayers, famine-fraught, Tempters of man to sail where harborage is naught, Spendthrifts of ships and cables, turning time To twice the length,--these carded, by delay, To less and less away The Argeians' flowery prime: And when a remedy more grave and grand Than aught before--yea, for the storm and dearth-- The prophet to the foremost in command Shrieked forth, as cause of this Adducing Artemis, So that the Atreidai striking staves on earth Could not withhold the tear)-- Then did the king, the elder, speak this clear.

"Heavy the fate, indeed--to disobey! Yet heavy if my child I slay, The adornment of my household: with the tide Of virgin-slaughter, at the altar-side, A father's hands defiling: which the way Without its evils, say? How shall I turn fleet-fugitive, Failing of duty to allies? Since for a wind-abating sacrifice And virgin blood,--'t is right they strive, Nay, madden with desire. Well may it work them--this that they require!"

But when he underwent necessity's Yoke-trace,--from soul blowing unhallowed change Unclean, abominable,--thence--another man-- The audacious mind of him began Its wildest range. For this it is gives mortals hardihood-- Some vice-devising miserable mood Of madness, and first woe of all the brood. The sacrificer of his daughter--strange!-- He dared become, to expedite Woman-avenging warfare,--anchors weighed With such prelusive rite!

Prayings and callings "Father"--naught they made Of these, and of the virgin-age,-- Captains heart-set on war to wage! His ministrants, vows done, the father bade-- Kid-like, above the altar, swathed in pall, Take her--lift high, and have no fear at all, Head-downward, and the fair mouth's guard And frontage hold,--press hard From utterance a curse against the House By dint of bit--violence bridling speech. And as to ground her saffron-vest she shed, She smote the sacrificers all and each With arrow sweet and piteous, From the eye only sped,-- Significant of will to use a word, Just as in pictures: since, full many a time, In her sire's guest-hall, by the well-heaped board Had she made music,--lovingly with chime Of her chaste voice, that unpolluted thing, Honored the third libation,--paian that should bring Good fortune to the sire she loved so well.

What followed--those things I nor saw nor tell. But Kalchas' arts--whate'er they indicate-- Miss of fulfilment never: it is fate. True, justice makes, in sufferers, a desire To know the future woe preponderate. But--hear before is need! To that, farewell and welcome! 't is the same, indeed, As grief beforehand: clearly, part for part, Conformably to Kalchas' art, Shall come the event. But be they as they may, things subsequent,-- What is to do, prosperity betide E'en as we wish it!--we, the next allied, Sole guarding barrier of the Apian land.

I am come, reverencing power in thee, O Klutaimnestra! For 't is just we bow To the ruler's wife,--the male-seat man-bereaved. But if thou, having heard good news,--or none,-- For good news' hope dost sacrifice thus wide, I would hear gladly: art thou mute,--no grudge!

Klutaimnestra. Good-news-announcer, may--as is the by-word-- Morn become, truly,--news from Night his mother! But thou shalt learn joy past all hope of hearing. Priamos' city have the Argeioi taken.

Cho. How sayest? The word, from want of faith, escaped me.

Klu. Troia the Achaioi hold: do I speak plainly?

Cho. Joy overcreeps me, calling forth the tear-drop.

Klu. Right! for, that glad thou art, thine eye convicts thee.

Cho. For--what to thee, of all this, trusty token?

Klu. What 's here! how else? unless the god have cheated.

Cho. Haply thou flattering shows of dreams respectest?

Klu. No fancy would I take of soul sleep-burdened.

Cho. But has there puffed thee up some un-winged omen?

Klu. As a young maid's my mind thou mockest grossly.

Cho. Well, at what time was--even sacked, the city?

Klu. Of this same mother Night--the dawn, I tell thee.

Cho. And who of messengers could reach this swiftness?

Klu. Hephaistos--sending a bright blaze from Idé. Beacon did beacon send, from fire the poster, Hitherward: Idé to the rock Hermaian Of Lemnos: and a third great torch o' the island Zeus' seat received in turn, the Athoan summit. And,--so upsoaring as to stride sea over, The strong lamp-voyager, and all for joyance-- Did the gold-glorious splendor, any sun like, Pass on--the pine-tree--to Makistos' watch-place; Who did not,--tardy,--caught, no wits about him, By sleep,--decline his portion of the missive. And far the beacon's light, on stream Euripos Arriving, made aware Messapios' warders. And up they lit in turn, played herald onwards, Kindling with flame a heap of gray old heather. And, strengthening still, the lamp, decaying nowise, Springing o'er Plain Asopos,--fullmoon-fashion Effulgent,--toward the crag of Mount Kithairon, Roused a new rendering-up of fire the escort-- And light, far escort, lacked no recognition O' the guard--as burning more than burnings told you. And over Lake Gorgopis light went leaping, And, at Mount Aigiplanktos safe arriving, Enforced the law--"to never stint the fire-stuff." And they send, lighting up with ungrudged vigor, Of flame a huge beard, ay, the very foreland So as to strike above, in burning onward, The look-out which commands the Strait Saronic, Then did it dart until it reached the outpost Mount Arachnaios here, the city's neighbor; And then darts to this roof of the Atreidai This light of Idé's fire not unforefathered! Such are the rules prescribed the flambeau-bearers: He beats that 's first and also last in running. Such is the proof and token I declare thee, My husband having sent me news from Troia.

Cho. The gods, indeed, anon will I pray, woman! But now, these words to hear, and sate my wonder Thoroughly, I am fain--if twice thou tell them.

Klu. Troia do the Achaioi hold, this same day. I think a noise--no mixture--reigns i' the city. Sour wine and unguent pour thou in one vessel-- Standers-apart, not lovers, would'st thou style them: And so, of captives and of conquerors, partwise The voices are to hear, of fortune diverse. For those, indeed, upon the bodies prostrate Of husbands, brothers, children upon parents --The old men, from a throat that 's free no longer, Shriekingly wail the death-doom of their dearest: While these--the after-battle hungry labor, Which prompts night-faring, marshals them to breakfast On the town's store, according to no billet Of sharing, but as each drew lot of fortune. In the spear-captured Troic habitations House they already: from the frosts upæthral And dews delivered, will they, luckless creatures, Without a watch to keep, slumber all night through. And if they fear the gods, the city-guarders, And if the gods' structures of the conquered country, They may not--capturers--soon in turn be captive. But see no prior lust befall the army To sack things sacred--by gain-cravings vanquished! For there needs homeward the return's salvation, To round the new limb back o' the double race-course. And guilty to the gods if came the army, Awakened up the sorrow of those slaughtered Might be--should no outbursting evils happen. But may good beat--no turn to see i' the balance! For, many benefits I want the gain of.

Cho. Woman, like prudent man thou kindly speakest. And I, thus having heard thy trusty tokens, The gods to rightly hail forthwith prepare me; For, grace that must be paid has crowned our labors.

O Zeus the king, and friendly Night Of these brave boons bestower-- Thou who didst fling on Troia's every tower The o'er-roofing snare, that neither great thing might, Nor any of the young ones, overpass Captivity's great sweep-net--one and all Of Até held in thrall! Ay, Zeus I fear--the guest's friend great--who was The doer of this, and long since bent The bow on Alexandros with intent That neither wide o' the white Nor o'er the stars the foolish dart should light. The stroke of Zeus--they have it, as men say! This, at least, from the source track forth we may! As he ordained, so has he done. "No"--said some one-- "The gods think fit to care Nowise for mortals, such As those by whom the good and fair Of things denied their touch Is trampled!" but he was profane. That they do care, has been made plain To offspring of the over-bold, Outbreathing "Ares" greater than is just-- Houses that spill with more than they can hold. More than is best for man. Be man's what must Keep harm off, so that in himself he find Sufficiency--the well-endowed of mind! For there 's no bulwark in man's wealth to him Who, through a surfeit, kicks--into the dim And disappearing--Right's great altar.

Yes-- It urges him, the sad persuasiveness, Até's insufferable child that schemes Treason beforehand: and all cure is vain. It is not hidden: out it glares again, A light dread-lamping-mischief, just as gleams The badness of the bronze; Through rubbing, puttings to the touch, Black-clotted is he, judged at once. He seeks--the boy--a flying bird to clutch, The insufferable brand Setting upon the city of his land Whereof not any god hears prayer; While him who brought about such evils there, That unjust man, the god in grapple throws. Such an one, Paris goes Within the Atreidai's house-- Shamed the guest's board by robbery of the spouse.

And, leaving to her townsmen throngs a-spread With shields, and spear-thrusts of sea-armament, And bringing Ilion, in a dowry's stead, Destruction--swiftly through the gates she went, Daring the undareable. But many a groan outbroke From prophets of the House as thus they spoke. "Woe, woe the House, the House and Rulers,--woe The marriage-bed and dints A husband's love imprints! There she stands silent! meets no honor--no Shame--sweetest still to see of things gone long ago! And, through desire of one across the main, A ghost will seem within the house to reign: And hateful to the husband is the grace Of well-shaped statues: from--in place of eyes, Those blanks--all Aphrodité dies.

"But dream-appearing mournful fantasies-- There they stand, bringing grace that's vain. For vain 't is, when brave things one seems to view: The fantasy has floated off, hands through; Gone, that appearance,--nowise left to creep,-- On wings, the servants in the paths of sleep!" Woes, then, in household and on hearth, are such As these--and woes surpassing these by much. But not these only: everywhere-- For those who from the land Of Hellas issued in a band, Sorrow, the heart must bear, Sits in the home of each, conspicuous there. Many a circumstance, at least, Touches the very breast. For those Whom any sent away,--he knows: And in the live man's stead, Armor and ashes reach The house of each.

For Ares, gold-exchanger for the dead, And balance-holder in the fight o' the spear, Due-weight from Ilion sends-- What moves the tear on tear-- A charred scrap to the friends: Filling with well-packed ashes every urn, For man--that was--the sole return. And they groan--praising much, the while, Now this man as experienced in the strife, Now that, fallen nobly on a slaughtered pile, Because of--not his own--another's wife. But things there be, one barks, When no man harks: A surreptitious grief that 's grudge Against the Atreidai who first sought the judge. But some there, round the rampart, have In Ilian earth, each one his grave: All fair-formed as at birth, It hid them--what they have and hold--the hostile earth.

And big with anger goes the city's word, And pays a debt by public curse incurred. And ever with me--as about to hear A something night-involved--remains my fear: Since of the many-slayers--not Unwatching are the gods. The black Erinues, at due periods-- Whoever gains the lot Of fortune with no right-- Him, by life's strain and stress Back-again-beaten from success, They strike blind: and among the out-of-sight For who has got to be, avails no might. The being praised outrageously Is grave, for at the eyes of such an one Is launched, from Zeus, the thunder-stone. Therefore do I decide For so much and no more prosperity Than of his envy passes unespied. Neither a city-sacker would I be, Nor life, myself by others captive, see.

A swift report has gone our city through, From fire, the good-news messenger: if true, Who knows? Or is it not a god-sent lie? Who is so childish and deprived of sense That, having, at announcements of the flame Thus novel, felt his own heart fired thereby, He then shall, at a change of evidence, Be worsted just the same? It is conspicuous in a woman's nature, Before its view to take a grace for granted: Too trustful,--on her boundary, usurpature Is swiftly made; But swiftly, too, decayed, The glory perishes by woman vaunted.

Klu. Soon shall we know--of these light-bearing torches, And beacons and exchanges, fire with fire-- If they are true, indeed, or if, dream-fashion, This gladsome light came and deceived our judgment. Yon herald from the shore I see, o'ershadowed With boughs of olive: dust, mud's thirsty brother, Close neighbors on his garb, thus testify me That neither voiceless, nor yet kindling for thee Mountain-wood-flame, shall he explain by fire-smoke: But either tell out more the joyance, speaking ... Word contrary to which, I ought but love it! For may good be--to good that 's known--appendage!

Cho. Whoever prays for aught else to this city --May he himself reap fruit of his mind's error!

Herald. Ha, my forefathers' soil of earth Argeian! Thee, in this year's tenth light, am I returned to-- Of many broken hopes, on one hope chancing; For never prayed I, in this earth Argeian Dying, to share my part in tomb the dearest. Now, hail thou earth, and hail thou also, sunlight, And Zeus, the country's lord, and king the Puthian From bow no longer urging at us arrows! Enough, beside Skamandros, cam'st thou adverse: Now, contrary, be saviour thou and healer, O king Apollon! And gods conquest-granting, All--I invoke too, and my tutelary Hermes, dear herald, heralds' veneration,-- And Heroes our forthsenders,--friendly, once more The army to receive, the war-spear's leavings! Ha, mansions of my monarchs, roofs beloved, And awful seats, and deities sun-fronting-- Receive with pomp your monarch, long time absent! For he comes bringing light in night-time to you, In common with all these--king Agamemnon. But kindly greet him--for clear shows your duty-- Who has dug under Troia with the mattock Of Zeus the Avenger, whereby plains are out-ploughed, Altars unrecognizable, and god's shrines, And the whole land's seed thoroughly has perished. And such a yoke-strap having cast round Troia, The elder king Atreides, happy man--he Comes to be honored, worthiest of what mortals Now are. Nor Paris nor the accomplice-city Outvaunts their deed as more than they are done-by: For, in a suit for rape and theft found guilty, He missed of plunder and, in one destruction, Fatherland, house and home has mowed to atoms: Debts the Priamidai have paid twice over.

Cho. Hail, herald from the army of Achaians!

Her. I hail:--to die, will gainsay gods no longer!

Cho. Love of this fatherland did exercise thee?

Her. So that I weep, at least, with joy, my eyes full.

Cho. What, of this gracious sickness were ye gainers?

Her. How now? instructed, I this speech shall master.

Cho. For those who loved you back, with longing stricken.

Her. This land yearned for the yearning army, say'st thou?

Cho. So as to set me oft, from dark mind, groaning.

Her. Whence came this ill mind--hatred to the army?

Cho. Of old, I use, for mischief's physic, silence.

Her. And how, the chiefs away, did you fear any?

Cho. So that now--late thy word--much joy were--dying!

Her. For well have things been worked out: these,--in much time, Some of them, one might say, had luck in falling, While some were faulty: since who, gods excepted, Goes, through the whole time of his life, ungrieving? For labors should I tell of, and bad lodgments, Narrow deckways ill-strewn, too,--what the day's woe We did not groan at getting for our portion? As for land-things, again, on went more hatred! Since beds were ours hard by the foemen's ramparts, And, out of heaven and from the earth, the meadow Dews kept a-sprinkle, an abiding damage Of vestures, making hair a wild-beast matting. Winter, too, if one told of it--bird-slaying-- Such as, unbearable, Idaian snow brought-- Or heat, when waveless, on its noontide couches Without a wind, the sea would slumber falling --Why must one mourn these? O'er and gone is labor: O'er and gone is it, even to those dead ones, So that no more again they mind uprising. Why must we tell in numbers those deprived ones, And the live man be vexed with fate's fresh outbreak? Rather, I bid full farewell to misfortunes! For us, the left from out the Argeian army, The gain beats, nor does sorrow counterbalance. So that 't is fitly boasted of, this sunlight, By us, o'er sea and land the aery flyers, "Troia at last taking, the band of Argives Hang up such trophies to the gods of Hellas Within their domes--new glory to grow ancient!" Such things men having heard must praise the city And army-leaders: and the grace which wrought them-- Of Zeus, shall honored be. Thou hast my whole word.

Cho. O'ercome by words, their sense I do not gainsay. For, aye this breeds youth in the old--"to learn well." But these things most the house and Klutaimnestra Concern, 't is likely: while they make me rich, too.

Klu. I shouted long ago, indeed, for joyance, When came that first night-messenger of fire Proclaiming Ilion's capture and dispersion. And some one, girding me, said, "Through fire-bearers Persuaded--Troia to be sacked now, thinkest? Truly, the woman's way,--high to lift heart up!" By such words I was made seem wit-bewildered: Yet still I sacrificed; and,--female-song with,-- A shout one man and other, through the city, Set up, congratulating in the gods' seats, Soothing the incense-eating flame right fragrant. And now, what 's more, indeed, why need'st thou tell me? I of the king himself shall learn the whole word: And,--as may best be,--I my revered husband Shall hasten, as he comes back, to receive: for-- What 's to a wife sweeter to see than this light (Her husband, by the god saved, back from warfare) So as to open gates? This tell my husband-- To come at soonest to his loving city. A faithful wife at home may he find, coming! Such an one as he left--the dog o' the household-- Trusty to him, adverse to the ill-minded, And, in all else, the same: no signet-impress Having done harm to, in that time's duration. I know nor pleasure, nor blameworthy converse With any other man more than--bronze-dippings!

Her. Such boast as this--brimful of the veracious-- Is for a high-born dame not bad to send forth!

Cho. Ay, she spoke thus to thee--that hast a knowledge From clear interpreters--a speech most seemly! But speak, thou, herald! Menelaos I ask of: If he, returning, back in safety also Will come with you--this land's beloved chieftain?

Her. There's no way I might say things false and pleasant For friends to reap the fruits of through a long time.

Cho. How then, if, speaking good, things true thou chance on?

Her. For not well-hidden things become they, sundered. The man has vanished from the Achaic army, He and his ship too. I announce no falsehood.

Cho. Whether forth-putting openly from Ilion, Or did storm--wide woe--snatch him from the army?

Her. Like topping bowman, thou hast touched the target, And a long sorrow hast succinctly spoken.

Cho. Whether, then, of him, as a live or dead man Was the report by other sailors bruited?

Her. Nobody knows so as to tell out clearly Excepting Helios who sustains earth's nature.

Cho. How say'st thou then, did storm the naval army Attack and end, by the celestials' anger?

Her. It suits not to defile a day auspicious With ill-announcing speech: distinct each god's due: And when a messenger with gloomy visage To a city bears a fall'n host's woes--God ward off!-- One popular wound that happens to the city, And many sacrificed from many households-- Men, scourged by that two-thonged whip Ares loves so, Double spear-headed curse, bloody yoke-couple,-- Of woes like these, doubtless, whoe'er comes weighted, Him does it suit to sing the Erinues' paian. But who, of matters saved a glad-news-bringer, Comes to a city in good estate rejoicing.... How shall I mix good things with evil, telling Of storm against the Achaioi, urged by gods' wrath? For they swore league, being arch-foes before that, Fire and the sea: and plighted troth approved they, Destroying the unhappy Argeian army, At night began the bad-wave-outbreak evils; For, ships against each other Threkian breezes Shattered: and these, butted at in a fury By storm and typhoon, with surge rain-resounding,-- Oft they went, vanished, through a bad herd's whirling. And, when returned the brilliant light of Helios, We view the Aigaian sea on flower with corpses Of men Achaian and with naval ravage. But us indeed, and ship, unhurt i' the hull too, Either some one outstole us or outprayed us-- Some god--no man it was the tiller touching. And Fortune, savior, willing on our ship sat. So as it neither had in harbor wave-surge Nor ran aground against a shore all rocky. And then, the water-Haides having fled from In the white day, not trusting to our fortune, We chewed the cud in thoughts--this novel sorrow O' the army laboring and badly pounded. And now--if any one of them is breathing-- They talk of us as having-perished: why not? And we--that they the same fate have, imagine. May it be for the best! Meneleos, then, Foremost and specially to come, expect thou! If (that is) any ray o' the sun reports him Living and seeing too--by Zeus' contrivings, Not yet disposed to quite destroy the lineage-- Some hope is he shall come again to household. Having heard such things, know, thou truth art hearing!

Cho. Who may he have been that named thus wholly with exactitude-- (Was he some one whom we see not, by forecastings of the future Guiding tongue in happy mood?) --Her with battle for a bridegroom, on all sides contention-wooed, Helena? Since--mark the suture!-- Ship's-Hell, Man's-Hell, City's-Hell, From the delicately--pompous curtains that pavilion well, Forth, by favor of the gale Of earth-born Zephuros did she sail. Many shield-bearers, leaders of the pack, Sailed too upon their track, Theirs who had directed oar, Then visible no more, To Simois' leaf-luxuriant shore-- For sake of strife all gore!

To Ilion Wrath, fulfilling her intent, This marriage-care--the rightly named so--sent: In after-time, for the tables' abuse And that of the hearth-partaker Zeus, Bringing to punishment Those who honored with noisy throat The honor of the bride, the hymenæal note Which did the kinsfolk then to singing urge. But, learning a new hymn for that which was, The ancient city of Priamos Groans probably a great and general dirge, Denominating Paris "The man that miserably marries:"-- She who, all the while before, A life, that was a general dirge For citizens' unhappy slaughter, bore,

And thus a man, by no milk's help, Within his household reared a lion's whelp That loved the teat In life's first festal stage: Gentle as yet, A true child-lover, and, to men of age, A thing whereat pride warms; And oft he had it in his arms Like any new-born babe, bright-faced, to hand Wagging its tail, at belly's strict command.

But in due time upgrown, The custom of progenitors was shown: For--thanks for sustenance repaying With ravage of sheep slaughtered-- It made unbidden feast; With blood the house was watered, To household came a woe there was no staying: Great mischief many-slaying! From God it was--some priest Of Até, in the house, by nurture thus increased.

At first, then, to the city of Ilion went A soul, as I might say, of windless calm-- Wealth's quiet ornament, An eyes'-dart bearing balm, Love's spirit-biting flower. But--from the true course bending-- She brought about, of marriage, bitter ending: Ill-resident, ill-mate, in power Passing to the Priamidai--by sending Of Hospitable Zeus-- Erinus for a bride,--to make brides mourn, her dower.

Spoken long ago Was the ancient saying Still among mortals staying: "Man's great prosperity at height of rise Engenders offspring nor unchilded dies; And, from good fortune, to such families, Buds forth insatiate woe." Whereas, distinct from any, Of my own mind I am: For 't is the unholy deed begets the many, Resembling each its dam. Of households that correctly estimate, Ever a beauteous child is born of Fate. But ancient Arrogance delights to generate Arrogance, young and strong 'mid mortals' sorrow, Or now, or then, when comes the appointed morrow. And she bears young Satiety; And, fiend with whom nor fight nor war can be, Unholy Daring--twin black Curses Within the household, children like their nurses.

But Justice shines in smoke-grimed habitations, And honors the well-omened life; While,--gold-besprinkled stations Where the hands' filth is rife, With backward-turning eyes Leaving,--to holy seats she hies, Not worshipping the power of wealth Stamped with applause by stealth: And to its end directs each thing begun.

Approach then, my monarch, of Troia the sacker, of Atreus the son! How ought I address thee, how ought I revere thee,--nor yet overhitting Nor yet underbending the grace that is fitting? Many of mortals hasten to honor the seeming-to-be-- Passing by justice: and, with the ill-faring, to groan as he groans all are free. But no bite of the sorrow their liver has reached to: They say with the joyful,--one outside on each, too, As they force to a smile smileless faces. But whoever is good at distinguishing races In sheep of his flock--it is not for the eyes Of a man to escape such a shepherd's surprise, As they seem, from a well-wishing mind, In watery friendship to fawn and be kind. Thou to me, then, indeed, sending an army for Helena's sake, (I will not conceal it,) wast--oh, by no help of the Muses!--depicted Not well of thy midriff the rudder directing,--convicted Of bringing a boldness they did not desire to the men with existence at stake. But now--from no outside of mind, nor unlovingly--gracious thou art To those who have ended the labor, fulfilling their part; And in time shalt thou know, by inquiry instructed, Who of citizens justly, and who not to purpose, the city conducted.

Agamemnon. First, indeed, Argos, and the gods, the local, 'T is right addressing--those with me the partners In this return and right things done the city Of Priamos: gods who, from no tongue hearing The rights o' the cause, for Ilion's fate man-slaught'rous Into the bloody vase, not oscillating, Put the vote-pebbles, while, o' the rival vessel, Hope rose up to the lip-edge: filled it was not. By smoke the captured city is still conspicuous: Até's burnt-offerings live: and, dying with them, The ash sends forth the fulsome blasts of riches. Of these things, to the gods grace many-mindful 'T is right I render, since both nets outrageous We built them round with, and, for sake of woman, It did the city to dust--the Argeian monster, The horse's nestling, the shield-bearing people That made a leap, at setting of the Pleiads, And, vaulting o'er the tower, the raw-flesh-feeding Lion licked up his fill of blood tyrannic. I to the gods indeed prolonged this preface; But--as for thy thought, I remember hearing-- I say the same, and thou co-pleader hast me. Since few of men this faculty is born with To honor, without grudge, their friend successful. For moody, on the heart, a poison seated Its burden doubles to who gained the sickness: By his own griefs he is himself made heavy, And out-of-door prosperity seeing groans at. Knowing, I 'd call (for well have I experienced) "Fellowship's mirror," "phantom of a shadow," Those seeming to be mighty gracious to me: While just Odusseus--he who sailed not willing-- When joined on, was to me the ready trace-horse. This of him, whether dead or whether living, I say. For other city-and-gods' concernment-- Appointing common courts, in full assemblage We will consult. And as for what holds seemly How it may lasting stay well, must be counselled: While what has need of medicines Paionian We, either burning or else cutting kindly, Will make endeavor to turn pain from sickness. And now into the domes and homes by altar Going, I to the gods first raise the right-hand-- They who, far sending, back again have brought me. And Victory, since she followed, fixed remain she!

Klu. Men, citizens, Argeians here, my worships! I shall not shame me, consort-loving manners To tell before you: for in time there dies off The diffidence from people. Not from others Learning, I of myself will tell the hard life I bore so long as this man was 'neath Ilion. First: for a woman, from the male divided, To sit at home alone, is monstrous evil-- Hearing the many rumors back-revenging: And for now This to come, now That bring after Woe, and still worse woe, bawling in the household! And truly, if so many wounds had chanced on My husband here, as homeward used to dribble Report, he's pierced more than a net to speak of! While, were he dying (as the words abounded) A triple-bodied Geruon the Second, Plenty above--for loads below I count not-- Of earth a three-share cloak he'd boast of taking, Once only dying in each several figure! Because of such-like rumors back-revenging, Many the halters from my neck, above head, Others than I loosed--loosed from neck by main force! From this cause, sure, the boy stands not beside me-- Possessor of our troth-plights, thine and mine too-- As ought Orestes: be not thou astonished! For, him brings up our well-disposed guest-captive Strophios the Phokian--ills that told on both sides To me predicting--both of thee 'neath Ilion The danger, and if anarchy's mob-uproar Should overthrow thy council; since 'tis born with Mortals,--whoe'er has fallen, the more to kick him. Such an excuse, I think, no cunning carries! As for myself--why, of my wails the rushing Fountains are dried up: not in them a drop more! And in my late-to-bed eyes I have damage Bewailing what concerned thee, those torch-holdings Forever unattended to. In dreams--why, Beneath the light wing-beats o' the gnat, I woke up As he went buzzing--sorrows that concerned thee Seeing, that filled more than their fellow-sleep-time. Now, all this having suffered, from soul grief-free I would style this man here the dog o' the stables, The savior forestay of the ship, the high roof's Ground-prop, son sole-begotten to his father, --Ay, land appearing to the sailors past hope, Loveliest day to see after a tempest, To the wayfaring-one athirst a well-spring, --The joy, in short, of 'scaping all that's--fatal! I judge him worth addresses such as these are --Envy stand off!--for many those old evils We underwent. And now, to me--dear headship!-- Dismount thou from this car, not earthward setting The foot of thine, O king, that's Ilion's spoiler! Slave-maids, why tarry?--whose the task allotted To strew the soil o' the road with carpet-spreadings. Immediately be purple-strewn the pathway, So that to home unhoped may lead him--Justice! As for the rest, care shall--by no sleep conquered-- Dispose things--justly (gods to aid!) appointed.

Aga. Offspring of Leda, of my household warder, Suitably to my absence hast thou spoken, For long the speech thou didst outstretch! But aptly To praise--from others ought to go this favor. And for the rest,--not me, in woman's fashion, Mollify, nor--as mode of barbarous man is-- To me gape forth a groundward-failing clamor! Nor, strewing it with garments, make my passage Envied! Gods, sure, with these behooves we honor: But, for a mortal on these varied beauties To walk--to me, indeed, is nowise fear-free. I say--as man, not god, to me do homage! Apart from foot-mats both and varied vestures Renown is loud, and--not to lose one's senses, God's greatest gift. Behooves we him call happy Who has brought life to end in loved wellbeing. If all things I might manage thus--brave man, I!

Klu. Come now, this say, nor feign a feeling to me!

Aga. With feeling, know indeed, I do not tamper!

Klu. Vowed'st thou to the gods, in fear, to act thus?

Aga. If any, I well knew resolve I outspoke.

Klu. What think'st thou Priamos had done, thus victor?

Aga. On varied vests--I do think--he had passaged.

Klu. Then, do not, struck with awe at human censure....

Aga. Well, popular mob-outcry much avails too!

Klu. Ay, but the unenvied is not the much valued.

Aga. Sure, 't is no woman's part to long for battle!

Klu. Why, to the prosperous, even suits a beating!

Aga. What? thou this beating us in war dost prize too?

Klu. Persuade thee! power, for once, grant me--and willing!

Aga. But if this seem so to thee--shoes, let some one Loose under, quick--foot's serviceable carriage! And me, on these sea-products walking, may no Grudge from a distance, from the god's eye, strike at! For great shame were my strewment-spoiling--riches! Spoiling with feet, and silver-purchased textures! Of these things, thus then. But this female-stranger Tenderly take inside! Who conquers mildly God, from afar, benignantly regardeth. For, willing, no one wears a yoke that's servile: And she, of many valuables, outpicked The flower, the army's gift, myself has followed. So--since to hear thee, I am brought about thus,-- I go into the palace--purples treading.

Klu. There is the sea--and what man shall exhaust it?-- Feeding much purple's worth-its-weight-in-silver Dye, ever fresh and fresh, our garments' tincture; At home, such wealth, king, we begin--by gods' help-- With having, and to lack, the household knows not. Of many garments had I vowed a treading (In oracles if fore-enjoined the household) Of this dear soul the safe-return-price scheming! For, root existing, foliage goes up houses, O'erspreading shadow against Seirios dog-star; And, thou returning to the hearth domestic, Warmth, yea, in winter dost thou show returning. And when, too, Zeus works, from the green-grape acrid, Wine--then, already, cool in houses cometh-- The perfect man his home perambulating! Zeus, Zeus Perfecter, these my prayers perfect thou! --Thy care be--yea--of things thou mayst make perfect!

Cho. Wherefore to me, this fear-- Groundedly stationed here Fronting my heart, the portent-watcher--flits she? Wherefore should prophet-play The uncalled and unpaid lay, Nor--having spat forth fear, like bad dreams--sits she On the mind's throne beloved--well-suasive Boldness? For time, since, by a throw of all the hands, The boat's stern-cables touched the sands, Has passed from youth to oldness,-- When under Ilion rushed the ship-borne bands.

And from my eyes I learn-- Being myself my witness--their return. Yet, all the same, without a lyre, my soul, Itself its teacher too, chants from within Erinus' dirge, not having now the whole Of Hope's dear boldness: nor my inwards sin-- The heart that's rolled in whirls against the mind Justly presageful of a fate behind. But I pray--things false, from my hope, may fall Into the fate that's not-fulfilled-at-all!

Especially at least, of health that's great The term's insatiable: for, its weight --A neighbor, with a common wall between-- Ever will sickness lean; And destiny, her course pursuing straight, Has struck man's ship against a reef unseen. Now, when a portion, rather than the treasure, Fear casts from sling, with peril in right measure, It has not sunk--the universal freight, (With misery freighted over-full,) Nor has fear whelmed the hull. Then too the gift of Zeus, Two-handedly profuse, Even from the furrows' yield for yearly use Has done away with famine, the disease; But blood of man to earth once falling,--deadly, black,-- In times ere these,-- Who may, by singing spells, call back? Zeus had not else stopped one who rightly knew The way to bring the dead again. But, did not an appointed Fate constrain The Fate from gods, to bear no more than due, My heart, outstripping what tongue utters, Would have all out: which now, in darkness, mutters Moodily grieved, nor ever hopes to find How she a word in season may unwind From out the enkindling mind.

Klu. Take thyself in, thou too--I say, Kassandra! Since Zeus--not angrily--in household placed thee Partaker of hand-sprinklings, with the many Slaves stationed, his the Owner's altar close to. Descend from out this car, nor be high-minded! And truly they do say Alkmene's child once Bore being sold, slaves' barley-bread his living. If, then, necessity of this lot o'erbalance, Much is the favor of old-wealthy masters: For those who, never hoping, made fine harvest Are harsh to slaves in all things, beyond measure, Thou hast--with us--such usage as law warrants.

Cho. To thee it was, she paused plain speech from speaking. Being inside the fatal nets--obeying, Thou mayst obey: but thou mayst disobey too!

Klu. Why, if she is not, in the swallow's fashion, Possessed of voice that 's unknown and barbaric, I, with speech--speaking in mind's scope--persuade her.

Cho. Follow! The best--as things now stand--she speaks of. Obey thou, leaving this thy car-enthronement!

Klu. Well, with this thing at door, for me no leisure To waste time: as concerns the hearth mid-navelled, Already stand the sheep for fireside slaying By those who never hoped to have such favor. If thou, then, aught of this wilt do, delay not! But if thou, being witless, tak'st no word in, Speak thou, instead of voice, with hand as Kars do!

Cho. She seems a plain interpreter in need of, The stranger! and her way--a beast's new-captured!

Klu. Why, she is mad, sure,--hears her own bad senses,-- Who, while she comes, leaving a town new-captured, Yet knows not how to bear the bit o' the bridle Before she has out-frothed her bloody fierceness. Not I--throwing away more words--will shamed be!

Cho. But I,--for I compassionate,--will chafe not. Come, O unhappy one, this car vacating, Yielding to this necessity, prove yoke's use!

Kassandra. Otototoi, Gods, Earth--Apollon, Apollon!

Cho. Why didst thou "ototoi" concerning Loxias? Since he is none such as to suit a mourner.

Kas. Otototoi, Gods, Earth, --Apollon, Apollon!

Cho. Ill-boding here again the god invokes she --Nowise empowered in woes to stand by helpful.

Kas. Apollon, Apollon, Guard of the ways, my destroyer! For thou hast quite, this second time, destroyed me.

Cho. To prophesy she seems of her own evils: Remains the god-gift to the slave-soul present.

Kas. Apollon, Apollon, Guard of the ways, my destroyer! Ha, whither hast thou led me? to what roof now?

Cho. To the Atreidai's roof: if this thou know'st not, I tell it thee, nor this wilt thou call falsehood.

Kas. How! how! God-hated, then! Of many a crime it knew-- Self-slaying evils, halters too: Man's-shambles, blood-besprinkler of the ground!

Cho. She seems to be good-nosed, the stranger: dog-like, She snuffs indeed the victims she will find there.

Kas. How! how! By the witnesses here I am certain now! These children bewailing their slaughters--flesh dressed in the fire And devoured by their sire!

Cho. Ay, we have heard of thy soothsaying glory, Doubtless: but prophets none are we in scent of!

Kas. Ah, gods, what ever does she meditate? What this new anguish great? Great in the house here she meditates ill Such as friends cannot bear, cannot cure it: and still Off stands all Resistance Afar in the distance!

Cho. Of these I witless am--these prophesyings. But those I knew: for the whole city bruits them.

Kas. Ah, unhappy one, this thou consummatest? Thy husband, thy bed's common guest, In the bath having brightened.... How shall I declare Consummation? It soon will be there: For hand after hand she outstretches, At life as she reaches!

Cho. Nor yet I 've gone with thee! for--after riddles-- Now, in blind oracles, I feel resourceless.

Kas. Eh, eh, papai, papai, What this, I espy? Some net of Haides undoubtedly! Nay, rather, the snare Is she who has share In his bed, who takes part in the murder there! But may a revolt-- Unceasing assault-- On the Race, raise a shout Sacrificial, about A victim--by stoning-- For murder atoning!

Cho. What this Erinus which i' the house thou callest To raise her cry? Not me thy word enlightens! To my heart has run A drop of the crocus-dye: Which makes for those On earth by the spear that lie, A common close With life's descending sun. Swift is the curse begun!

Kas. How! how! See--see quick! Keep the bull from the cow! In the vesture she catching him, strikes him now With the black-horned trick, And he falls into the watery vase! Of the craft-killing caldron I tell thee the case!

Cho. I would not boast to be a topping critic Of oracles: but to some sort of evil I liken these. From oracles, what good speech To mortals, beside, is sent? It comes of their evils: these arts word-abounding that sing the event Bring the fear 't is their office to teach.

Kas. Ah me, ah me-- Of me unhappy, evil-destined fortunes! For I bewail my proper woe As, mine with his, all into one I throw. Why hast thou hither me unhappy brought? --Unless that I should die with him--for naught! What else was sought?

Cho. Thou art some mind-mazed creature, god-possessed: And all about thyself dost wail A lay--no lay! Like some brown nightingale Insatiable of noise, who--well away!-- From her unhappy breast Keeps moaning Itus, Itus, and his life With evils, flourishing on each side, rife.

Kas. Ah me, ah me, The fate o' the nightingale, the clear resounder! For a body wing-borne have the gods cast round her, And sweet existence, from misfortunes free: But for myself remains a sundering With spear, the two-edged thing!

Cho. Whence hast thou this on-rushing god-involving pain And spasms in vain? For, things that terrify, With changing unintelligible cry Thou strikest up in tune, yet all the while After that Orthian style! Whence hast thou limits to the oracular road, That evils bode?

Kas. Ah me, the nuptials, the nuptials of Paris, the deadly to friends! Ah me, of Skamandros the draught Paternal! There once, to these ends, On thy banks was I brought, The unhappy! And now, by Kokutos and Acheron's shore I shall soon be, it seems, these my oracles singing once more!

Cho. Why this word, plain too much, Hast thou uttered? A babe might learn of such! I am struck with a bloody bite--here under-- At the fate woe-wreaking Of thee shrill-shrieking: To me who hear--a wonder!

Kas. Ah me, the toils--the toils of the city The wholly destroyed: ah, pity, Of the sacrificings my father made In the ramparts' aid-- Much slaughter of grass-fed flocks--that afforded no cure That the city should not, as it does now, the burthen endure! But I, with the soul on fire, Soon to the earth shall cast me and expire!

Cho. To things, on the former consequent, Again hast thou given vent: And 't is some evil-meaning fiend doth move thee, Heavily falling from above thee, To melodize thy sorrows--else, in singing, Calamitous, death-bringing! And of all this the end I am without resource to apprehend.

Kas. Well then, the oracle from veils no longer Shall be outlooking, like a bride new-married: But bright it seems, against the sun's uprisings Breathing, to penetrate thee: so as, wave-like, To wash against the rays a woe much greater Than this. I will no longer teach by riddles. And witness, running with me, that of evils Done long ago, I nosing track the footstep! For, this same roof here--never quits a Choros One-voiced, not well-tuned since no "well" it utters: And truly having drunk, to get more courage, Man's blood--the Komos keeps within the household --Hard to be sent outside--of sister Furies: They hymn their hymn--within the house close sitting-- The first beginning curse: in turn spit forth at The Brother's bed, to him who spurned it hostile. Have I missed aught, or hit I like a bowman? False prophet am I,--knock at doors, a babbler? Henceforward witness, swearing now, I know not By other's word the old sins of this household!

Cho. And how should oath, bond honorably binding, Become thy cure? No less I wonder at thee --That thou, beyond sea reared, a strange-tongued city Shouldst hit in speaking, just as if thou stood'st by!

Kas. Prophet Apollon put me in this office.

Cho. What, even though a god, with longing smitten?

Kas. At first, indeed, shame was to me to say this.

Cho. For, more relaxed grows every one who fares well.

Kas. But he was athlete to me--huge grace breathing!

Cho. Well, to the work of children, went ya law's way?

Kas. Having consented, I played false to Loxias.

Cho. Already when the wits inspired possessed of?

Kas. Already townsmen all their woes I foretold.

Cho. How wast thou then unhurt by Loxias' anger?

Kas. I no one aught persuaded, when I sinned thus.

Cho. To us, at least, now sooth to say thou seemest.

Kas. Halloo, halloo, ah, evils! Again, straightforward foresight's fearful labor Whirls me, distracting with prelusive last-lays! Behold ye those there, in the household seated,-- Young ones,--of dreams approaching to the figures? Children, as if they died by their beloveds-- Hands they have rilled with flesh, the meal domestic-- Entrails and vitals both, most piteous burthen, Plain they are holding!--which their father tasted! For this, I say, plans punishment a certain Lion ignoble, on the bed that wallows, House-guard (ah, me!) to the returning master --Mine, since to bear the slavish yoke behooves me! The ships' commander, Ilion's desolator, Knows not what things the tongue of the lewd she-dog Speaking, outspreading, shiny-souled, in fashion Of Até hid, will reach to, by ill fortune! Such things she dares--the female, the male's slayer! She is ... how calling her the hateful bite-beast May I hit the mark? Some amphisbaina--Skulla Housing in rocks, of mariners the mischief, Revelling Haides' mother,--curse, no truce with, Breathing at friends! How piously she shouted, The all-courageous, as at turn of battle! She seems to joy at the back-bringing safety! Of this, too, if I naught persuade, all 's one! Why? What is to be will come! And soon thou, present, "True prophet all too much" wilt pitying style me!

Cho. Thuestes' feast, indeed, on flesh of children, I went with, and I shuddered. Fear too holds me Listing what 's true as life, nowise out-imaged!

Kas. I say, thou Agamemnon's fate shalt look on!

Cho. Speak good words, O unhappy! Set mouth sleeping!

Kas. But Paian stands in no stead to the speech here.

Cho. Nay, if the thing be near: but never be it!

Kas. Thou, indeed, prayest: they to kill are busy!

Cho. Of what man is it ministered, this sorrow?

Kas. There again, wide thou look'st of my foretellings.

Cho. For, the fulfiller's scheme I have not gone with.

Kas. And yet too well I know the speech Hellenic.

Cho. For Puthian oracles, thy speech, and hard too!

Kas. Papai: what fire this! and it comes upon me! Ototoi, Lukeion Apollon, ah me--me! She, the two-footed lioness that sleeps with The wolf, in absence of the generous lion, Kills me the unhappy one: and as a poison Brewing, to put my price too in the anger, She vows, against her mate this weapon whetting To pay him back the bringing me, with slaughter. Why keep I then these things to make me laughed at, Both wands and, round my neck, oracular fillets? Thee, at least, ere my own fate will I ruin: Go, to perdition falling! Boons exchange we-- Some other Até in my stead make wealthy! See there--himself, Apollon stripping from me The oracular garment! having looked upon me --Even in these adornments, laughed by friends at, As good as foes, i' the balance weighed: and vainly-- For, called crazed stroller,--as I had been gypsy, Beggar, unhappy, starved to death,--I bore it. And now the Prophet--prophet me undoing, Has led away to these so deadly fortunes! Instead of my sire's altar, waits the hack-block She struck with first warm bloody sacrificing! Yet nowise unavenged of gods will death be: For there shall come another, our avenger, The mother-slaying scion, father's doomsman: Fugitive, wanderer, from this land an exile, Back shall he come,--for friends, copestone these curses! For there is sworn a great oath from the gods that Him shall bring hither his fallen sire's prostration. Why make I then, like an indweller, moaning? Since at the first I foresaw Ilion's city Suffering as it has suffered: and who took it, Thus by the judgment of the gods are faring. I go, will suffer, will submit to dying! But, Haides' gates--these same I call, I speak to, And pray that on an opportune blow chancing, Without a struggle,--blood the calm death bringing In easy outflow,--I this eye may close up!

Cho. O much unhappy, but, again, much learned Woman, long hast thou outstretched! But if truly Thou knowest thine own fate, how comes that, like to A god-led steer, to altar bold thou treadest?

Kas. There 's no avoidance,--strangers, no! Some time more!

Cho.. He last is, anyhow, by time advantaged.

Kas. It comes, the day: I shall by flight gain little.

Cho. But know thou patient art from thy brave spirit!

Kas. Such things hears no one of the happy-fortuned.

Cho. But gloriously to die--for man is grace, sure!

Kas. Ah, sire, for thee and for thy noble children!

Cho. But what thing is it? What fear turns thee backwards?

Kas. Alas, alas!

Cho. Why this "alas"? if 't is no spirit's loathing ...

Kas. Slaughter blood-dripping does the household smell of!

Cho. How else? This scent is of hearth-sacrifices.

Kas. Such kind of steam as from a tomb is proper!

Cho. No Surian honor to the House thou speak'st of!

Kas. But I will go,--even in the household wailing My fate and Agamemnon's. Life suffice me! Ah, strangers! I cry not "ah"--as bird at bush--through terror Idly! to me, the dead thus much bear witness: When, for me--woman, there shall die a woman, And, for a man ill-wived, a man shall perish! This hospitality I ask as dying.

Cho. O sufferer, thee--thy foretold fate I pity.

Kas. Yet once for all, to speak a speech, I fain am: No dirge, mine for myself! The sun I pray to, Fronting his last light!--to my own avengers-- That from my hateful slayers they exact too Pay for the dead slave--easy-managed hand's work!

Cho. Alas for mortal matters! Happy-fortuned,-- Why, any shade would turn them: if unhappy, By throws the wetting sponge has spoiled the picture! And more by much in mortals this I pity. The being well-to-do-- Insatiate a desire of this Born with all mortals is, Nor any is there who Well-being forces off, aroints From roofs whereat a finger points, "No more come in!" exclaiming. This man, too, To take the city of Priamos did the celestials give, And, honored by the god, he homeward comes; But now if, of the former, he shall pay The blood back, and, for those who ceased to live, Dying, for deaths in turn new punishment he dooms-- Who, being mortal, would not pray With an unmischievous Daimon to have been born---who would not, hearing thus?

Aga. Ah me! I am struck--a right-aimed stroke within me!

Cho. Silence! Who is it shouts "stroke"--"right-aimedly," a wounded one?

Aga. Ah me! indeed again,--a second, struck by!

Cho. This work seems to me completed by this "Ah me" of the king's; But we somehow may together share in solid counsellings.

Cho. 1. I, in the first place, my opinion tell you: --To cite the townsmen, by help-cry, to house here.

Cho. 2. To me, it seems we ought to fall upon them At quickest--prove the fact by sword fresh-flowing!

Cho. 3. And I, of such opinion the partaker, Vote--to do something: not to wait--the main point!

Cho. 4. 'T is plain to see: for they prelude as though of A tyranny the signs they gave the city.

Cho. 5. For we waste time; while they,--this waiting's glory Treading to ground,--allow the hand no slumber.

Cho. 6. I know not--chancing on some plan --to tell it: 'T is for the doer to plan of the deed also.

Cho. 7. And I am such another: since I 'm schemeless How to raise up again by words--a dead man!

Cho. 8. What, and, protracting life, shall we give way thus To the disgracers of our home, these rulers?

Cho. 9. Why, 't is unbearable: but to die is better: For death than tyranny is the riper finish!

Cho. 10. What, by the testifying "Ah me" of him, Shall we prognosticate the man as perished?

Cho. 11. We must quite know ere speak these things concerning: For to conjecture and "quite know" are two things.

Cho. 12. This same to praise I from all sides abound in-- Clearly to know, Atreides, what he 's doing!

Klu. Much having been before to purpose spoken, The opposite to say I shall not shamed be: For how should one, to enemies,--in semblance, Friends,--enmity proposing,--sorrow's net-frame Enclose, a height superior to outleaping? To me, indeed, this struggle of old--not mindless Of an old victory--came: with time, I grant you! I stand where I have struck, things once accomplished: And so have done,--and this deny I shall not,-- As that his fate was nor to fly nor ward off. A wrap-round with no outlet, as for fishes, I fence about him--the rich woe of the garment: I strike him twice, and in a double "Ah-me!" He let his limbs go-- there! And to him, fallen, The third blow add I, giving--of Below-ground Zeus, guardian of the dead--the votive favor Thus in the mind of him he rages, falling, And blowing forth a brisk blood-spatter, strikes me With the dark drop of slaughterous dew,--rejoicing No less than, at the god-given dewy-comfort, The sown-stuff in its birth-throes from the calyx. Since so these things are,--Argives, my revered here,-- Ye may rejoice--if ye rejoice: but I--boast! If it were fit on corpse to pour libation, That would be right--right over and above, too! The cup of evils in the house he, having Filled with such curses, himself coming drinks of.

Cho. We wonder at thy tongue: since bold-mouthed truly Is she who in such speech boasts o'er her husband!

Klu. Ye test me as I were a witless woman: But I--with heart intrepid--to you knowers Say (and thou--if thou wilt or praise or blame me, Comes to the same)--this man is Agamemnon, My husband, dead, the work of the right hand here, Ay, of a just artificer: so things are.

Cho. What evil, O woman, food or drink, earth-bred Or sent from the flowing sea, Of such having fee Didst thou set on thee This sacrifice And popular cries Of a curse on thy head? Off thou hast thrown him, off hast cut The man from the city: but Off from the city thyself shalt be Cut--to the citizens A hate immense!

Klu. Now, indeed, thou adjudgest exile to me, And citizens' hate, and to have popular curses: Nothing of this against the man here bringing, Who, no more awe-checked than as 't were a beast's fate,-- With sheep abundant in the well-fleeced graze-flocks,-- Sacrificed his child,--dearest fruit of travail To me,--as song-spell against Threkian blowings. Not him did it behoove thee hence to banish --Pollution's penalty? But hearing my deeds Justicer rough thou art! Now, this I tell thee: To threaten thus--me, one prepared to have thee (On like conditions, thy hand conquering) o'er me Rule: but if God the opposite ordain us, Thou shalt learn--late taught, certes--to be modest.

Cho. Greatly-intending thou art: Much-mindful, too, hast thou cried (Since thy mind, with its slaughter-outpouring part, Is frantic) that over the eyes, a patch Of blood--with blood to match Is plain for a pride! Yet still, bereft of friends, thy fate Is--blow with blow to expiate!

Klu. And this thou hearest--of my oaths, just warrant! By who fulfilled things for my daughter, Justice, Até, Erinus,--by whose help I slew him,-- Not mine the fancy--Fear will tread my palace So long as on my hearth there burns a fire, Aigisthos as before well-caring for me; Since he to me is shield, no small, of boldness. Here does he lie--outrager of this female, Dainty of all the Chruseids under Ilion; And she--the captive, the soothsayer also And couchmate of this man, oracle-speaker, Faithful bedfellow,--ay, the sailors' benches They wore in common, nor unpunished did so, Since he is--thus! While, as for her,--swan-fashion, Her latest having chanted,--dying wailing She lies,--to him, a sweetheart: me she brought to My bed's by-nicety, the whet of dalliance.

Cho. Alas, that some Fate would come Upon us in quickness-- Neither much sickness Neither bed-keeping-- And bear unended sleeping, Now that subdued Is our keeper, the kindest of mood! Having borne, for a woman's sake, much strife-- By a woman he withered from life! Ah me! Law-breaking Helena who, one, Hast many, so many souls undone 'Neath Troia! and now the consummated Much-memorable curse Hast thou made flower-forth, red With the blood no rains disperse, That which was then in the House-- Strife all-subduing, the woe of a spouse.

Klu. Nowise, of death the fate-- Burdened by these things--supplicate! Nor on Helena turn thy wrath As the man-destroyer, as "she who hath, Being but one, Many and many a soul undone Of the men, the Danaoi"-- And wrought immense annoy!

Cho. Daimon, who fallest Upon this household and the double-raced Tantalidai, a rule, minded like theirs displaced, Thou rulest me with, now, Whose heart thou gallest! And on the body, like a hateful crow, Stationed, all out of tune, his chant to chant Doth Something vaunt!

Klu. Now, of a truth, hast thou set upright Thy mouth's opinion,-- Naming the Sprite, The triply-gross, O'er the race that has dominion: For through him it is that Eros The carnage-licker In the belly is bred: ere ended quite Is the elder throe--new ichor!

Cho. Certainly, great of might And heavy of wrath, the Sprite Thou tellest of, in the palace (Woe, woe!) --An evil tale of a fate By Até's malice Rendered insatiate! Oh, oh,-- King, king, how shall I beweep thee? From friendly soul what ever say? Thou liest where webs of the spider o'ersweep thee In impious death, life breathing away. O me--me! This couch, not free! By a slavish death subdued thou art, From the hand, by the two-edged dart.

Klu. Thou boastest this deed to be mine: But leave off styling me "The Agamemnonian wife!" For, showing himself in sign Of the spouse of the corpse thou dost see, Did the ancient bitter avenging-ghost Of Atreus, savage host, Pay the man here as price-- A full-grown for the young one's sacrifice.

Cho. That no cause, indeed, of this killing art thou, Who shall be witness-bearer? How shall he bear it--how? But the sire's avenging-ghost might be in the deed a sharer. He is forced on and on By the kin-born flowing of blood, --Black Ares: to where, having gone, He shall leave off, flowing done, At the frozen-child's-flesh food. King, king, how shall I beweep thee! From friendly soul what ever say? Thou liest where webs of the spider o'ersweep thee, In impious death, life breathing away. Oh, me--me! This couch not free! By a slavish death subdued thou art, From the hand, by the two-edged dart.

Klu. No death "unfit for the free" Do I think this man's to be: For did not himself a slavish curse To his household decree? But the scion of him, myself did nurse-- That much-bewailed Iphigeneia, he Having done well by,--and as well, nor worse, Been done to,--let him not in Haides loudly Bear himself proudly! Being by sword-destroying death amerced For that sword's punishment himself inflicted first.

Cho. I at a loss am left-- Of a feasible scheme of mind bereft-- Where I may turn: for the house is falling: I fear the bloody crash of the rain That ruins the roof as it bursts amain: The warning-drop Has come to a stop. Destiny doth Justice whet For other deed of hurt, on other whetstones yet. Woe, earth, earth--would thou hadst taken me Ere I saw the man I see, On the pallet-bed Of the silver-sided bath-vase, dead' Who is it shall bury him, who Sing his dirge? Can it be true That thou wilt dare this same to do--- Having slain thy husband, thine own, To make his funeral moan: And for the soul of him, in place Of his mighty deeds, a graceless grace To wickedly institute? By whom Shall the tale of praise o'er the tomb At the god-like man be sent-- From the truth of his mind as he toils intent?

Klu. It belongs not to thee to declare This object of care! By us did he fall--down there! Did he die--down there! and down, no less, We will bury him there, and not beneath The wails of the household over his death: But Iphigeneia,--with kindliness,-- His daughter,--as the case requires, Facing him full, at the rapid-flowing Passage of Groans shall--both hands throwing Around him--kiss that kindest of sires!

Cho. This blame comes in the place of blame: Hard battle it is to judge each claim. "He is borne away who bears away: And the killer has all to pay." And this remains while Zeus is remaining, "The doer shall suffer in time"--for, such his ordaining. Who may cast out of the House its cursed brood? The race is to Até glued!

Klu. Thou hast gone into this oracle With a true result. For me, then,--I will --To the Daimon of the Pleisthenidai Making an oath--with all these things comply Hard as they are to bear. For the rest-- Going from out this House, a guest, May he wear some other family To naught, with the deaths of kin by kin! And--keeping a little part of my goods-- Wholly am I contented in Having expelled from the royal House These frenzied moods The mutually-murderous.

Aigisthos. O light propitious of day justice-bringing! I may say truly, now, that men's avengers, The gods from high, of earth behold the sorrows-- Seeing, as I have, i' the spun robes of the Erinues, This man here lying,--sight to me how pleasant!-- His father's hands' contrivances repaying. For Atreus, this land's lord, of this man father, Thuestes, my own father--to speak clearly-- His brother too,--being i' the rule contested,-- Drove forth to exile from both town and household: And, coming back, to the hearth turned, a suppliant, Wretched Thuestes found the fate assured him --Not to die, bloodying his paternal threshold Just there: but host-wise this man's impious father Atreus, soul-keenly more than kindly,--seeming To joyous hold a flesh-day,--to my father Served up a meal, the flesh of his own children. The feet indeed and the hands' top divisions He hid, high up and isolated sitting: But, their unshowing parts in ignorance taking, He forthwith eats food--as thou seest--perdition To the race: and then, 'ware of the deed ill-omened, He shrieked O!--falls back, vomiting, from the carnage, And fate on the Pelopidai past hearing He prays down--putting in his curse together The kicking down o' the feast--that so might perish The race of Pleisthenes entire: and thence is That it is given thee to see this man prostrate. And I was rightly of this slaughter stitch-man: Since me,--being third from ten,--with my poor father He drives out--being then a babe in swathe-bands: But, grown up, back again has justice brought me: And of this man I got hold--being without-doors-- Fitting together the whole scheme of ill-will. So, sweet, in fine, even to die were to me, Seeing as I have, this man i' the toils of justice!

Cho. Aigisthos, arrogance in ills I love not. Dost thou say--willing, thou didst kill the man here, And, alone, plot this lamentable slaughter? I say--thy head in justice will escape not The people's throwing--know that!--stones and curses!

Aig. Thou such things soundest--seated at the lower Oarage to those who rule at the ship's mid-bench? Thou shalt know, being old, how heavy is teaching To one of the like age--bidden be modest! But chains and old age and the pangs of fasting Stand out before all else in teaching,--prophets At souls'-cure! Dost not, seeing aught, see this too? Against goads kick not, lest tript-up thou suffer!

Cho. Woman, thou,--of him coming new from battle Houseguard--thy husband's bed the while disgracing,-- For the Army-leader didst thou plan this fate too?

Aig. These words too are of groans the prime-begetters! Truly a tongue opposed to Orpheus hast thou: For he led all things by his voice's grace-charm, But thou, upstirring them by these wild yelpings, Wilt lead them! Forced, thou wilt appear the tamer!

Cho. So--thou shalt be my king then of the Argeians-- Who, not when for this man his fate thou plannedst, Daredst to do this deed--thyself the slayer!

Aig. For, to deceive him was the wife's part, certes: I was looked after--foe, ay, old-begotten! But out of this man's wealth will I endeavor To rule the citizens: and the no-man-minder --Him will I heavily yoke--by no means trace-horse, A corned-up colt! but that bad friend in darkness, Famine its housemate, shall behold him gentle.

Cho. Why then, this man here, from a coward spirit, Didst not thou slay thyself? But,--helped,--a woman, The country's pest, and that of gods o' the country, Killed him! Orestes, where may he see light now? That coming hither back, with gracious fortune, Of both these he may be the all-conquering slayer?

Aig. But since this to do thou thinkest--and not talk--thou soon shalt know! Up then, comrades dear! the proper thing to do--not distant this!

Cho. Up then! hilt in hold, his sword let every one aright dispose!

Aig. Ay, but I myself too, hilt in hold, do not refuse to die!

Cho. Thou wilt die, thou say'st, to who accept it. We the chance demand!

Klu. Nowise, O belovedest of men, may we do other ills! To have reaped away these, even, is a harvest much to me! Go, both thou and these the old men, to the homes appointed each, Ere ye suffer! It behooved one do these things just as we did: And if of these troubles, there should be enough--we may assent --By the Daimon's heavy heel unfortunately stricken ones! So a woman's counsel hath it--if one judge it learning-worth.

Aig. But to think that these at me the idle tongue should thus o'erbloom, And throw out such words--the Daimon's power experimenting on-- And, of modest knowledge missing,--me, the ruler,...

Cho. Ne'er may this befall Argeians--wicked man to fawn before!

Aig. Anyhow, in after-days, will I, yes, I, be at thee yet!

Cho. Not if hither should the Daimon make Orestes straightway come!

Aig. Oh, I know, myself, that fugitives on hopes are pasture-fed!

Cho. Do thy deed, get fat, defiling justice, since the power is thine!

Aig. Know that thou shalt give me satisfaction for this folly's sake!

Cho. Boast on, bearing thee audacious, like a cock his females by!

Klu. Have not thou respect for these same idle yelpings! I and thou Will arrange it, o'er this household ruling excellently well.

LA SAISIAZ

DEDICATED TO MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR

Miss A. Egerton-Smith was, at the time of her death, one of Browning's oldest women friends. "He first met her," says Mrs. Sutherland Orr, "as a young woman in Florence when she was visiting there; and the love for and proficiency in music soon asserted itself as a bond of sympathy between them. They did not, however, see much of each other till he had finally left Italy, and she also had made her home in London.... Mr. Browning was one of the very few persons whose society she cared to cultivate: and for many years the common musical interest took the practical, and for both of them convenient, form, of their going to concerts together." Browning was at La Saisiaz, under the Salève, when Miss Egerton-Smith, who was also domiciled there, died suddenly in the autumn of 1877, and it was after the shock of her loss that he composed the poem to which he gave the title of their summer resort. The poem is dated November 9, 1877.

Good, to forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live. Fretless and free, Soul, clap thy pinion! Earth have dominion, Body, o'er thee!

Wander at will, Day after day,-- Wander away, Wandering still-- Soul that canst soar! Body may slumber: Body shall cumber Soul-flight no more.

Waft of soul's wing! What lies above? Sunshine and Love, Skyblue and Spring! Body hides--where? Ferns of all feather, Mosses and heather, Yours be the care!

LA SAISIAZ

A. E. S. SEPTEMBER 14, 1877.

Dared and done: at last I stand upon the summit, Dear and True! Singly dared and done; the climbing both of us were bound to do. Petty feat and yet prodigious: every side my glance was bent O'er the grandeur and the beauty lavished through the whole ascent. Ledge by ledge, out broke new marvels, now minute and now immense: Earth's most exquisite disclosure, heaven's own God in evidence! And no berry in its hiding, no blue space in its outspread, Pleaded to escape my footstep, challenged my emerging head, (As I climbed or paused from climbing, now o'erbranched by shrub and tree, Now built round by rock and boulder, now at just a turn set free, Stationed face to face with--Nature? rather with Infinitude,) --No revealment of them all, as singly I my path pursued, But a bitter touched its sweetness, for the thought stung "Even so Both of us had loved and wondered just the same, five days ago!" Five short days, sufficient hardly to entice, from out its den Splintered in the slab, this pink perfection of the cyclamen; Scarce enough to heal and coat with amber gum the sloe-tree's gash, Bronze the clustered wilding apple, redden ripe the mountain-ash: Yet of might to place between us--Oh the barrier! Yon Profound Shrinks beside it, proves a pin-point: barrier this, without a bound! Boundless though it be, I reach you: somehow seem to have you here --Who are there. Yes, there you dwell now, plain the four low walls appear; Those are vineyards, they enclose from; and the little spire which points --That's Collonge, henceforth your dwelling. All the same, howe'er disjoints Past from present, no less certain you are here, not there: have dared, Done the feat of mountain-climbing;,--five days since, we both prepared Daring, doing, arm in arm, if other help should haply fail. For you asked, as forth we sallied to see sunset from the vale, "Why not try for once the mountain,--take a foretaste, snatch by stealth Sight and sound, some unconsidered fragment of the hoarded wealth? Six weeks at its base, yet never once have we together won Sight or sound by honest climbing: let us two have dared and done Just so much of twilight journey as may prove to-morrow's jaunt Not the only mode of wayfare--wheeled to reach the eagle's haunt!" So, we turned from the low grass-path you were pleased to call "your own," Set our faces to the rose-bloom o'er the summit's front of stone Where Salève obtains, from Jura and the sunken sun she hides, Due return of blushing "Good Night," rosy as a borne-off bride's, For his masculine "Good Morrow" when, with sunrise still in hold, Gay he hails her, and, magnific, thrilled her black length burns to gold. Up and up we went, how careless--nay, how joyous! All was new, All was strange. "Call progress toilsome? that were just insulting you! How the trees must temper noontide! Ah, the thicket's sudden break! What will be the morning glory, when at dusk thus gleams the lake? Light by light puts forth Geneva: what a land--and, of the land, Can there be a lovelier station than this spot where now we stand? Is it late, and wrong to linger? True, to-morrow makes amends. Toilsome progress? child's play, call it--specially when one descends! There, the dread descent is over--hardly our adventure, though! Take the vale where late we left it, pace the grass-path, 'mine,' you know! Proud completion of achievement!" And we paced it, praising still That soft tread on velvet verdure as it wound through hill and hill; And at very end there met us, coming from Collonge, the pair --All our people of the Chalet--two, enough and none to spare. So, we made for home together, and we reached it as the stars One by one came lamping--chiefly that prepotency of Mars-- And your last word was "I owe you this enjoyment!"--met with "Nay: With yourself it rests to have a month of morrows like to-day!" Then the meal, with talk and laughter, and the news of that rare nook Yet untroubled by the tourist, touched on by no travel-book, All the same--though latent--patent, hybrid birth of land and sea, And (our travelled friend assured you)--if such miracle might be-- Comparable for completeness of both blessings--all around Nature, and, inside her circle, safety from world's sight and sound-- Comparable to our Saisiaz. "Hold it fast and guard it well! Go and see and vouch for certain, then come back and never tell Living soul but us; and haply, prove our sky from cloud as clear, There may we four meet, praise fortune just as now, another year!"

Thus you charged him on departure: not without the final charge, "Mind to-morrow's early meeting! We must leave our journey marge Ample for the wayside wonders: there 's the stoppage at the inn Three-parts up the mountain, where the hardships of the track begin; There 's the convent worth a visit; but, the triumph crowning all-- There 's Saleve's own platform facing glory which strikes greatness small, --Blanc, supreme above his earth-brood, needles red and white and green, Horns of silver, fangs of crystal set on edge in his demesne. So, some three weeks since, we saw them: so, to-morrow we intend You shall see them likewise; therefore Good Night till to-morrow, friend!" Last, the nothings that extinguish embers of a vivid day: "What might be the Marshal's next move, what Gambetta's counter-play?" Till the landing on the staircase saw escape the latest spark: "Sleep you well!" "Sleep but as well, you!"--lazy love quenched, all was dark.

Nothing dark next day at sundawn! Up I rose and forth I fared: Took my plunge within the bath-pool, pacified the watch-dog scared, Saw proceed the transmutation--Jura's black to one gold glow, Trod your level path that let me drink the morning deep and slow, Reached the little quarry--ravage recompensed by shrub and fern-- Till the overflowing ardors told me time was for return. So, return I did, and gayly. But, for once, from no far mound Waved salute a tall white figure. "Has her sleep been so profound? Foresight, rather, prudent saving strength for day's expenditure! Ay, the chamber-window 's open: out and on the terrace, sure!"

No, the terrace showed no figure, tall, white, leaning through the wreaths, Tangle-twine of leaf and bloom that intercept the air one breathes, Interpose between one's love and Nature's loving, hill and dale Down to where the blue lake's wrinkle marks the river's inrush pale --Mazy Arve: whereon no vessel but goes sliding white and plain, Not a steamboat pants from harbor but one hears pulsate amain, Past the city's congregated peace of homes and pomp of spires --Man's mild protest that there 's something more than Nature, man requires, And that, useful as is Nature to attract the tourist's foot, Quiet slow sure money-making proves the matter's very root,-- Need for body,--while the spirit also needs a comfort reached By no help of lake or mountain, but the texts whence Calvin preached. "Here 's the veil withdrawn from landscape: up to Jura and beyond, All awaits us ranged and ready; yet she violates the bond, Neither leans nor looks nor listens: why is this?" A turn of eye Took the whole sole answer, gave the undisputed reason "why"!

This dread way you had your summons! No premonitory touch, As you talked and laughed ('t is told me) scarce a minute ere the clutch Captured you in cold forever. Cold? nay, warm you were as life When I raised you, while the others used, in passionate poor strife, All the means that seemed to promise any aid, and all in vain. Gone you were, and I shall never see that earnest face again Grow transparent, grow transfigured with the sudden light that leapt At the first word's provocation, from the heart-deeps where it slept.

Therefore, paying piteous duty, what seemed You have we consigned Peacefully to--what I think were, of all earth-beds, to your mind Most the choice for quiet, yonder: low walls stop the vines' approach, Lovingly Salève protects you; village-sports will ne'er encroach On the stranger lady's silence, whom friends bore so kind and well Thither "just for love's sake,"--such their own word was: and who can tell? You supposed that few or none had known and loved you in the world: Maybe! flower that 's full-blown tempts the butterfly, not flower that 's furled. But more learned sense unlocked you, loosed the sheath and let expand Bud to bell and outspread flower-shape at the least warm touch of hand --Maybe, throb of heart, beneath which--quickening farther than it knew-- Treasure oft was disembosomed, scent all strange and unguessed hue. Disembosomed, re-embosomed,--must one memory suffice, Prove I knew an Alpine-rose which all beside named Edelweiss?

Rare thing, red or white, you rest now: two days slumbered through; and since One day more will see me rid of this same scene whereat I wince, Tetchy at all sights and sounds and pettish at each idle charm Proffered me who pace now singly where we two went arm in arm,-- I have turned upon my weakness: asked, "And what, forsooth, prevents That, this latest day allowed me, I fulfil of her intents One she had the most at heart--that we should thus again survey From Salève Mont Blanc together?" Therefore,--dared and done to-day Climbing,--here I stand: but you--where?

If a spirit of the place Broke the silence, bade me question, promised answer,--what disgrace Did I stipulate "Provided answer suit my hopes, not fears!" Would I shrink to learn my lifetime's limit--days, weeks, months or years? Would I shirk assurance on each point whereat I can but guess-- "Does the soul survive the body? Is there God's self, no or yes?" If I know my mood, 't were constant--come in whatsoe'er uncouth Shape it should, nay, formidable--so the answer were but truth.

Well, and wherefore shall it daunt me, when 't is I myself am tasked, When, by weakness weakness questioned, weakly answers--weakly asked? Weakness never needs be falseness: truth is truth in each degree --Thunder-pealed by God to Nature, whispered by my soul to me. Nay, the weakness turns to strength and triumphs in a truth beyond: "Mine is but man's truest answer--how were it did God respond?" I shall no more dare to mimic such response in futile speech, Pass off human lisp as echo of the sphere-song out of reach, Than,--because it well may happen yonder, where the far snows blanch Mute Mont Blanc, that who stands near them sees and hears an avalanche,-- I shall pick a clod and throw,--cry, "Such the sight and such the sound! What though I nor see nor hear them? Others do, the proofs abound!" Can I make my eye an eagle's, sharpen ear to recognize Sound o'er league and league of silence? Can I know, who but surmise? If I dared no self-deception when, a week since, I and you Walked and talked along the grass-path, passing lightly in review What seemed hits and what seemed misses in a certain fence-play,--strife Sundry minds of mark engaged in "On the Soul and Future Life,"-- If I ventured estimating what was come of parried thrust, Subtle stroke, and, rightly, wrongly, estimating could be just --Just, though life so seemed abundant in the form which moved by mine, I might well have played at feigning, fooling,--laughed "What need opine Pleasure must succeed to pleasure, else past pleasure turns to pain, And this first life claims a second, else I count its good no gain?"-- Much less have I heart to palter when the matter to decide Now becomes "Was ending ending once and always, when you died?" Did the face, the form I lifted as it lay, reveal the loss Not alone of life but soul? A tribute to yon flowers and moss, What of you remains beside? A memory! Easy to attest "Certainly from out the world that one believes who knew her best Such was good in her, such fair, which fair and good were great perchance Had but fortune favored, bidden each shy faculty advance; After all--who knows another? Only as I know, I speak." So much of you lives within me while I live my year or week. Then my fellow takes the tale up, not unwilling to aver Duly in his turn, "I knew him best of all, as he knew her: Such he was, and such he was not, and such other might have been But that somehow every actor, somewhere in this earthly scene, Fails." And so both memories dwindle, yours and mine together linked, Till there is but left for comfort, when the last spark proves extinct, This--that somewhere new existence led by men and women new Possibly attains perfection coveted by me and you; While ourselves, the only witness to what work our life evolved, Only to ourselves proposing problems proper to be solved By ourselves alone,--who working ne'er shall know if work bear fruit Others reap and garner, heedless how produced by stalk and root,-- We who, darkling, timed the day's birth,--struggling, testified to peace,-- Earned, by dint of failure, triumph,--we, creative thought, must cease In created word, thought's echo, due to impulse long since sped! Why repine? There 's ever some one lives although ourselves be dead!

Well, what signifies repugnance? Truth is truth howe'er it strike. Fair or foul the lot apportioned life on earth, we bear alike. Stalwart body idly yoked to stunted spirit, powers, that fain Else would soar, condemned to grovel, groundlings through the fleshly chain,-- Help that hinders, hindrance proved but help disguised when all too late,-- Hindrance is the fact acknowledged, howsoe'er explained as Fate, Fortune, Providence: we bear, own life a burden more or less. Life thus owned unhappy, is there supplemental happiness Possible and probable in life to come? or must we count Life a curse and not a blessing, summed-up in its whole amount, Help and hindrance, joy and sorrow? Why should I want courage here? I will ask and have an answer,--with no favor, with no fear,-- From myself. How much, how little, do I inwardly believe True that controverted doctrine? Is it fact to which I cleave, Is it fancy I but cherish, when I take upon my lips Phrase the solemn Tuscan fashioned, and declare the soul's eclipse Not the soul's extinction? take his "I believe and I declare-- Certain am I--from this life I pass into a better, there Where that lady lives of whom enamored was my soul"--where this Other lady, my companion dear and true, she also is?

I have questioned and am answered. Question, answer presuppose Two points: that the thing itself which questions, answers,--is, it knows; As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself,--a force Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its course, Unaffected by its end,--that this thing likewise needs must be; Call this--God, then, call that--soul, and both--the only facts for me. Prove them facts? that they o'erpass my power of proving, proves them such: Fact it is I know I know not something which is fact as much. What before caused all the causes, what effect of all effects Haply follows,--these are fancy. Ask the rush if it suspects Whence and how the stream which floats it had a rise, and where and how Falls or flows on still! What answer makes the rush except that now Certainly it floats and is, and, no less certain than itself, Is the everyway external stream that now through shoal and shelf Floats it onward, leaves it--maybe--wrecked at last, or lands on shore There to root again and grow and flourish stable evermore. --Maybe! mere surmise not knowledge: much conjecture styled belief, What the rush conceives the stream means through the voyage blind and brief. Why, because I doubtless am, shall I as doubtless be? "Because God seems good and wise." Yet under this our life's apparent laws Reigns a wrong which, righted once, would give quite other laws to life. "He seems potent." Potent here, then: why are right and wrong at strife? Has in life the wrong the better? Happily life ends so soon! Right predominates in life? Then why two lives and double boon? "Anyhow, we want it: wherefore want?" Because, without the want, Life, now human, would be brutish: just that hope, however scant, Makes the actual life worth leading; take the hope therein away, All we have to do is surely not endure another day. This life has its hopes for this life, hopes that promise joy: life done-- Out of all the hopes, how many had complete fulfilment? None. "But the soul is not the body:" and the breath is not the flute; Both together make the music: either marred and all is mute. Truce to such old sad contention whence, according as we shape Most of hope or most of fear, we issue in a half-escape: "We believe" is sighed. I take the cup of comfort proffered thus, Taste and try each soft ingredient, sweet infusion, and discuss What their blending may accomplish for the cure of doubt, till--slow, Sorrowful, but how decided! needs must I o'erturn it--so! Cause before, effect behind me--blanks! The midway point I am, Caused, itself--itself efficient: in that narrow space must cram All experience--out of which there crowds conjecture manifold, But, as knowledge, this comes only--things may be as I behold, Or may not be, but, without me and above me, things there are; I myself am what I know not--ignorance which proves no bar To the knowledge that I am, and, since I am, can recognize What to me is pain and pleasure: this is sure, the rest--surmise. If my fellows are or are not, what may please them and what pain,-- Mere surmise: my own experience--that is knowledge, once again!

I have lived, then, done and suffered, loved and hated, learnt and taught This--there is no reconciling wisdom with a world distraught, Goodness with triumphant evil, power with failure in the aim, If--(to my own sense, remember! though none other feel the same!) If you bar me from assuming earth to be a pupil's place, And life, time--with all their chances, changes--just probation-space, Mine, for me. But those apparent other mortals--theirs, for them? Knowledge stands on my experience: all outside its narrow hem, Free surmise may sport and welcome! Pleasures, pains affect mankind Just as they affect myself? Why, here 's my neighbor color-blind, Eyes like mine to all appearance: "green as grass" do I affirm? "Red as grass" he contradicts me;--which employs the proper term? Were we two the earth's sole tenants, with no third for referee, How should I distinguish? Just so, God must judge 'twixt man and me. To each mortal peradventure earth becomes a new machine, Pain and pleasure no more tally in our sense than red and green; Still, without what seems such mortal's pleasure, pain, my life were lost --Life, my whole sole chance to prove--although at man's apparent cost-- What is beauteous and what ugly, right to strive for, right to shun, Fit to help and fit to hinder,--prove my forces every one, Good and evil,--learn life's lesson, hate of evil, love of good, As 't is set me, understand so much as may be understood-- Solve the problem: "From thine apprehended scheme of things, deduce Praise or blame of its contriver, shown a niggard or profuse In each good or evil issue! nor miscalculate alike Counting one the other in the final balance, which to strike, Soul was born and life allotted: ay, the show of things unfurled For thy summing-up and judgment,--thine, no other mortal's world!"

What though fancy scarce may grapple with the complex and immense --"His own world for every mortal?" Postulate omnipotence! Limit power, and simple grows the complex: shrunk to atom size, That which loomed immense to fancy low before my reason lies,-- I survey it and pronounce it work like other work: success Here and there, the workman's glory,--here and there, his shame no less, Failure as conspicuous. Taunt not "Human work ape work divine?" As the power, expect performance! God's be God's as mine is mine! God whose power made man and made man's wants, and made, to meet those wants, Heaven and earth which, through the body, prove the spirit's ministrants, Excellently all,--did he lack power or was the will in fault When he let blue heaven be shrouded o'er by vapors of the vault, Gay earth drop her garlands shrivelled at the first infecting breath Of the serpent pains which herald, swarming in, the dragon death? What, no way but this that man may learn and lay to heart how rife Life were with delights would only death allow their taste to life? Must the rose sigh "Pluck--I perish!" must the eve weep "Gaze--I fade!" --Every sweet warn "'Ware my bitter!" every shine bid "Wait my shade"? Can we love but on condition, that the thing we love must die? Needs there groan a world in anguish just to teach us sympathy-- Multitudinously wretched that we, wretched too, may guess What a preferable state were universal happiness? Hardly do I so conceive the outcome of that power which went To the making of the worm there in yon clod its tenement, Any more than I distinguish aught of that which, wise and good, Framed the leaf, its plain of pasture, dropped the dew, its fineless food. Nay, were fancy fact, were earth and all it holds illusion mere, Only a machine for teaching love and hate and hope and fear To myself, the sole existence, single truth 'mid falsehood,--well! If the harsh throes of the prelude die not off into the swell Of that perfect piece they sting me to become a-strain for,--if Roughness of the long rock-clamber lead not to the last of cliff, First of level country where is sward my pilgrim-foot can prize,-- Plainlier! if this life's conception new life fail to realize,-- Though earth burst and proved a bubble glassing hues of hell, one huge Reflex of the devil's doings--God's work by no subterfuge-- (So death's kindly touch informed me as it broke the glamour, gave Soul and body both release from life's long nightmare in the grave)-- Still,--with no more Nature, no more Man as riddle to be read, Only my own joys and sorrows now to reckon real instead,-- I must say--or choke in silence--"Howsoever came my fate, Sorrow did and joy did nowise--life well weighed--preponderate." By necessity ordained thus? I shall bear as best I can; By a cause all-good, all-wise, all-potent? No, as I am man! Such were God: and was it goodness that the good within my range Or had evil in admixture or grew evil's self by change? Wisdom--that becoming wise meant making slow and sure advance From a knowledge proved in error to acknowledged ignorance? Power! 't is just the main assumption reason most revolts at! power Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour, Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reaching aim, So much passion,--no defect there, no excess, but still the same,-- As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright as brief For yon worm, man's fellow-creature, on yon happier world--its leaf! No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute: Goodness, wisdom, power, all bounded, each a human attribute!

But, O world outspread beneath me! only for myself I speak, Nowise dare to play the spokesman for my brothers strong and weak, Full and empty, wise and foolish, good and bad, in every age, Every clime, I turn my eyes from, as in one or other stage Of a torture writhe they, Job-like couched on dung and crazed with blains --Wherefore? whereto? ask the whirlwind what the dread voice thence explains! I shall "vindicate no way of God's to man," nor stand apart, "Laugh, be candid," while I watch it traversing the human heart! Traversed heart must tell its story uncommented on: no less Mine results in, "Only grant a second life; I acquiesce In this present life as failure, count misfortune's worst assaults Triumph, not defeat, assured that loss so much the more exalts Gain about to be. For at what moment did I so advance Near to knowledge as when frustrate of escape from ignorance? Did not beauty prove most precious when its opposite obtained Rule, and truth seem more than ever potent because falsehood reigned? While for love--Oh how but, losing love, does whoso loves succeed By the death-pang to the birth-throe--learning what is love indeed? Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled, Brimming though it be with knowledge, life's loss drop by drop distilled, I shall boast it mine--the balsam, bless each kindly wrench that wrung From life's tree its inmost virtue, tapped the root whence pleasure sprung, Barked the bole, and broke the bough, and bruised the berry, left all grace Ashes in death's stern alembic, loosed elixir in its place!"

Witness, Dear and True, how little I was 'ware of--not your worth --That I knew, my heart assures me--but of what a shade on earth Would the passage from my presence of the tall white figure throw O'er the ways we walked together! Somewhat narrow, somewhat slow, Used to seem the ways, the walking: narrow ways are well to tread When there 's moss beneath the footstep, honeysuckle overhead: Walking slow to beating bosom surest solace soonest gives, Liberates the brain o'erloaded--best of all restoratives. Nay, do I forget the open vast where soon or late converged Ways though winding?--world-wide heaven-high sea where music slept or surged As the angel had ascendant, and Beethoven's Titan mace Smote the immense to storm, Mozart would by a finger's lifting chase? Yes, I knew--but not with knowledge such as thrills me while I view Yonder precinct which henceforward holds and hides the Dear and True. Grant me (once again) assurance we shall each meet each some day, Walk--but with how bold a footstep! on a way--but what a way! --Worst were best, defeat were triumph, utter loss were utmost gain. Can it be, and must, and will it?

Silence! Out of fact's domain, Just surmise prepared to mutter hope, and also fear--dispute Fact's inexorable ruling, "Outside fact, surmise be mute!" Well! Ay, well and best, if fact's self I may force the answer from! 'T is surmise I stop the mouth of! Not above in yonder dome All a rapture with its rose-glow,--not around, where pile and peak Strainingly await the sun's fall,--not beneath, where crickets creak, Birds assemble for their bedtime, soft the treetop swell subsides,-- No, nor yet within my deepest sentient self the knowledge hides. Aspiration, reminiscence, plausibilities of trust --Now the ready "Man were wronged else," now the rash "and God unjust"-- None of these I need. Take thou, my soul, thy solitary stand, Umpire to the champions Fancy, Reason, as on either hand Amicable war they wage and play the foe in thy behoof! Fancy thrust and Reason parry! Thine the prize who stand aloof!

FANCY

I concede the thing refused: henceforth no certainty more plain Than this mere surmise that after body dies soul lives again. Two, the only facts acknowledged late, are now increased to three-- God is, and the soul is, and, as certain, after death shall be. Put this third to use in life, the time for using fact!

REASON

I do: Find it promises advantage, coupled with the other two. Life to come will be improvement on the life that 's now; destroy Body's thwartings, there 's no longer screen betwixt soul and soul's joy. Why should we expect new hindrance, novel tether? In this first Life, I see the good of evil, why our world began at worst: Since time means amelioration, tardily enough displayed, Yet a mainly onward moving, never wholly retrograde. We know more though we know little, we grow stronger though still weak, Partly see though all too purblind, stammer though we cannot speak. There is no such grudge in God as scared the ancient Greek, no fresh Substitute of trap for drag-net, once a breakage in the mesh. Dragons were, and serpents are, and blindworms will be: ne'er emerged Any new-created python for man's plague since earth was purged. Failing proof, then, of invented trouble to replace the old, O'er this life the next presents advantage much and manifold: Which advantage--in the absence of a fourth and farther fact Now conceivably surmised, of harm to follow from the act-- I pronounce for man's obtaining at this moment. Why delay? Is he happy? happiness will change: anticipate the day! Is he sad? there 's ready refuge: of all sadness death 's prompt cure! Is he both, in mingled measure? cease a burden to endure! Pains with sorry compensations, pleasures stinted in the dole, Power that sinks and pettiness that soars, all halved and nothing whole, Idle hopes that lure man onward, forced back by as idle fears-- What a load he stumbles under through his glad sad seventy years, When a touch sets right the turmoil, lifts his spirit where, flesh-freed, Knowledge shall be rightly named so, all that seems be truth indeed! Grant his forces no accession, nay, no faculty's increase, Only let what now exists continue, let him prove in peace Power whereof the interrupted unperfected play enticed Man through darkness, which to lighten any spark of hope sufficed,-- What shall then deter his dying out of darkness into light? Death itself perchance, brief pain that 's pang, condensed and infinite? But at worst, he needs must brave it one day, while, at best, he laughs-- Drops a drop within his chalice, sleep not death his science quaffs! Any moment claims more courage, when, by crossing cold and gloom, Manfully man quits discomfort, makes for the provided room Where the old friends want their fellow, where the new acquaintance wait, Probably for talk assembled, possibly to sup in state! I affirm and reaffirm it therefore: only make as plain As that man now lives, that, after dying, man will live again,-- Make as plain the absence, also, of a law to contravene Voluntary passage from this life to that by change of scene,-- And I bid him--at suspicion of first cloud athwart his sky, Flower's departure, frost's arrival--never hesitate, but die!

FANCY

Then I double my concession: grant, along with new life sure This same law found lacking now: ordain that, whether rich or poor Present life is judged in aught man counts advantage--be it hope, Be it fear that brightens, blackens most or least his horoscope,-- He, by absolute compulsion such as made him live at all, Go on living to the fated end of life whate'er befall. What though, as on earth he darkling grovels, man descry the sphere, Next life's--call it, heaven of freedom, close above and crystal-clear? He shall find--say, hell to punish who in aught curtails the term, Fain would act the butterfly before he has played out the worm! God, soul, earth, heaven, hell,--five facts now: what is to desiderate?

REASON

Nothing! Henceforth man's existence bows to the monition "Wait! Take the joys and bear the sorrows--neither with extreme concern! Living here means nescience simply: 't is next life that helps to learn. Shut those eyes, next life will open,--stop those ears, next life will teach Hearing's office,--close those lips, next life will give the power of speech! Or, if action more amuse thee than the passive attitude, Bravely bustle through thy being, busy thee for ill or good, Reap this life's success or failure! Soon shall things be unperplexed And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravelled in the next."

FANCY

Not so fast! Still more concession! not alone do I declare Life must needs be borne,--I also will that man become aware Life has worth incalculable, every moment that he spends So much gain or loss for that next life which on this life depends. Good, done here, be there rewarded,--evil, worked here, there amerced! Six facts now, and all established, plain to man the last as first.

REASON

There was good and evil, then, defined to man by this decree? Was--for at its promulgation both alike have ceased to be. Prior to this last announcement, "Certainly as God exists, As He made man's soul, as soul is quenchless by the deathly mists, Yet is, all the same, forbidden premature escape from time To eternity's provided purer air and brighter clime,-- Just so certainly depends it on the use to which man turns Earth, the good or evil done there, whether after death he earns Life eternal,--heaven, the phrase be, or eternal death,--say, hell. As his deeds, so proves his portion, doing ill or doing well!" --Prior to this last announcement, earth was man's probation-place: Liberty of doing evil gave his doing good a grace; Once lay down the law, with Nature's simple "Such effects succeed Causes such, and heaven or hell depends upon man's earthly deed Just as surely as depends the straight or else the crooked line On his making point meet point or with or else without incline,"-- Thenceforth neither good nor evil does man, doing what he must. Lay but down that law as stringent "Wouldst thou live again, be just!" As this other "Wouldst thou live now, regularly draw thy breath! For, suspend the operation, straight law's breach results in death"-- And (provided always, man, addressed this mode, be sound and sane) Prompt and absolute obedience, never doubt, will law obtain! Tell not me "Look round us! nothing each side but acknowledged law, Now styled God's--now, Nature's edict!" Where's obedience without flaw Paid to either? What 's the adage rife in man's mouth? Why, "The best I both see and praise, the worst I follow "--which, despite professed Seeing, praising, all the same he follows, since he disbelieves In the heart of him that edict which for truth his head receives. There 's evading and persuading and much making law amends Somehow, there 's the nice distinction 'twixt fast foes and faulty friends, --Any consequence except inevitable death when, "Die, Whoso breaks our law!" they publish, God and Nature equally. Law that 's kept or broken--subject to man's will and pleasure! Whence? How comes law to bear eluding? Not because of impotence: Certain laws exist already which to hear means to obey; Therefore not without a purpose these man must, while those man may Keep and, for the keeping, haply gain approval and reward. Break through this last superstructure, all is empty air--no sward Firm like my first fact to stand on, "God there is, and soul there is," And soul's earthly life-allotment: wherein, by hypothesis, Soul is bound to pass probation, prove its powers, and exercise Sense and thought on fact, and then, from fact educing fit surmise, Ask itself, and of itself have solely answer, "Does the scope Earth affords of fact to judge by warrant future fear or hope?"

Thus have we come back full circle: fancy's footsteps one by one Go their round conducting reason to the point where they begun, Left where we were left so lately, Dear and True! When, half a week Since, we walked and talked and thus I told you, how suffused a cheek You had turned me had I sudden brought the blush into the smile By some word like "Idly argued! you know better all the while!" Now, from me--Oh not a blush, but, how much more, a joyous glow, Laugh triumphant, would it strike did your "Yes, better I do know" Break, my warrant for assurance! which assurance may not be If, supplanting hope, assurance needs must change this life to me. So, I hope--no more than hope, but hope--no less than hope, because I can fathom, by no plumb-line sunk in life's apparent laws, How I may in any instance fix where change should meetly fall Nor involve, by one revisal, abrogation of them all: --Which again involves as utter change in life thus law-released, Whence the good of goodness vanished when the ill of evil ceased. Whereas, life and laws apparent reinstated,--all we know, All we know not,--o'er our heaven again cloud closes, until, lo,-- Hope the arrowy, just as constant, comes to pierce its gloom, compelled By a power and by a purpose which, if no one else beheld, I behold in life, so--hope!

Sad summing-up of all to say! Athanasius contra mundum, why should he hope more than they? So are men made notwithstanding, such magnetic virtue darts From each head their fancy haloes to their unresisting hearts! Here I stand, methinks a stone's throw from yon village I this morn Traversed for the sake of looking one last look at its forlorn Tenement's ignoble fortune: through a crevice, plain its floor Piled with provender for cattle, while a dungheap blocked the door. In that squalid Bossex, under that obscene red roof, arose, Like a fiery flying serpent from its egg, a soul--Rousseau's. Turn thence! Is it Diodati joins the glimmer of the lake? There I plucked a leaf, one week since,--ivy, plucked for Byron's sake. Famed unfortunates! And yet, because of that phosphoric fame Swathing blackness' self with brightness till putridity looked flame, All the world was witched: and wherefore? what could lie beneath, allure Heart of man to let corruption serve man's head as cynosure? Was the magic in the dictum "All that 's good is gone and past; Bad and worse still grows the present, and the worst of all comes last: Which believe--for I believe it"? So preached one his gospel-news; While melodious moaned the other, "dying day with dolphin-hues! Storm, for loveliness and darkness like a woman's eye! Ye mounts Where I climb to 'scape my fellow, and thou sea wherein he counts Not one inch of vile dominion! What were your especial-worth Failed ye to enforce the maxim 'Of all objects found on earth Man is meanest, much too honored when compared with--what by odds Beats him--any dog: so, let him go a-howling to his gods!' Which believe--for I believe it!" Such the comfort man received Sadly since perforce he must: for why? the famous bard believed!

Fame! Then, give me fame, a moment! As I gather at a glance Human glory after glory vivifying yon expanse, Let me grasp them altogether, hold on high and brandish well Beacon-like above the rapt world ready, whether heaven or hell Send the dazzling summons earthward, to submit itself the same, Take on trust the hope or else despair flashed full on face by--Fame! Thanks, thou pine-tree of Makistos, wide thy giant torch I wave! Know ye whence I plucked the pillar, late with sky for architrave? This the trunk, the central solid Knowledge, kindled core, began Tugging earth-deeps, trying heaven-heights, rooted yonder at Lausanne. This which flits and spits, the aspic,--sparkles in and out the boughs Now, and now condensed, the python, coiling round and round allows Scarce the bole its due effulgence, dulled by flake on flake of Wit-- Laughter so bejewels Learning,--what but Ferney nourished it? Nay, nor fear--since every resin feeds the flame--that I dispense With yon Bossex terebinth-tree's all-explosive Eloquence: No, be sure! nor, any more than thy resplendency, Jean-Jacques, Dare I want thine, Diodati! What though monkeys and macaques Gibber "Byron"? Byron's ivy rears a branch beyond the crew, Green forever, no deciduous trash macaques and monkeys chew! As Rousseau, then, eloquent, as Byron prime in poet's power,-- Detonations, fulgurations, smiles--the rainbow, tears--the shower,-- Lo, I lift the coruscating marvel--Fame! and, famed, declare --Learned for the nonce as Gibbon, witty as wit's self Voltaire ... Oh, the sorriest of conclusions to whatever man of sense 'Mid the millions stands the unit, takes no flare for evidence! Yet the millions have their portion, live their calm or troublous day, Find significance in fireworks: so, by help of mine, they may Confidently lay to heart and lock in head their life long--this: "He there with the brand flamboyant, broad o'er night's forlorn abyss, Crowned by prose and verse; and wielding, with Wit's bauble, Learning's rod" ... Well? Why, he at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God!

* * * * *

So the poor smile played, that evening: pallid smile long since extinct Here in London's mid-November! Not so loosely thoughts were linked, Six weeks since as I, descending in the sunset from Salève, Found the chain I seemed to forge there, flawless till it reached your grave,-- Not so filmy was the texture, but I bore it in my breast Safe thus far. And since I found a something in me would not rest Till I, link by link, unravelled any tangle of the chain, --Here it lies, for much or little! I have lived all o'er again That last pregnant hour: I saved it, just as I could save a root Disinterred for reinterment when the time best helps to shoot. Life is stocked with germs of torpid life; but may I never wake Those of mine whose resurrection could not be without earthquake! Rest all such, unraised forever! Be this, sad yet sweet, the sole Memory evoked from slumber! Least part this: then what the whole?

THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC

Written immediately after La Saisiaz, being dated January 15, 1878.

Such a starved bank of moss Till, that May-morn, Blue ran the flash across: Violets were born!

Sky--what a scowl of cloud Till, near and far, Ray on ray split the shroud: Splendid, a star!

World--how it walled about Life with disgrace Till God's own smile came out: That was thy face!

I

"Fame!" Yes, I said it and you read it. First, Praise the good log-fire! Winter howls without. Crowd closer, let us! Ha, the secret nursed Inside yon hollow, crusted roundabout With copper where the clamp was,--how the burst Vindicates flame the stealthy feeder! Spout Thy splendidest--a minute and no more? So soon again all sobered as before?

II

Nay, for I need to see your face! One stroke Adroitly dealt, and lo, the pomp revealed! Fire in his pandemonium, heart of oak Palatial, where he wrought the works concealed Beneath the solid-seeming roof I broke, As redly up and out and off they reeled Like disconcerted imps, those thousand sparks From fire's slow tunnelling of vaults and arcs!

III

Up, out, and off, see! Were you never used,-- You now, in childish days or rather nights,-- As I was, to watch sparks fly? not amused By that old nurse-taught game which gave the sprites Each one his title and career,--confused Belief 't was all long over with the flights From earth to heaven of hero, sage, and bard, And bade them once more strive for Fame's award?

IV

New long bright life! and happy chance befell-- That I know--when some prematurely lost Child of disaster bore away the bell From some too-pampered son of fortune, crossed Never before my chimney broke the spell! Octogenarian Keats gave up the ghost, While--never mind Who was it cumbered earth-- Sank stifled, span-long brightness, in the birth.

V

Well, try a variation of the game! Our log is old ship-timber, broken bulk. There 's sea-brine spirits up the brimstone flame, That crimson-curly spiral proves the hulk Was saturate with--ask the chloride's name From somebody who knows! I shall not sulk If yonder greenish tonguelet licked from brass Its life, I thought was fed on copperas.

VI

Anyhow, there they flutter! What may be The style and prowess of that purple one? Who is the hero other eyes shall see Than yours and mine? That yellow, deep to dun-- Conjecture how the sage glows, whom not we But those unborn are to get warmth by! Son O' the coal,--as Job and Hebrew name a spark,-- What bard, in thy red soaring, scares the dark?

VII

Oh and the lesser lights, the dearer still That they elude a vulgar eye, give ours The glimpse repaying astronomic skill Which searched sky deeper, passed those patent powers Constellate proudly,--swords, scrolls, harps, that fill The vulgar eye to surfeit,--found best flowers Hid deepest in the dark,--named unplucked grace Of soul, ungathered beauty, form or face!

VIII

Up with thee, mouldering ash men never knew, But I know! flash thou forth, and figure bold, Calm and columnar as yon flame I view! Oh and I bid thee,--to whom fortune doled Scantly all other gifts out--bicker blue, Beauty for all to see, zinc's uncontrolled Flake-brilliance! Not my fault if these were shown, Grandeur and beauty both, to me alone.

IX

No! as the first was boy's play, this proves mere Stripling's amusement: manhood's sport be grave! Choose rather sparkles quenched in mid career, Their boldness and their brightness could not save (In some old night of time on some lone drear Sea-coast, monopolized by crag or cave) --Save from ignoble exit into smoke, Silence, oblivion, all death-damps that choke!

X

Launched by our ship-wood, float we, once adrift In fancy to that land-strip waters wash, We both know well! Where uncouth tribes made shift Long since to just keep life in, billows dash Nigh over folk who shudder at each lift Of the old tyrant tempest's whirlwind-lash Though they have built the serviceable town Tempests but tease now, billows drench, not drown.

XI

Croisic, the spit of sandy rock which juts Spitefully northward, bears nor tree nor shrub To tempt the ocean, show what Guérande shuts Behind her, past wild Batz whose Saxons grub The ground for crystals grown where ocean gluts Their promontory's breadth with salt: all stub Of rock and stretch of sand, the land's last strife To rescue a poor remnant for dear life.

XII

And what life! Here was, from the world to choose, The Druids' chosen chief of homes: they reared --Only their women,--'mid the slush and ooze Of yon low islet,--to their sun, revered In strange stone guise,--a temple. May-dawn dews Saw the old structure levelled; when there peered May's earliest eve-star, high and wide once more Up towered the new pile perfect as before:

XIII

Seeing that priestesses--and all were such-- Unbuilt and then rebuilt it every May, Each alike helping--well, if not too much! For, 'mid their eagerness to outstrip day And get work done, if any loosed her clutch And let a single stone drop, straight a prey Herself fell, torn to pieces, limb from limb, By sisters in full chorus glad and grim.

XIV

And still so much remains of that gray cult, That even now, of nights, do women steal To the sole Menhir standing, and insult The antagonistic church-spire by appeal To power discrowned in vain, since each adult Believes the gruesome thing she clasps may heal Whatever plague no priestly help can cure: Kiss but the cold stone, the event is sure!

XV

Nay more: on May-morns, that primeval rite Of temple-building, with its punishment For rash precipitation, lingers, spite Of all remonstrance; vainly are they shent, Those girls who form a ring and, dressed in white, Dance round it, till some sister's strength be spent: Touch but the Menhir, straight the rest turn roughs From gentles, fall on her with fisticuffs.

XVI

Oh and, for their part, boys from door to door Sing unintelligible words to tunes As obsolete: "scraps of Druidic lore," Sigh scholars, as each pale man importunes Vainly the mumbling to speak plain once more. Enough of this old worship, rounds and runes! They serve my purpose, which is but to show Croisic to-day and Croisic long ago.

XVII

What have we sailed to see, then, wafted there By fancy from the log that ends its days Of much adventure 'neath skies foul or fair, On waters rough or smooth, in this good blaze We two crouch round so closely, bidding care Keep outside with the snow-storm? Something says "Fit time for story-telling!" I begin-- Why not at Croisic, port we first put in?

XVIII

Anywhere serves: for point me out the place Wherever man has made himself a home, And there I find the story of our race In little, just at Croisic as at Rome. What matters the degree? the kind I trace. Druids their temple, Christians have their dome: So with mankind; and Croisic, I 'll engage, With Rome yields sort for sort, in age for age.

XIX

No doubt, men vastly differ: and we need Some strange exceptional benevolence Of nature's sunshine to develop seed So well, in the less-favored clime, that thence We may discern how shrub means tree indeed Though dwarfed till scarcely shrub in evidence. Man in the ice-house or the hot-house ranks With beasts or gods: stove-forced, give warmth the thanks!

XX

While, is there any ice-checked? Such shall learn I am thankworthy, who propose to slake His thirst for tasting how it feels to turn Cedar from hyssop-on-the-wall. I wake No memories of what is harsh and stern In ancient Croisic-nature, much less rake The ashes of her last warmth till out leaps Live Hervé Riel, the single spark she keeps.

XXI

Take these two, see, each outbreak,--spirt and spirt Of fire from our brave billet's either edge Which--call maternal Croisic ocean-girt! These two shall thoroughly redeem my pledge. One flames fierce gules, its feebler rival--vert, Heralds would tell you: heroes, I allege, They both were: soldiers, sailors, statesmen, priests, Lawyers, physicians--guess what gods or beasts!

XXII

None of them all, but--poets, if you please! "What, even there, endowed with knack of rhyme, Did two among the aborigines Of that rough region pass the ungracious time Suiting, to rumble-tumble of the sea's, The songs forbidden a serener clime? Or had they universal audience--that's To say, the folk of Croisic, ay, and Batz?"

XXIII

Open your ears! Each poet in his day Had such a mighty moment of success As pinnacled him straight, in full display, For the whole world to worship--nothing less! Was not the whole polite world Paris, pray? And did not Paris, for one moment--yes, Worship these poet-flames, our red and green, One at a time, a century between?

XXIV

And yet you never heard their names! Assist, Clio, Historic Muse, while I record Great deeds! Let fact, not fancy, break the mist And bid each sun emerge, in turn play lord Of day, one moment! Hear the annalist Tell a strange story, true to the least word! At Croisic, sixteen hundred years and ten Since Christ, forth flamed yon liquid ruby, then.

XXV

Know him henceforth as René Gentilhomme --Appropriate appellation! noble birth And knightly blazon, the device wherefrom Was "Better do than say"! In Croisic's dearth Why prison his career while Christendom Lay open to reward acknowledged worth? He therefore left it at the proper age And got to be the Prince of Condé's page.

XXVI

Which Prince of Condé, whom men called "The Duke," --Failing the king, his cousin, of an heir, (As one might hold hap, would, without rebuke, Since Anne of Austria, all the world was ware, Twenty-three years long sterile, scarce could look For issue)--failing Louis of so rare A godsend, it was natural the Prince Should hear men call him "Next King" too, nor wince.

XXVII

Now, as this reasonable hope, by growth Of years, nay, tens of years, looked plump almost To bursting,--would the brothers, childless both, Louis and Gaston, give but up the ghost-- Condé, called "Duke" and "Next King," nothing loth Awaited his appointment to the post, And wiled away the time, as best he might, Till Providence should settle things aright.

XXVIII

So, at a certain pleasure-house, withdrawn From cities where a whisper breeds offence, He sat him down to watch the streak of dawn Testify to first stir of Providence; And, since dull country life makes courtiers yawn, There wanted not a poet to dispense Song's remedy for spleen-fits all and some, Which poet was Page René Gentilhomme.

XXIX

A poet born and bred, his very sire A poet also, author of a piece Printed and published, "Ladies--their attire:" Therefore the son, just born at his decease, Was bound to keep alive the sacred fire, And kept it, yielding moderate increase Of songs and sonnets, madrigals, and much Rhyming thought poetry and praised as such.

XXX

Rubbish unutterable (bear in mind!) Rubbish not wholly without value, though, Being to compliment the Duke designed And bring the complimenter credit so,-- Pleasure with profit happily combined. Thus René Gentilhomme rhymed, rhymed till--lo, This happened, as he sat in an alcove Elaborating rhyme for "love"--not "dove."

XXXI

He was alone: silence and solitude Befit the votary of the Muse. Around, Nature--not our new picturesque and rude, But trim tree-cinctured stately garden-ground-- Breathed polish and politeness. All-imbued With these, he sat absorbed in one profound Excogitation, "Were it best to hint Or boldly boast 'She loves me--Araminte'?"

XXXII

When suddenly flashed lightning, searing sight Almost, so close to eyes; then, quick on flash, Followed the thunder, splitting earth downright Where René sat a-rhyming: with huge crash Of marble into atoms infinite-- Marble which, stately, dared the world to dash The stone-thing proud, high-pillared, from its place: One flash, and dust was all that lay at base.

XXXIII

So, when the horrible confusion loosed Its wrappage round his senses, and, with breath, Seeing and hearing by degrees induced Conviction what he felt was life, not death-- His fluttered faculties came back to roost One after one, as fowls do: ay, beneath, About his very feet there, lay in dust Earthly presumption paid by heaven's disgust.

XXXIV

For, what might be the thunder-smitten thing But, pillared high and proud, in marble guise, A ducal crown--which meant "Now Duke: Next, King"? Since such the Prince was, not in his own eyes Alone, but all the world's. Pebble from sling Prostrates a giant; so can pulverize Marble pretension--how much more, make moult A peacock-prince his plume--God's thunderbolt!

XXXV

That was enough, for René, that first fact Thus flashed into him. Up he looked: all blue And bright the sky above; earth firm, compact Beneath his footing, lay apparent too; Opposite stood the pillar: nothing lacked There, but the Duke's crown: see, its fragments strew The earth,--about his feet lie atoms fine Where he sat nursing late his fourteenth line!

XXXVI

So, for the moment, all the universe Being abolished, all 'twist God and him,-- Earth's praise or blame, its blessing or its curse. Of one and the same value,--to the brim Flooded with truth, for better or for worse,-- He pounces on the writing-paper, prim Keeping its place on table: not a dint Nor speck had damaged "Ode to Araminte."

XXXVII

And over the neat crowquill calligraph His pen goes blotting, blurring, as an ox Tramples a flower-bed in a garden,--laugh You may!--so does not he, whose quick heart knocks Audibly at his breast: an epitaph On earth's break-up, amid the falling rocks, He might be penning in a wild dismay, Caught with his work half-done on Judgment Day.

XXXVIII

And what is it so terribly he pens, Ruining "Cupid, Venus, wile and smile, Hearts, darts," and all his day's divinior mens Judged necessary to a perfect style? Little recks René, with a breast to cleanse, Of Rhadamanthine law that reigned erewhile: Brimful of truth, truth's outburst will convince (Style or no style) who bears truth's brunt--the Prince.

XXXIX

"Condé, called 'Duke,' be called just 'Duke,' not more, To life's end! 'Next King' thou forsooth wilt be? Ay, when this bauble, as it decked before Thy pillar, shall again, for France to see, Take its proud station there! Let France adore No longer an illusive mock-sun--thee-- But keep her homage for Sol's self, about To rise and put pretenders to the rout!

XL

"What? France so God-abandoned that her root Regal, though many a Spring it gave no sign, Lacks power to make the bole, now branchless, shoot Greenly as ever? Nature, though benign, Thwarts ever the ambitious and astute. In store for such is punishment condign: Sure as thy Duke's crown to the earth was hurled, So sure, next year, a Dauphin glads the world!"

XLI

Which penned--some forty lines to this effect-- Our René folds his paper, marches brave Back to the mansion, luminous, erect, Triumphant, an emancipated slave. There stands the Prince. "How now? My Duke's-crown wrecked? What may this mean?" The answer René gave Was--handing him the verses, with the due Incline of body: "Sir, God's word to you!"

XLII

The Prince read, paled, was silent; all around, The courtier-company, to whom he passed The paper, read, in equal silence bound. René grew also by degrees aghast At his own fit of courage--palely found Way of retreat from that pale presence: classed Once more among the cony-kind. "Oh, son, It is a feeble folk!" saith Solomon.

XLIII

Vainly he apprehended evil: since, When, at the year's end, even as foretold, Forth came the Dauphin who discrowned the Prince Of that long-craved mere visionary gold, 'T was no fit time for envy to evince Malice, be sure! The timidest grew bold: Of all that courtier-company not one But left the semblance for the actual sun.

XLIV

And all sorts and conditions that stood by At René's burning moment, bright escape Of soul, bore witness to the prophecy. Which witness took the customary shape Of verse; a score of poets in full cry Hailed the inspired one. Nantes and Tours agape, Soon Paris caught the infection; gaining strength, How could it fail to reach the Court at length?

XLV

"O poet!" smiled King Louis, "and besides, O prophet! Sure, by miracle announced, My babe will prove a prodigy. Who chides Henceforth the unchilded monarch shall be trounced For irreligion: since the fool derides Plain miracle by which this prophet pounced Exactly on the moment I should lift Like Simeon, in my arms, a babe, 'God's gift!'

XLVI

"So call the boy! and call this bard and seer By a new title! him I raise to rank Of 'Royal Poet:' poet without peer! Whose fellows only have themselves to thank If humbly they must follow in the rear My René. He 's the master: they must clank Their chains of song, confessed his slaves; for why? They poetize, while he can prophesy!"

XLVII

So said, so done; our René rose august, "The Royal Poet;" straightway put in type His poem-prophecy, and (fair and just Procedure) added,--now that time was ripe For proving friends did well his word to trust,-- Those attestations, tuned to lyre or pipe, Which friends broke out with when he dared foretell The Dauphin's birth: friends trusted, and did well.

XLVIII

Moreover he got painted by Du Pré, Engraved by Daret also; and prefixed The portrait to his book: a crown of bay Circled his brows, with rose and myrtle mixed; And Latin verses, lovely in their way, Described him as "the biforked hill betwixt: Since he hath scaled Parnassus at one jump, Joining the Delphic quill and Getic trump."

XLIX

Whereof came ... What, it lasts, our spirt, thus long --The red fire? That 's the reason must excuse My letting flicker René's prophet-song No longer; for its pertinacious hues Must fade before its fellow joins the throng Of sparks departed up the chimney, dues To dark oblivion. At the word, it winks, Rallies, relapses, dwindles, deathward sinks.

L

So does our poet. All this burst of fame, Fury of favor, Royal Poetship, Prophetship, book, verse, picture--thereof came --Nothing! That 's why I would not let outstrip Red his green rival flamelet: just the same Ending in smoke waits both! In vain we rip The past, no further faintest trace remains Of René to reward our pious pains.

LI

Somebody saw a portrait framed and glazed At Croisic. "Who may be this glorified Mortal unheard-of hitherto?" amazed That person asked the owner by his side, Who proved as ignorant. The question raised Provoked inquiry; key by key was tried On Croisic's portrait-puzzle, till back flew The wards at one key's touch, which key was--Who?

LII

The other famous poet! Wait thy turn, Thou green, our red's competitor! Enough Just now to note 't was he that itched to learn (A hundred years ago) how fate could puff Heaven-high (a hundred years before), then spurn To suds so big a bubble in some huff: Since green too found red's portrait,--having heard Hitherto of red's rare self not one word.

LIII

And he with zeal addressed him to the task Of hunting out, by all and any means, --Who might the brilliant bard be, born to bask Butterfly-like in shine which kings and queens And baby-dauphins shed? Much need to ask! Is fame so fickle that what perks and preens The eyed wing, one imperial minute, dips Next sudden moment into blind eclipse?

LIV

After a vast expenditure of pains, Our second poet found the prize he sought: Urged in his search by something that restrains From undue triumph famed ones who have fought, Or simply, poetizing, taxed their brains: Something that tells such--dear is triumph bought If it means only basking in the midst Of fame's brief sunshine, as thou, René, didst.

LV

For, what did searching find at last but this? Quoth somebody, "I somehow somewhere seem To think I heard one old De Chevaye is Or was possessed of René's works!" which gleam Of light from out the dark proved not amiss To track, by correspondence on the theme; And soon the twilight broadened into day, For thus to question answered De Chevaye.

LVI

"True it is, I did once possess the works You want account of--works--to call them so,-- Comprised in one small book: the volume lurks (Some fifty leaves in duodecimo) 'Neath certain ashes which my soul it irks Still to remember, because long ago That and my other rare shelf-occupants Perished by burning of my house at Nantes.

LVII

"Yet of that book one strange particular Still stays in mind with me"--and thereupon Followed the story. "Few the poems are; The book was two-thirds filled up with this one, And sundry witnesses from near and far That here at least was prophesying done By prophet, so as to preclude all doubt, Before the thing he prophesied about."

LVIII

That 's all he knew, and all the poet learned, And all that you and I are like to hear Of René; since not only book is burned But memory extinguished,--nay, I fear, Portrait is gone too: nowhere I discerned A trace of it at Croisic. "Must a tear Needs fall for that?" you smile. "How fortune fares With such a mediocrity, who cares?"

LIX

Well, I care--intimately care to have Experience how a human creature felt In after-life, who bore the burden grave Of certainly believing God had dealt For once directly with him: did not rave --A maniac, did not find his reason melt --An idiot, but went on, in peace or strife, The world's way, lived an ordinary life.

LX

How many problems that one fact would solve! An ordinary soul, no more, no less, About whose life earth's common sights revolve, On whom is brought to bear, by thunder-stress, This fact--God tasks him, and will not absolve Task's negligent performer! Can you guess How such a soul--the task performed to point-- Goes back to life nor finds things out of joint?

LXI

Does he stand stock-like henceforth? or proceed Dizzily, yet with course straightforward still, Down-trampling vulgar hindrance?--as the reed Is crushed beneath its tramp when that blind will Hatched in some old-world beast's brain bids it speed Where the sun wants brute-presence to fulfil Life's purpose in a new far zone, ere ice Enwomb the pasture-tract its fortalice.

LXII

I think no such direct plain truth consists With actual sense and thought and what they take To be the solid walls of life: mere mists-- How such would, at that truth's first piercing, break Into the nullity they are!--slight lists Wherein the puppet-champions wage, for sake Of some mock-mistress, mimic war: laid low At trumpet-blast, there 's shown the world, one foe!

LXIII

No, we must play the pageant out, observe The tourney-regulations, and regard Success--to meet the blunted spear nor swerve, Failure--to break no bones yet fall on sward; Must prove we have--not courage? well then--nerve! And, at the day's end, boast the crown's award-- Be warranted as promising to wield Weapons, no sham, in a true battlefield.

LXIV

Meantime, our simulated thunderclaps Which tell us counterfeited truths--these same Are--sound, when music storms the soul, perhaps? --Sight, beauty, every dart of every aim That touches just, then seems, by strange relapse, To fall effectless from the soul it came As if to fix its own, but simply smote And startled to vague beauty more remote?

LXV

So do we gain enough--yet not too much-- Acquaintance with that outer element Wherein there 's operation (call it such!) Quite of another kind than we the pent On earth are proper to receive. Our hutch Lights up at the least chink: let roof be rent-- How inmates huddle, blinded at first spasm, Cognizant of the sun's self through the chasm!

LXVI

Therefore, who knows if this our René's quick Subsidence from as sudden noise and glare Into oblivion was impolitic? No doubt his soul became at once aware That, after prophecy, the rhyming-trick Is poor employment: human praises scare Rather than soothe ears all a-tingle yet With tones few hear and live, but none forget.

LXVII

There 's our first famous poet! Step thou forth Second consummate songster! See, the tongue Of fire that typifies thee, owns thy worth In yellow, purple mixed its green among, No pure and simple resin from the North, But composite with virtues that belong To Southern culture! Love not more than hate Helped to a blaze ... But I anticipate.

LXVIII

Prepare to witness a combustion rich And riotously splendid, far beyond Poor René's lambent little streamer which Only played candle to a Court grown fond By baby-birth: this soared to such a pitch, Alternately such colors doffed and donned, That when I say it dazzled Paris--please Know that it brought Voltaire upon his knees!

LXIX

Who did it, was a dapper gentleman, Paul Desforges Maillard, Croisickese by birth, Whose birth that century ended which began By similar bestowment on our earth Of the aforesaid René. Cease to scan The ways of Providence! See Croisic's dearth-- Not Paris in its plenitude--suffice To furnish France with her best poet twice!

LXX

Till he was thirty years of age, the vein Poetic yielded rhyme by drops and spirts: In verses of society had lain His talent chiefly; but the Muse asserts Privilege most by treating with disdain Epics the bard mouths out, or odes he blurts Spasmodically forth. Have people time And patience nowadays for thought in rhyme?

LXXI

So, his achievements were the quatrain's inch Of homage, or at most the sonnet's ell Of admiration: welded lines with clinch Of ending word and word, to every belle In Croisic's bounds; these, brisk as any finch, He twittered till his fame had reached as well Guérande as Batz; but there fame stopped, for--curse On fortune--outside lay the universe!

LXXII

That 's Paris. Well,--why not break bounds, and send Song onward till it echo at the gates Of Paris whither all ambitions tend, And end too, seeing that success there sates The soul which hungers most for fame? Why spend A minute in deciding, while, by Fate's Decree, there happens to be just the prize Proposed there, suiting souls that poetize?

LXXIII

A prize indeed, the Academy's own self Proposes to what bard shall best indite A piece describing how, through shoal and shelf, The Art of Navigation; steered aright, Has, in our last king's reign,--the lucky elf,-- Reached, one may say, Perfection's haven quite, And there cast anchor. At a glance one sees The subject's crowd of capabilities!

LXXIV

Neptune and Amphitrité! Thetis, who Is either Tethys or as good--both tag! Triton can shove along a vessel too: It 's Virgil! Then the winds that blow or lag,-- De Maille, Vendôme, Vermandois! Toulouse blew Longest, we reckon: he must puff the flag To fullest outflare; while our lacking nymph Be Anne of Austria, Regent o'er the lymph!

LXXV

Promised, performed! Since irritabilis gens Holds of the feverish impotence that strives To stay an itch by prompt resource to pen's Scratching itself on paper; placid lives, Leisurely works mark the divinior mens: Bees brood above the honey in their hives; Gnats are the busy bustlers. Splash and scrawl,-- Completed lay thy piece, swift penman Paul!

LXXVI

To Paris with the product! This dispatched, One had to wait the Forty's slow and sure Verdict, as best one might. Our penman scratched Away perforce the itch that knows no cure But daily paper-friction: more than matched His first feat by a second--tribute pure And heartfelt to the Forty when their voice Should peal with one accord "Be Paul our choice!"

LXXVII

Scratch, scratch went much laudation of that sane And sound Tribunal, delegates august Of Phœbus and the Muses' sacred train-- Whom every poetaster tries to thrust From where, high-throned, they dominate the Seine: Fruitless endeavor,--fail it shall and must! Whereof in witness have not one and all The Forty voices pealed "Our choice be Paul"?

LXXVIII

Thus Paul discounted his applause. Alack For human expectation! Scarcely ink Was dry when, lo, the perfect piece came back Rejected, shamed! Some other poet's clink "Thetis and Tethys" had seduced the pack Of pedants to declare perfection's pink A singularly poor production. "Whew! The Forty are stark fools, I always knew!"

LXXIX

First fury over (for Paul's race--to wit, Brain-vibrios--wriggle clear of protoplasm Into minute life that 's one fury-fit), "These fools shall find a bard's enthusiasm Comports with what should counterbalance it-- Some knowledge of the world! No doubt, orgasm Effects the birth of verse which, born, demands Prosaic ministration, swaddling-bands!

LXXX

"Verse must be cared for at this early stage, Handled, nay dandled even. I should play Their game indeed if, till it grew of age, I meekly let these dotards frown away My bantling from the rightful heritage Of smiles and kisses! Let the public say If it be worthy praises or rebukes, My poem, from these Forty old perukes!"

LXXXI

So, by a friend, who boasts himself in grace With no less than the Chevalier La Roque,-- Eminent in those days for pride of place, Seeing he had it in his power to block The way or smooth the road to all the race Of literators trudging up to knock At Fame's exalted temple-door--for why? He edited the Paris "Mercury:"--

LXXXII

By this friend's help the Chevalier receives Paul's poem, prefaced by the due appeal To Cæsar from the Jews. As duly heaves A sigh the Chevalier, about to deal With case so customary--turns the leaves, Finds nothing there to borrow, beg, or steal-- Then brightens up the critic's brow deep-lined. "The thing may be so cleverly declined!"

LXXXIII

Down to desk, out with paper, up with quill, Dip and indite! "Sir, gratitude immense For this true draught from the Pierian rill! Our Academic clodpoles must be dense Indeed to stand unirrigated still. No less, we critics dare not give offence To grandees like the Forty: while we mock, We grin and bear. So, here 's your piece! La Roque."

LXXXIV

"There now!" cries Paul: "the fellow can't avoid Confessing that my piece deserves the palm; And yet he dares not grant me space enjoyed By every scribbler he permits embalm His crambo in the Journal's corner! Cloyed With stuff like theirs, no wonder if a qualm Be caused by verse like mine: though that 's no cause For his defrauding me of just applause.

LXXXV

"Aha, he fears the Forty, this poltroon? First let him fear me! Change smooth speech to rough! I 'll speak my mind out, show the fellow soon Who is the foe to dread: insist enough On my own merits till, as clear as noon, He sees I am no man to take rebuff As patiently as scribblers may and must! Quick to the onslaught, out sword, cut and thrust!"

LXXXVI

And thereupon a fierce epistle flings Its challenge in the critic's face. Alack! Our bard mistakes his man! The gauntlet rings On brazen visor proof against attack. Prompt from his editorial throne up springs The insulted magnate, and his mace falls, thwack, On Paul's devoted brainpan,--quite away From common courtesies of fencing-play!

LXXXVII

"Sir, will you have the truth? This piece of yours Is simply execrable past belief. I shrank from saying so; but, since naught cures Conceit but truth, truth 's at your service! Brief, Just so long as 'The Mercury' endures, So long are you excluded by its Chief From corner, nay, from cranny! Play the cock O' the roost, henceforth, at Croisic!" wrote La Roque.

LXXXVIII

Paul yellowed, whitened, as his wrath from red Waxed incandescent. Now, this man of rhyme Was merely foolish, faulty in the head Not heart of him: conceit 's a venial crime. "Oh by no means malicious!" cousins said: Fussily feeble,--harmless all the time, Piddling at so-called satire--well-advised, He held in most awe whom he satirized.

LXXXIX

Accordingly his kith and kin--removed From emulation of the poet's gift By power and will--these rather liked, nay, loved The man who gave his family a lift Out of the Croisic level; disapproved Satire so trenchant." Thus our poet sniffed Home-incense, though too churlish to unlock "The Mercury's" box of ointment was La Roque.

XC

But when Paul's visage grew from red to white, And from his lips a sort of mumbling fell Of who was to be kicked,--"And serve him right!" A gay voice interposed, "Did kicking well Answer the purpose! Only--if I might Suggest as much--a far more potent spell Lies in another kind of treatment. Oh, Women are ready at resource, you know!

XCI

"Talent should minister to genius! good: The proper and superior smile returns. Hear me with patience! Have you understood The only method whereby genius earns Fit guerdon nowadays? In knightly mood You entered lists with visor up; one learns Too late that, had you mounted Roland's crest, 'Room!' they had roared--La Roque with all the rest!

XCII

"Why did you first of all transmit your piece To those same priggish Forty unprepared Whether to rank you with the swans or geese By friendly intervention? If they dared Count you a cackler,--wonders never cease! I think it still more wondrous that you bared Your brow (my earlier image) as if praise Were gained by simple fighting nowadays!

XCIII

"Your next step showed a touch of the true means Whereby desert is crowned: not force but wile Came to the rescue. 'Get behind the scenes!' Your friend advised: he writes, sets forth your style And title, to such purpose intervenes That you get velvet-compliment three-pile; And, though 'The Mercury' said 'nay,' nor stock Nor stone did his refusal prove La Roque.

XCIV

"Why must you needs revert to the high hand, Imperative procedure--what you call 'Taking on merit your exclusive stand'? Stand, with a vengeance! Soon you went to wall. You and your merit! Only fools command When folks are free to disobey them, Paul! You 've learnt your lesson, found out what 's o'clock, By this uncivil answer of La Roque.

XCV

"Now let me counsel! Lay this piece on shelf --Masterpiece though it be! From out your desk Hand me some lighter sample, verse the elf Cupid inspired you with, no god grotesque Presiding o'er the Navy! I myself Hand-write what 's legible yet picturesque; I 'll copy fair and femininely frock Your poem masculine that courts La Roque!

XCVI

"Deidamia he--Achilles thou! Ha, ha, these ancient stories come so apt! My sex, my youth, my rank I next avow In a neat prayer for kind perusal. Sapped I see the walls which stand so stoutly now! I see the toils about the game entrapped By honest cunning! Chains of lady's-smock, Not thorn and thistle, tether fast La Roque!"

XCVII

Now, who might be the speaker sweet and arch That laughed above Paul's shoulder as it heaved With the indignant heart?--bade steal a march And not continue charging? Who conceived This plan which set our Paul, like pea you parch On fire-shovel, skipping, of a load relieved, From arm-chair moodiness to escritoire Sacred to Phœbus and the tuneful choir?

XCVIII

Who but Paul's sister! named of course like him "Desforges;" but, mark you, in those days a queer Custom obtained,--who knows whence grew the whim?-- That people could not read their title clear To reverence till their own true names, made dim By daily mouthing, pleased to disappear, Replaced by brand-new bright ones: Arouet, For instance, grew Voltaire; Desforges--Malcrais.

XCIX

"Demoiselle Malcrais de la Vigne"--because The family possessed at Brederac A vineyard,--few grapes, many hips-and-haws,-- Still a nice Breton name. As breast and back Of this vivacious beauty gleamed through gauze, So did her sprightly nature nowise lack Lustre when draped, the fashionable way, In "Malcrais de la Vigne,"--more short, "Malcrais."

C

Out from Paul's escritoire behold escape The hoarded treasure! verse falls thick and fast, Sonnets and songs of every size and shape. The lady ponders on her prize; at last Selects one which--O angel and yet ape!-- Her malice thinks is probably surpassed In badness by no fellow of the flock, Copies it fair, and "Now for my La Roque!"

CI

So, to him goes, with the neat manuscript, The soft petitionary letter. "Grant A fledgeling novice that with wing unclipt She soar her little circuit, habitant Of an old manor; buried in which crypt, How can the youthful châtelaine but pant For disemprisonment by one ad hoc Appointed 'Mercury's' Editor, La Roque?"

CII

'T was an epistle that might move the Turk! More certainly it moved our middle-aged Pen-driver drudging at his weary work, Raked the old ashes up and disengaged The sparks of gallantry which always lurk Somehow in literary breasts, assuaged In no degree by compliments on style; Are Forty wagging beards worth one girl's smile?

CIII

In trips the lady's poem, takes its place Of honor in the gratified Gazette, With due acknowledgment of power and grace; Prognostication, too, that higher yet The Breton Muse will soar: fresh youth, high race. Beauty and wealth have amicably met That Demoiselle Malcrais may fill the chair Left vacant by the loss of Deshoulières.

CIV

"There!" cried the lively lady. "Who was right-- You in the dumps, or I the merry maid Who know a trick or two can baffle spite Tenfold the force of this old fool's? Afraid Of Editor La Roque? But come! next flight Shall outsoar--Deshoulières alone? My blade, Sappho herself shall you confess outstript! Quick, Paul, another dose of manuscript!"

CV

And so, once well a-foot, advanced the game: More and more verses, corresponding gush On gush of praise, till everywhere acclaim Rose to the pitch of uproar. "Sappho? Tush! Sure 'Malcrais on her Parrot' puts to shame Deshoulières' pastorals, clay not worth a rush Beside this find of treasure, gold in crock, Unearthed in Brittany,--nay, ask La Roque!"

CVI

Such was the Paris tribute. "Yes," you sneer, "Ninnies stock Noodledom, but folk more sage Resist contagious folly, never fear!" Do they? Permit me to detach one page From the huge Album which from far and near Poetic praises blackened in a rage Of rapture! and that page shall be--who stares Confounded now, I ask you?--just Voltaire's!

CVII

Ay, sharpest shrewdest steel that ever stabbed To death Imposture through the armor-joints! How did it happen that gross Humbug grabbed Thy weapons, gouged thine eyes out? Fate appoints That pride shall have a fall, or I had blabbed Hardly that Humbug, whom thy soul aroints, Could thus cross-buttock thee caught unawares, And dismalest of tumbles proved--Voltaire's!

CVIII

See his epistle extant yet, wherewith "Henri" in verse and "Charles" in prose he sent To do her suit and service! Here 's the pith Of half a dozen stanzas--stones which went To build that simulated monolith-- Sham love in due degree with homage blent As sham--which in the vast of volumes scares The traveller still: "That stucco-heap--Voltaire's?"

CIX

"O thou, whose clarion-voice has overflown The wilds to startle Paris that 's one ear! Thou who such strange capacity hast shown For joining all that 's grand with all that 's dear, Knowledge with power to please--Deshoulières grown Learned as Dacier in thy person! mere Weak fruit of idle hours, these crabs of mine I dare lay at thy feet, O Muse divine!

CX

"Charles was my task-work only; Henri trod My hero erst, and now, my heroine--she Shall be thyself! True--is it true, great God! Certainly love henceforward must not be! Yet all the crowd of Fine Arts fail--how odd!-- Tried turn by turn, to fill a void in me! There 's no replacing love with these, alas! Yet all I can I do to prove no ass.

CXI

"I labor to amuse my freedom; but Should any sweet young creature slavery preach, And--borrowing thy vivacious charm, the slut!-- Make me, in thy engaging words, a speech, Soon should I see myself in prison shut With all imaginable pleasure." Reach The washhand-basin for admirers! There 's A stomach-moving tribute--and Voltaire's!

CXII

Suppose it a fantastic billet-doux, Adulatory flourish, not worth frown! What say you to the Fathers of Trévoux? These in their Dictionary have her down Under the heading "Author:" "Malcrais, too, Is 'Author' of much verse that claims renown." While Jean-Baptiste Rousseau ... but why proceed? Enough of this--something too much, indeed!

CXIII

At last La Roque, unwilling to be left Behindhand in the rivalry, broke bounds Of figurative passion hilt and heft, Plunged his huge downright love through what surrounds The literary female bosom; reft Away its veil of coy reserve with "Zounds! I love thee, Breton Beauty! All 's no use! Body and soul I love,--the big word 's loose!"

CXIV

He 's greatest now and to de-struc-ti-on Nearest. Attend the solemn word I quote, O Paul! There 's no pause at per-fec-ti-on. Thus knolls thy knell the Doctor's bronzèd throat! Greatness a period hath, no sta-ti-on! Better and truer verse none ever wrote (Despite the antique outstretched a-i-on) Than thou, revered and magisterial Donne!

CXV

Flat on his face, La Roque, and--pressed to heart His dexter hand--Voltaire with bended knee! Paul sat and sucked-in triumph; just apart Leaned over him his sister. "Well?" smirks he, And "Well?" she answers, smiling--woman's art To let a man's own mouth, not hers, decree What shall be next move which decides the game: Success? She said so. Failure? His the blame.

CXVI

"Well!" this time forth affirmatively comes With smack of lip, and long-drawn sigh through teeth Close clenched o'er satisfaction, as the gums Were tickled by a sweetmeat teased beneath Palate by lubricating tongue: "Well! crumbs Of comfort these, undoubtedly! no death Likely from famine at Fame's feast! 't is clear I may put claim in for my pittance, Dear!

CXVII

"La Roque, Voltaire, my lovers? Then disguise Has served its turn, grows idle; let it drop! I shall to Paris, flaunt there in men's eyes My proper manly garb and mount a-top The pedestal that waits me, take the prize Awarded Hercules. He threw a sop To Cerberus who let him pass, you know, Then, following, licked his heels: exactly so!

CXVIII

"I like the prospect--their astonishment, Confusion: wounded vanity, no doubt, Mixed motives; how I see the brows quick bent! 'What, sir, yourself, none other, brought about This change of estimation? Phœbus sent His shafts as from Diana?' Critic pout Turns courtier smile: 'Lo, him we took for her! Pleasant mistake! You bear no malice, sir?'

CXIX

"Eh, my Diana?" But Diana kept Smilingly silent with fixed needle-sharp Much-meaning eyes that seemed to intercept Paul's very thoughts ere they had time to warp From earnest into sport the words they leapt To life with--changed as when maltreated harp Renders in tinkle what some player-prig Means for a grave tune though it proves a jig.

CXX

"What, Paul, and are my pains thus thrown away, My lessons end in loss?" at length fall slow The pitying syllables, her lips allay The satire of by keeping in full flow, Above their coral reef, bright smiles at play: "Can it be, Paul thus fails to rightly know And altogether estimate applause As just so many asinine hee-haws?

CXXI

"I thought to show you" ... "Show me," Paul inbroke, "My poetry is rubbish, and the world That rings with my renown a sorry joke! What fairer test of worth than that, form furled, I entered the arena? Yet you croak Just as if Phœbé and not Phœbus hurled The dart and struck the Python! What, he crawls Humbly in dust before your feet, not Paul's?

CXXII

"Nay, 't is no laughing matter though absurd If there 's an end of honesty on earth! La Roque sends letters, lying every word! Voltaire makes verse, and of himself makes mirth To the remotest age! Rousseau's the third Who, driven to despair amid such dearth Of people that want praising, finds no one More fit to praise than Paul the simpleton!

CXXIII

"Somebody says--if a man writes at all It is to show the writer's kith and kin He was unjustly thought a natural; And truly, sister, I have yet to win Your favorable word, it seems, for Paul Whose poetry you count not worth a pin Though well enough esteemed by these Voltaires, Rousseaus and such-like: let them quack, who cares?"

CXXIV

"--To Paris with you, Paul! Not one word's waste Further: my scrupulosity was vain! Go triumph! Be my foolish fears effaced From memory's record! Go, to come again With glory crowned,--by sister re-embraced, Cured of that strange delusion of her brain Which led her to suspect that Paris gloats On male limbs mostly when in petticoats!"

CXXV

So laughed her last word, with the little touch Of malice proper to the outraged pride Of any artist in a work too much Shorn of its merits. "By all means, be tried The opposite procedure! Cast your crutch Away, no longer crippled, nor divide The credit of your march to the World's Fair With sister Cherry-cheeks who helped you there!"

CXXVI

Crippled, forsooth! What courser sprightlier pranced Paris-ward than did Paul? Nay, dreams lent wings: He flew, or seemed to fly, by dreams entranced. Dreams? wide-awake realities: no things Dreamed merely were the missives that advanced The claim of Malcrais to consort with kings Crowned by Apollo--not to say with queens Cinctured by Venus for Idalian scenes.

CXXVII

Soon he arrives, forthwith is found before The outer gate of glory. Bold tic-toc Announces there's a giant at the door. "Ay, sir, here dwells the Chevalier La Roque." "Lackey! Malcrais--mind, no word less nor more!-- Desires his presence. I've unearthed the brock: Now, to transfix him!" There stands Paul erect, Inched out his uttermost, for more effect.

CXXVIII

A bustling entrance: "Idol of my flame! Can it be that my heart attains at last Its longing? that you stand, the very same As in my visions?... Ha! hey, how?" aghast Stops short the rapture. "Oh, my boy's to blame! You merely are the messenger! Too fast My fancy rushed to a conclusion. Pooh! Well, sir, the lady's substitute is--who?"

CXXIX

Then Paul's smirk grows inordinate. "Shake hands! Friendship not love awaits you, master mine, Though nor Malcrais nor any mistress stands To meet your ardor! So, you don't divine Who wrote the verses wherewith ring the land's Whole length and breadth? Just he whereof no line Had ever leave to blot your Journal--eh? Paul Desforges Maillard--otherwise Malcrais!"

CXXX

And there the two stood, stare confronting smirk, A while uncertain which should yield the pas. In vain the Chevalier beat brain for quirk To help in this conjuncture; at length, "Bah! Boh! Since I've made myself a fool, why shirk The punishment of folly? Ha, ha, ha, Let me return your handshake!" Comic sock For tragic buskin prompt thus changed La Roque.

CXXXI

"I'm nobody--a wren-like journalist; You've flown at higher game and winged your bird, The golden eagle! That's the grand acquist! Voltaire's sly Muse, the tiger-cat, has purred. Prettily round your feet; but if she missed Priority of stroking, soon were stirred The dormant spitfire. To Voltaire! away, Paul Desforges Maillard, otherwise Malcrais!"

CXXXII

Whereupon, arm in arm, and head in air, The two begin their journey. Need I say, La Roque had felt the talon of Voltaire, Had a long-standing little debt to pay, And pounced, you may depend, on such a rare Occasion for its due discharge? So, gay And grenadier-like, marching to assault, They reach the enemy's abode, there halt.

CXXXIII

"I'll be announcer!" quoth La Roque: "I know, Better than you, perhaps, my Breton bard, How to procure an audience! He's not slow To smell a rat, this scamp Voltaire! Discard The petticoats too soon,--you'll never show Your haut-de-chausses and all they've made or marred In your true person. Here's his servant. Pray, Will the great man see Demoiselle Malcrais?"

CXXXIV

Now, the great man was also, no whit less, The man of self-respect,--more great man he! And bowed to social usage, dressed the dress, And decorated to the fit degree His person; 't was enough to bear the stress Of battle in the field, without, when free From outside foes, inviting friends' attack By--sword in hand? No,--ill-made coat on back.

CXXXV

And, since the announcement of his visitor Surprised him at his toilet,--never glass Had such solicitation! "Black, now--or Brown be the killing wig to wear? Alas, Where's the rouge gone, this cheek were better for A tender touch of? Melted to a mass, All my pomatum! There 's at all events A devil--for he's got among my scents!"

CXXXVI

So, "barbered ten times o'er," as Antony Paced to his Cleopatra, did at last Voltaire proceed to the fair presence: high In color, proud in port, as if a blast Of trumpet bade the world "Take note! draws nigh To Beauty, Power! Behold the Iconoclast, The Poet, the Philosopher, the Rod Of iron for imposture! Ah my God!"

CXXXVII

For there stands smirking Paul, and--what lights fierce The situation as with sulphur flash-- There grinning stands La Roque! No carte-and-tierce Observes the grinning fencer, but, full dash From breast to shoulder-blade, the thrusts transpierce That armor against which so idly clash The swords of priests and pedants! Victors there, Two smirk and grin who have befooled--Voltaire!

CXXXVIII

A moment's horror; then quick turn-about On high-heeled shoe,--flurry of ruffles, flounce Of wig-ties and of coat-tails,--and so out Of door banged wrathfully behind, goes--bounce-- Voltaire in tragic exit! vows, no doubt, Vengeance upon the couple. Did he trounce Either, in point of fact? His anger's flash subsided if a culprit craved his cash.

CXXXIX

As for La Roque, he having laughed his laugh To heart's content,--the joke defunct at once, Dead in the birth, you see,--its epitaph Was sober earnest. "Well, sir, for the nonce, You 've gained the laurel; never hope to graff A second sprig of triumph there! Ensconce Yourself again at Croisic: let it be Enough you mastered both Voltaire and--me!

CXL

"Don't linger here in Paris to parade Your victory, and have the very boys Point at you! 'There 's the little mouse which made Believe those two big lions that its noise, Nibbling away behind the hedge, conveyed Intelligence that--portent which destroys All courage in the lion's heart, with horn That's fable--there lay couched the unicorn!'

CXLI

"Beware us, now we 've found who fooled us! Quick To cover! 'In proportion to men's fright, Expect their fright's revenge!' quoth politic Old Macchiavelli. As for me,--all's right: I'm but a journalist. But no pin's prick The tooth leaves when Voltaire is roused to bite! So, keep your counsel, I advise! Adieu! Good journey I Ha, ha, ha, Malcrais was--you!"

CXLII

"--Yes, I 'm Malcrais, and somebody beside, You snickering monkey!" thus winds up the tale Our hero, safe at home, to that black-eyed Cherry-cheeked sister, as she soothes the pale Mortified poet. "Let their worst be tried, I'm their match henceforth--very man and male! Don't talk to me of knocking-under! man And male must end what petticoats began!

CXLIII

"How woman-like it is to apprehend The world will eat its words! why, words transfixed To stone, they stare at you in print,--at end, Each writer's style and title! Choose betwixt Fool and knave for his name, who should intend To perpetrate a baseness so unmixed With prospect of advantage! What is writ Is writ: they've praised me, there's an end of it!

CXLIV

"No, Dear, allow me! I shall print these same Pieces, with no omitted line, as Paul's. Malcrais no longer, let me see folk blame What they--praised simply?--placed on pedestals, Each piece a statue in the House of Fame! Fast will they stand there, though their presence galls The envious crew: such show their teeth, perhaps, And snarl, but never bite! I know the chaps!"

CXLV

O Paul, oh, piteously deluded! Pace Thy sad sterility of Croisic flats, Watch, from their southern edge, the foamy race Of high-tide as it heaves the drowning mats Of yellow-berried web-growth from their place, The rock-ridge, when, rolling as far as Batz, One broadside crashes on it, and the crags, That needle under, stream with weedy rags!

CXLVI

Or, if thou wilt, at inland Bergerac, Rude heritage but recognized domain, Do as two here are doing: make hearth crack With logs until thy chimney roar again Jolly with fire-glow! Let its angle lack No grace of Cherry-cheeks thy sister, fain To do a sister's office and laugh smooth Thy corrugated brow--that scowls forsooth!

CXLVII

Wherefore? Who does not know how these La Roques, Voltaires, can say and unsay, praise and blame, Prove black white, white black, play at paradox And, when they seem to lose it, win the game? Care not thou what this badger, and that fox, His fellow in rascality, call "fame!" Fiddlepin's end! Thou hadst it,--quack, quack, quack! Have quietude from geese at Bergerac!

CXLVIII

Quietude! For, be very sure of this! A twelvemonth hence, and men shall know or care As much for what to-day they clap or hiss As for the fashion of the wigs they wear, Then wonder at. There's fame which, bale or bliss,-- Got by no gracious word of great Voltaire Or not-so-great La Roque,--is taken back By neither, any more than Bergerac!

CXLIX

Too true! or rather, true as ought to be! No more of Paul the man, Malcrais the maid, Thenceforth forever! One or two, I see, Stuck by their poet: who the longest stayed Was Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, and even he Seemingly saddened as perforce he paid A rhyming tribute: "After death, survive-- He hoped he should: and died while yet alive!"

CL

No, he hoped nothing of the kind, or held His peace and died in silent good old age. Him it was, curiosity impelled To seek if there were extant still some page Of his great predecessor, rat who belled The cat once, and would never deign engage In after-combat with mere mice,--saved from More sonneteering.--René Gentilhomme.

CLI

Paul's story furnished forth that famous play Of Piron's "Métromanie:" there you 'll find He 's Francaleu, while Demoiselle Malcrais Is Demoiselle No-end-of-names-behind! As for Voltaire, he's Damis. Good and gay The plot and dialogue, and all 's designed To spite Voltaire: at "Something" such the laugh Of simply "Nothing!" (see his epitaph).

CLII

But truth, truth, that's the gold! and all the good I find in fancy is, it serves to set Gold's inmost glint free, gold which comes up rude And rayless from the mine. All fume and fret Of artistry beyond this point pursued Brings out another sort of burnish: yet Always the ingot has its very own Value, a sparkle struck from truth alone.

CLIII

Now, take this sparkle and the other spirt Of fitful flame,--twin births of our gray brand That 's sinking fast to ashes! I assert, As sparkles want but fuel to expand Into a conflagration no mere squirt Will quench too quickly, so might Croisic strand, Had Fortune pleased posterity to chowse, Boast of her brace or beacons luminous.

CLIV

Did earlier Agamemnons lack their bard? But later bards lacked Agamemnon too! How often frustrate they of fame's award Just because Fortune, as she listed, blew Some slight bark's sails to bellying, mauled and marred And forced to put about the First-rate True, Such tacks but for a time: still--small-craft ride At anchor, rot while Beddoes breasts the tide!

CLV

Dear, shall I tell you? There 's a simple test Would serve, when people take on them to weigh The worth of poets. "Who was better, best, This, that, the other bard?" (Bards none gainsay As good, observe! no matter for the rest.) "What quality preponderating may Turn the scale as it trembles?" End the strife By asking "Which one led a happy life?"

CLVI

If one did, over his antagonist That yelled or shrieked or sobbed or wept or wailed Or simply had the dumps,--dispute who list,-- I count him victor. Where his fellow failed, Mastered by his own means of might,--acquist Of necessary sorrows,--he prevailed, A strong since joyful man who stood distinct Above slave-sorrows to his chariot linked.

CLVII

Was not his lot to feel more? What meant "feel" Unless to suffer! Not, to see more? Sight-- What helped it but to watch the drunken reel Of vice and folly round him, left and right, One dance of rogues and idiots! Not, to deal More with things lovely? What provoked the spite Of filth incarnate, like the poet's need Of other nutriment than strife and greed!

CLVIII

Who knows most, doubts most; entertaining hope, Means recognizing fear; the keener sense Of all comprised within our actual scope Recoils from aught beyond earth's dim and dense. Who, grown familiar with the sky, will grope Henceforward among groundlings? That's offence Just as indubitably: stars abound O'erhead, but then--what flowers make glad the ground!

CLIX

So, force is sorrow, and each sorrow, force: What then? since Swiftness gives the charioteer The palm, his hope be in the vivid horse Whose neck God clothed with thunder, not the steer Sluggish and safe! Yoke Hatred, Crime, Remorse, Despair: but ever 'mid the whirling fear, Let, through the tumult, break the poet's face Radiant, assured his wild slaves win the race!

CLX

Therefore I say ... no, shall not say, but think, And save my breath for better purpose. White From gray our log has burned to: just one blink That quivers, loth to leave it, as a sprite The outworn body. Ere your eyelids' wink Punish who sealed so deep into the night Your mouth up, for two poets dead so long,-- Here pleads a live pretender: right your wrong!

* * * * *

What a pretty tale you told me Once upon a time --Said you found it somewhere (scold me!) Was it prose or was it rhyme, Greek or Latin? Greek, you said, While your shoulder propped my head.

Anyhow there 's no forgetting This much if no more, That a poet (pray, no petting!) Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, Went where suchlike used to go, Singing for a prize, you know.

Well, he had to sing, nor merely Sing but play the lyre; Playing was important clearly Quite as singing: I desire, Sir, you keep the fact in mind For a purpose that 's behind.

There stood he, while deep attention Held the judges round, --Judges able, I should mention, To detect the slightest sound Sung or played amiss: such ears Had old judges, it appears!

None the less he sang out boldly, Played in time and tune, Till the judges, weighing coldly Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, Sure to smile "In vain one tries Picking faults out: take the prize!"

When, a mischief! Were they seven Strings the lyre possessed? Oh, and afterwards eleven, Thank you! Well, sir,--who had guessed Such ill luck in store?--it happed One of those same seven strings snapped.

All was lost, then! No! a cricket (What "cicada"? Pooh!) --Some mad thing that left its thicket For mere love of music--flew With its little heart on fire, Lighted on the crippled lyre.

So that when (Ah, joy!) our singer For his truant string Feels with disconcerted finger, What does cricket else but fling Fiery heart forth, sound the note Wanted by the throbbing throat?

Ay and, ever to the ending, Cricket chirps at need, Executes the hand's intending, Promptly, perfectly,--indeed Saves the singer from defeat With her chirrup low and sweet.

Till, at ending, all the judges Cry with one assent "Take the prize--a prize who grudges Such a voice and instrument? Why, we took your lyre for harp, So it shrilled us forth F sharp!"

Did the conqueror spurn the creature, Once its service done? That's no such uncommon feature In the case when Music's son Finds his Lotte's power too spent For aiding soul-development.

No! This other, on returning Homeward, prize in hand, Satisfied his bosom's yearning: (Sir, I hope you understand!) --Said "Some record there must be Of this cricket's help to me!"

So, he made himself a statue: Marble stood, life-size; On the lyre, he pointed at you, Perched his partner in the prize; Never more apart you found Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.

That 's the tale: its application? Somebody I know Hopes one day for reputation Through his poetry that 's--Oh, All so learned and so wise And deserving of a prize!

If he gains one, will some ticket, When his statue 's built, Tell the gazer "'T was a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped?

"For as victory was nighest, While I sang and played,-- With my lyre at lowest, highest, Right alike,--one string that made 'Love' sound soft was snapt in twain, Never to be heard again,--

"Had not a kind cricket fluttered, Perched upon the place Vacant left, and duly uttered 'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass Asked the treble to atone For its somewhat sombre drone."

But you don't know music! Wherefore Keep on casting pearls To a--poet? All I care for Is--to tell him that a girl's "Love" comes aptly in when gruff Grows his singing. (There, enough!)

OH LOVE! LOVE

Translation of a lyric in the Hyppolytus of Euripides, and printed by J. P. Mahaffy in his Euripides, 1879. Mr. Mahaffy writes: "Mr. Browning has honored me with the following translation of these stanzas, so that the general reader may not miss the meaning or the spirit of the ode. The English metre, though not a strict reproduction, gives an excellent idea of the original."

I

Oh Love! Love, thou that from the eyes diffusest Yearning, and on the soul sweet grace inducest-- Souls against whom thy hostile march is made-- Never to me be manifest in ire, Nor, out of time and tune, my peace invade! Since neither from the fire-- No, nor from the stars--is launched a bolt more mighty Than that of Aphrodité Hurled from the hands of Love, the boy with Zeus for sire.

II

Idly, how idly, by the Alpheian river And in the Pythian shrines of Phœbus, quiver Blood-offerings from the bull, which Hellas heaps: While Love we worship not--the Lord of men! Worship not him, the very key who keeps Of Aphrodité, when She closes up her dearest chamber-portals: --Love, when he comes to mortals, Wide-wasting, through those deeps of woes beyond the deep!

DRAMATIC IDYLS

FIRST SERIES

The Dramatic Idyls, a group of poems which indicated a return to Browning's earlier manner, furnished the title for two successive volumes, the first series published in 1879, the second the year following. The poems in the first series were composed while Browning and his sister were sojourning in a mountain hotel near the summit of the Splügen Pass in the summer of 1878. So stimulated was Browning by the mountain air that he composed with extraordinary rapidity, even for him, bringing down upon himself his sister's determined caution.

MARTIN RELPH

My grandfather says he remembers he saw, when a youngster long ago, On a bright May day, a strange old man, with a beard as white as snow, Stand on the hill outside our town like a monument of woe, And, striking his bare bald head the while, sob out the reason--so!

If I last as long as Methuselah I shall never forgive myself: But--God forgive me, that I pray, unhappy Martin Relph, As coward, coward I call him--him, yes, him! Away from me! Get you behind the man I am now, you man that I used to be!

What can have sewed my mouth up, set me a-stare, all eyes, no tongue? People have urged, "You visit a scare too hard on a lad so young! You were taken aback, poor boy," they urge, "no time to regain your wits: Besides it had maybe cost your life." Ay, there is the cap which fits!

So, cap me, the coward,--thus! No fear! A cuff on the brow does good: The feel of it hinders a worm inside which bores at the brain for food. See now, there certainly seems excuse: for a moment, I trust, dear friends, The fault was but folly, no fault of mine, or if mine, I have made amends!

For, every day that is first of May, on the hill-top, here stand I, Martin Relph, and I strike my brow, and publish the reason why, When there gathers a crowd to mock the fool. No fool, friends, since the bite Of a worm inside is worse to bear: pray God I have balked him quite!

I 'll tell you. Certainly much excuse! It came of the way they cooped Us peasantry up in a ring just here, close huddling because tight-hooped By the red-coats round us villagers all: they meant we should see the sight And take the example,--see, not speak, for speech was the Captain's right.

"You clowns on the slope, beware!" cried he: "This woman about to die Gives by her fate fair warning to such acquaintance as play the spy. Henceforth who meddle with matters of state above them perhaps will learn That peasants should stick to their ploughtail, leave to the King the King's concern.

"Here 's a quarrel that sets the land on fire, between King George and his foes: What call has a man of your kind--much less, a woman--to interpose? Yet you needs must be meddling, folk like you, not foes--so much the worse! The many and loyal should keep themselves unmixed with the few perverse.

"Is the counsel hard to follow? I gave it you plainly a month ago, And where was the good? The rebels have learned just all that they need to know. Not a month since in we quietly marched: a week, and they had the news, From a list complete of our rank and file to a note of our caps and shoes.

"All about all we did and all we were doing and like to do! Only, I catch a letter by luck, and capture who wrote it, too. Some of you men look black enough, but the milk-white face demure Betokens the finger foul with ink: 't is a woman who writes, be sure!

"Is it 'Dearie, how much I miss your mouth!'--good natural stuff, she pens? Some sprinkle of that, for a blind, of course: with talk about cocks and hens, How 'robin has built on the apple-tree, and our creeper which came to grief Through the frost, we feared, is twining afresh round casement in famous leaf.'

"But all for a blind! She soon glides frank into 'Horrid the place is grown With Officers here and Privates there, no nook we may call our own: And Farmer Giles has a tribe to house, and lodging will be to seek For the second Company sure to come ('t is whispered) on Monday week.'

'And so to the end of the chapter! There! The murder, you see, was out: Easy to guess how the change of mind in the rebels was brought about! Safe in the trap would they now lie snug, had treachery made no sign: But treachery meets a just reward, no matter if fools malign!

"That traitors had played us false, was proved--sent news which fell so pat: And the murder was out--this letter of love, the sender of this sent that! 'T is an ugly job, though, all the same--a hateful, to have to deal With a case of the kind, when a woman 's in fault: we soldiers need nerves of steel!

"So, I gave her a chance, despatched post-haste a message to Vincent Parkes Whom she wrote to; easy to find he was, since one of the King's own clerks, Ay, kept by the King's own gold in the town close by where the rebels camp: A sort of a lawyer, just the man to betray our sort--the scamp!

"'If her writing is simple and honest and only the lover-like stuff it looks, And if you yourself are a loyalist, nor down in the rebels' books, Come quick,' said I, 'and in person prove you are each of you clear of crime, Or martial law must take its course: this day next week 's the time!'

"Next week is now: does he come? Not he! Clean gone, our clerk, in a trice! He has left his sweetheart here in the lurch: no need of a warning twice! His own neck free, but his partner's fast in the noose still, here she stands To pay for her fault. 'T is an ugly job: but soldiers obey commands.

"And hearken wherefore I make a speech! Should any acquaintance share The folly that led to the fault that is now to be punished, let fools beware! Look black, if you please, but keep hands white: and, above all else, keep wives-- Or sweethearts or what they may be--from ink! Not a word now, on your lives!"

Black? but the Pit's own pitch was white to the Captain's face--the brute With the bloated cheeks and the bulgy nose and the bloodshot eyes to suit! He was muddled with wine, they say: more like, he was out of his wits with fear; He had but a handful of men, that 's true,--a riot might cost him dear.

And all that time stood Rosamund Page, with pinioned arms and face Bandaged about, on the turf marked out for the party's firing-place. I hope she was wholly with God: I hope 't was his angel stretched a hand To steady her so, like the shape of stone you see in our church-aisle stand.

I hope there was no vain fancy pierced the bandage to vex her eyes, No face within which she missed without, no questions and no replies-- "Why did you leave me to die?"--"Because" ... Oh, fiends, too soon you grin At merely a moment of hell, like that--such heaven as hell ended in!

Let mine end too! He gave the word, up went the guns in a line. Those heaped on the hill were blind as dumb,--for, of all eyes, only mine Looked over the heads of the foremost rank. Some fell on their knees in prayer, Some sank to the earth, but all shut eyes, with a sole exception there.

That was myself, who had stolen up last, had sidled behind the group: I am highest of all on the hill-top, there stand fixed while the others stoop! From head to foot in a serpent's twine am I tightened: I touch ground? No more than a gibbet's rigid corpse which the fetters rust around!

Can I speak, can I breathe, can I burst--aught else but see, see, only see? And see I do--for there comes in sight--a man, it sure must be!-- Who staggeringly, stumblingly rises, falls, rises, at random flings his weight On and on, anyhow onward--a man that's mad he arrives too late!

Else why does he wave a something white high-flourished above his head? Why does not he call, cry,--curse the fool!--why throw up his arms instead? O take this fist in your own face, fool! Why does not yourself shout "Stay! Here's a man comes rushing, might and main, with something he 's mad to say"?

And a minute, only a moment, to have hell-fire boil up in your brain, And ere you can judge things right, choose heaven,--time 's over, repentance vain! They level: a volley, a smoke and the clearing of smoke: I see no more Of the man smoke hid, nor his frantic arms, nor the something white he bore.

But stretched on the field, some half-mile off, is an object. Surely dumb, Deaf, blind were we struck, that nobody heard, not one of us saw him come! Has he fainted through fright? One may well believe! What is it he holds so fast? Turn him over, examine the face! Heyday! What, Vincent Parkes at last?

Dead! dead as she, by the selfsame shot: one bullet has ended both, Her in the body and him in the soul. They laugh at our plighted troth. "Till death us do part?" Till death us do join past parting--that sounds like Betrothal indeed! O Vincent Parkes, what need has my fist to strike?

I helped you: thus were you dead and wed: one bound, and your soul reached hers! There is clenched in your hand the thing, signed, sealed, the paper which plain avers She is innocent, innocent, plain as print, with the King's Arms broad engraved: No one can hear, but if any one high on the hill can see, she 's saved!

And torn his garb and bloody his lips with heart-break--plain it grew How the week's delay had been brought about: each guess at the end proved true. It was hard to get at the folk in power: such waste of time! and then Such pleading and praying, with, all the while, his lamb in the lions' den!

And at length when he wrung their pardon out, no end to the stupid forms-- The license and leave: I make no doubt--what wonder if passion warms The pulse in a man if you play with his heart?--he was something hasty in speech; Anyhow, none would quicken the work: he had to beseech, beseech!

And the thing once signed, sealed, safe in his grasp,--what followed but fresh delays? For the floods were out, he was forced to take such a roundabout of ways! And 't was "Halt there!" at every turn of the road, since he had to cross the thick Of the redcoats: what did they care for him and his "Quick, for God's sake, quick!"

Horse? but he had one: had it how long? till the first knave smirked "You brag Yourself a friend of the King's? then lend to a King's friend here your nag!" Money to buy another? Why, piece by piece they plundered him still, With their "Wait you must,--no help: if aught can help you, a guinea will!"

And a borough there was--I forget the name--whose Mayor must have the bench Of Justices ranged to clear a doubt: for "Vincent," thinks he, sounds French! It well may have driven him daft, God knows! all man can certainly know Is--rushing and falling and rising, at last he arrived in a horror--so!

When a word, cry, gasp, would have rescued both! Ay, bite me! The worm begins At his work once more. Had cowardice proved--that only--my sin of sins! Friends, look you here! Suppose ... suppose ... But mad I am, needs must be! Judas the Damned would never have dared such a sin as I dream! For, see!

Suppose I had sneakingly loved her myself, my wretched self, and dreamed In the heart of me "She were better dead than happy and his!"--while gleamed A light from hell as I spied the pair in a perfectest embrace, He the savior and she the saved,--bliss born of the very murder-place!

No! Say I was scared, friends! Call me fool and coward, but nothing worse! Jeer at the fool and gibe at the coward! 'T was ever the coward's curse That fear breeds fancies in such: such takes their shadow for substance still, --A fiend at their back. I liked poor Parkes,--loved Vincent, if you will!

And her--why, I said "Good morrow" to her, "Good even," and nothing more: The neighborly way! She was just to me as fifty had been before. So, coward it is and coward shall be! There's a friend, now! Thanks! A drink Of water I wanted: and now I can walk, get home by myself, I think.

PHEIDIPPIDES

Χαίρετε, νικῶμεν.

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock! Gods of my birthplace, dæmons and heroes, honor to all! Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise --Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the ægis and spear! Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be, your peer. Now, henceforth and forever,--O latest to whom I upraise Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock! Present to help, potent to save, Pan--patron I call!

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I return! See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks! Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you, "Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! Persia has come, we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed, Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through, Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke: breath served but for "Persia has come! Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth; Razed to the ground is Eretria--but Athens, shall Athens sink, Drop into dust and die--the flower of Hellas utterly die, Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by? Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink? How,--when? No care for my limbs!--there's lightning in all and some-- Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!"

O my Athens--Sparta love thee? Did Sparta respond? Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, Malice,--each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate! Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood Quivering,--the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood: "Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang them 'Ye must'!"

No bolt launched from Olumpos! Lo, their answer at last! "Has Persia come,--does Athens ask aid,--may Sparta befriend? Nowise precipitate judgment--too weighty the issue at stake! Count we no time lost time which lags through respect to the gods! Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast: Athens must wait, patient as we--who judgment suspend."

Athens,--except for that sparkle,--thy name, I had mouldered to ash! That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and away was I back, --Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile! Yet "O gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we paid you erewhile? Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

"Oak and olive and bay,--I bid you cease to enwreathe Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot, You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave! Rather I hail thee, Parnes,--trust to thy wild waste tract! Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave No deity deigns to drape with verdure? at least I can breathe, Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!"

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge; Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way. Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across: "Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse? Athens to aid? Though the dive were through Erebos, thus I obey-- Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge Better!"--when--ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he--majestical Pan! Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof: All the great god was good in the eyes grave-kindly--the curl Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe, As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw. "Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl: "Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he gracious began: "How is it,--Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast! Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old? Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me! Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-God saith: When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--is cast in the sea, Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least, Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!'

"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'" (Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear --Fennel--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode) "While, as for thee" ... But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto-- Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew. Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road: Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge! Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of Greece, Whose limbs did duty indeed,--what gift is promised thyself? Tell it us straightway,--Athens the mother demands of her son!" Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength Into the utterance--"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind! Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow,-- Pound--Pan helping us--Persia to dust, and, under the deep, Whelm her away forever; and then,--no Athens to save,-- Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,-- Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall creep Close to my knees,--recount how the God was awful yet kind, Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!"

Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day: So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis! Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due! 'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his shield, Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through, Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine through clay, Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed. So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the noble strong man Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god loved so well; He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute: "Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed.

HALBERT AND HOB

Here is a thing that happened. Like wild beasts whelped, for den, In a wild part of North England, there lived once two wild men Inhabiting one homestead, neither a hovel nor hut, Time out of mind their birthright: father and son, these--but-- Such a son, such a father! Most wildness by degrees Softens away: yet, last of their line, the wildest and worst were these.

Criminals, then? Why, no: they did not murder and rob; But, give them a word, they returned a blow--old Halbert as young Hob: Harsh and fierce of word, rough and savage of deed, Hated or feared the more--who knows?--the genuine wild-beast breed.

Thus were they found by the few sparse folk of the countryside; But how fared each with other? E'en beasts couch, hide by hide, In a growling, grudged agreement: so, father and son aye curled The closelier up in their den because the last of their kind in the world.

Still, beast irks beast on occasion. One Christmas night of snow, Came father and son to words--such words! more cruel because the blow To crown each word was wanting, while taunt matched gibe, and curse Competed with oath in wager, like pastime in hell,--nay, worse: For pastime turned to earnest, as up there sprang at last The son at the throat of the father, seized him and held him fast.

"Out of this house you go!" (there followed a hideous oath)-- "This oven where now we bake, too hot to hold us both! If there's snow outside, there's coolness: out with you, bide a spell In the drift and save the sexton the charge of a parish shell!"

Now, the old trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy broke One whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-blade Of the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like a feather weighed.

Nevertheless at once did the mammoth shut his eyes, Drop chin to breast, drop hands to sides, stand stiffened--arms and thighs All of a piece--struck mute, much as a sentry stands, Patient to take the enemy's fire: his captain so commands.

Whereat the son's wrath flew to fury at such sheer scorn Of his puny strength by the giant eld thus acting the babe new-born: And "Neither will this turn serve!" yelled he. "Out with you! Trundle, log! If you cannot tramp and trudge like a man, try all-fours like a dog!"

Still the old man stood mute. So, logwise,--down to floor Pulled from his fireside place, dragged on from hearth to door,-- Was he pushed, a very log, staircase along, until A certain turn in the steps was reached, a yard from the house-door-sill.

Then the father opened eyes--each spark of their rage extinct,-- Temples, late black, dead-blanched,--right-hand with left-hand linked,-- He faced his son submissive; when slow the accents came, They were strangely mild though his son's rash hand on his neck lay all the same.

"Hob, on just such a night of a Christmas long ago, For such a cause, with such a gesture, did I drag--so-- My father down thus far: but, softening here, I heard A voice in my heart, and stopped: you wait for an outer word,

"For your own sake, not mine, soften you too! Untrod Leave this last step we reach, nor brave the finger of God! I dared not pass its lifting: I did well. I nor blame Nor praise you. I stopped here: and, Hob, do you the same!"

Straightway the son relaxed his hold of the father's throat. They mounted, side by side, to the room again: no note Took either of each, no sign made each to either: last As first, in absolute silence, their Christmas-night they passed.

At dawn, the father sate on, dead, in the selfsame place, With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face: But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-yeaned.

When he went to the burial, some one's staff he borrowed,--tottered and leaned. But his lips were loose, not locked,--kept muttering, mumbling. "There! At his cursing and swearing!" the youngsters cried: but the elders thought "In prayer." A boy threw stones: he picked them up and stored them in his vest.

So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he died, perhaps found rest. "Is there a reason in nature for these hard hearts?" O Lear, That a reason out of nature must turn them soft, seems clear!

IVÀN IVÀNOVITCH

"They tell me, your carpenters," quoth I to my friend the Russ, "Make a simple hatchet serve as a tool-box serves with us. Arm but each man with his axe, 'tis a hammer and saw and plane And chisel, and--what know I else? We should imitate in vain The mastery wherewithal, by a flourish of just the adze, He cleaves, clamps, dovetails in,--no need of our nails and brads,-- The manageable pine: 'tis said he could shave himself With the axe,--so all adroit, now a giant and now an elf, Does he work and play at once!"

Quoth my friend the Russ to me, "Ay, that and more beside on occasion! It scarce may be You never heard tell a tale told children, time out of mind, By father and mother and nurse, for a moral that's behind, Which children quickly seize. If the incident happened at all, We place it in Peter's time when hearts were great not small, Germanized, Frenchified. I wager 'tis old to you As the story of Adam and Eve, and possibly quite as true."

* * * * *

In the deep of our land, 't is said, a village from out the woods Emerged on the great main-road 'twixt two great solitudes. Through forestry right and left, black verst and verst of pine, From village to village runs the road's long wide bare line. Clearance and clearance break the else-unconquered growth Of pine and all that breeds and broods there, leaving loth Man's inch of masterdom,--spot of life, spirt of fire,-- To star the dark and dread, lest right and rule expire Throughout the monstrous wild, a-hungered to resume Its ancient sway, suck back the world into its womb: Defrauded by man's craft which clove from North to South This highway broad and straight e'en from the Neva's mouth To Moscow's gates of gold. So, spot of life and spirt Of fire aforesaid, burn, each village death-begirt By wall and wall of pine--unprobed undreamed abyss.

Early one winter morn, in such a village as this, Snow-whitened everywhere except the middle road Ice-roughed by track of sledge, there worked by his abode Ivàn Ivànovitch, the carpenter, employed On a huge shipmast trunk; his axe now trimmed and toyed With branch and twig, and now some chop athwart the hole Changed bole to billets, bared at once the sap and soul. About him, watched the work his neighbors sheepskin-clad; Each bearded mouth puffed steam, each gray eye twinkled glad To see the sturdy arm which, never stopping play, Proved strong man's blood still boils, freeze winter as he may. Sudden, a burst of bells. Out of the road, on edge Of the hamlet--horse's hoofs galloping. "How, a sledge? What's here?" cried all as--in, up to the open space, Workyard and market-ground, folk's common meeting-place,-- Stumbled on, till he fell, in one last bound for life, A horse: and, at his heels, a sledge held--"Dmìtri's wife! Back without Dmitri too! and children--where are they? Only a frozen corpse!"

They drew it forth: then--"Nay, Not dead, though like to die! Gone hence a month ago: Home again, this rough jaunt--alone through night and snow-- What can the cause be? Hark--Droug, old horse, how he groans: His day's done! Chafe away, keep chafing, for she moans: She's coming to! Give here: see, motherkin, your friends! Cheer up, all safe at home! Warm inside makes amends For outside cold,--sup quick! Don't look as we were bears! What is it startles you? What strange adventure stares Up at us in your face? You know friends--which is which? I'm Vàssili, he's Sergeì, Ivàn Ivànovitch"--

At the word, the woman's eyes, slow-wandering till they neared The blue eyes o'er the bush of honey-colored beard, Took in full light and sense and--torn to rags, some dream Which hid the naked truth--O loud and long the scream She gave, as if all power of voice within her throat Poured itself wild away to waste in one dread note! Then followed gasps and sobs, and then the steady flow Of kindly tears: the brain was saved, a man might know. Down fell her face upon the good friend's propping knee; His broad hands smoothed her head, as fain to brush it free From fancies, swarms that stung like bees unhived. He soothed-- "Loukèria, Loùscha!"--still he, fondling, smoothed and smoothed. At last her lips formed speech.

"Ivàn, dear--you indeed! You, just the same dear you! While I ... Oh, intercede, Sweet Mother, with thy Son Almighty--let his might Bring yesterday once more, undo all done last night! But this time yesterday, Ivàn, I sat like you, A child on either knee, and, dearer than the two, A babe inside my arms, close to my heart--that's lost In morsels o'er the snow! Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Cannot you bring again my blessed yesterday?"

When no more tears would flow, she told her tale: this way.

"Maybe, a month ago,--was it not?--news came here, They wanted, deeper down, good workmen fit to rear A church and roof it in. 'We'll go,' my husband said: 'None understands like me to melt and mould their lead.' So, friends here helped us off--Ivàn, dear, you the first! How gay we jingled forth, all five--(my heart will burst)-- While Dmìtri shook the reins, urged Droug upon his track!

"Well, soon the month ran out, we just were coming back, When yesterday--behold, the village was on fire! Fire ran from house to house. What help, as, nigh and nigher, The flames came furious? 'Haste,' cried Dmìtri, 'men must do The little good man may: to sledge and in with you, You and our three! We check the fire by laying flat Each building in its path,--I needs must stay for that,-- But you ... no time for talk! Wrap round you every rug, Cover the couple close,--you'll have the babe to hug. No care to guide old Droug, he knows his way, by guess, Once start him on the road: but chirrup, none the less! The snow lies glib as glass and hard as steel, and soon You'll have rise, fine and full, a marvel of a moon. Hold straight up, all the same, this lighted twist of pitch! Once home and with our friend Ivàn Ivànovitch, All's safe: I have my pay in pouch, all's right with me, So I but find as safe you and our precious three! Off, Droug!'--because the flames had reached us, and the men Shouted 'But lend a hand, Dmìtri--as good as ten!'

"So, in we bundled--I, and those God gave me once; Old Droug, that's stiff at first, seemed youthful for the nonce: He understood the case, galloping straight ahead. Out came the moon: my twist soon dwindled, feebly red In that unnatural day--yes, daylight, bred between Moonlight and snow-light, lamped those grotto-depths which screen Such devils from God's eye. Ah, pines, how straight you grow, Nor bend one pitying branch, true breed of brutal snow! Some undergrowth had served to keep the devils blind While we escaped outside their border!

"Was that--wind? Anyhow, Droug starts, stops, back go his ears, he snuffs, Snorts,--never such a snort! then plunges, knows the sough's Only the wind: yet, no--our breath goes up too straight! Still the low sound,--less low, loud, louder, at a rate There's no mistaking more! Shall I lean out--look--learn The truth whatever it be? Pad, pad! At last, I turn--

"'T is the regular pad of the wolves in pursuit of the life in the sledge! An army they are: close-packed they press like the thrust of a wedge: They increase as they hunt: for I see, through the pine-trunks ranged each side, Slip forth new fiend and fiend, make wider and still more wide The four-footed steady advance. The foremost--none may pass: They are elders and lead the line, eye and eye--green-glowing brass! But a long way distant still. Droug, save us! He does his best: Yet they gain on us, gain, till they reach,--one reaches ... How utter the rest? O that Satan-faced first of the band! How he lolls out the length of his tongue, How he laughs and lets gleam his white teeth! He is on me, his paws pry among The wraps and the rags! O my pair, my twin-pigeons, lie still and seem dead! Stepàn, he shall never have you for a meal,--here's your mother instead! No, he will not be counselled--must cry, poor Stiòpka, so foolish! though first Of my boy-brood, he was not the best: nay, neighbors have called him the worst: He was puny, an undersized slip,--a darling to me, all the same! But little there was to be praised in the boy, and a plenty to blame. I loved him with heart and soul, yes---but deal him a blow for a fault, He would sulk for whole days. 'Foolish boy! lie still or the villain will vault, Will snatch you from over my head!' No use! he cries, screams,--who can hold Fast a boy in a frenzy of fear! It follows--as I foretold! The Satan-face snatched and snapped: I tugged, I tore--and then His brother too needs must shriek! If one must go, 't is men The Tsar needs, so we hear, not ailing boys! Perhaps My hands relaxed their grasp, got tangled in the wraps: God, he was gone! I looked: there tumbled the cursed crew, Each fighting for a share: too busy to pursue! That's so far gain at least: Droug, gallop another verst Or two, or three--God sends we beat them, arrive the first! A mother who boasts two boys was ever accounted rich: Some have not a boy: some have, but lose him,--God knows which Is worse: how pitiful to see your weakling pine And pale and pass away! Strong brats, this pair of mine!

"O misery! for while I settle to what near seems Content, I am 'ware again of the tramp, and again there gleams-- Point and point--the line, eyes, levelled green brassy fire! So soon is resumed your chase? Will nothing appease, naught tire The furies? And yet I think--I am certain the race is slack, And the numbers are nothing like. Not a quarter of the pack! Feasters and those full-fed are staying behind ... Ah, why? We'll sorrow for that too soon! Now,--gallop, reach home, and die, Nor ever again leave house, to trust our life in the trap For life--we call a sledge! Teriòscha, in my lap! Yes, I'll lie down upon you, tight-tie you with the strings Here--of my heart! No fear, this time, your mother flings ... Flings? I flung? Never! But think!--a woman, after all, Contending with a wolf! Save you I must and shall, Terentiì! "How now? What, you still head the race, Your eyes and tongue and teeth crave fresh food, Satan-face? There and there! Plain I struck green fire out! Flash again? All a poor fist can do to damage eyes proves vain! My fist--why not crunch that? He is wanton for ... O God, Why give this wolf his taste? Common wolves scrape and prod The earth till out they scratch some corpse--mere putrid flesh! Why must this glutton leave the faded, choose the fresh? Terentiì--God, feel!--his neck keeps fast thy bag Of holy things, saints' bones, this Satan-face will drag Forth, and devour along with him, our Pope declared The relics were to save from danger!

"Spurned, not spared! 'Twas through my arms, crossed arms, he--nuzzling now with snout, Now ripping, tooth and claw--plucked, pulled Terentiì out, A prize indeed! I saw--how could I else but see?-- My precious one--I bit to hold back--pulled from me! Up came the others, fell to dancing--did the imps!-- Skipped as they scampered round. There's one is gray, and limps: Who knows but old bad Màrpha--she always owed me spite And envied me my births--skulks out of doors at night And turns into a wolf, and joins the sisterhood, And laps the youthful life, then slinks from out the wood, Squats down at door by dawn, spins there demure as erst --No strength, old crone,--not she!--to crawl forth half a verst!

"Well, I escaped with one: 'twixt one and none there lies The space 'twixt heaven and hell. And see, a rose-light dyes The endmost snow: 'tis dawn, 'tis day, 'tis safe at home! We have outwitted you! Ay, monsters, snarl and foam, Fight each the other fiend, disputing for a share,-- Forgetful, in your greed, our finest off we hear, Tough Droug and I,--my babe, my boy that shall be man, My man that shall be more, do all a hunter can To trace and follow and find and catch and crucify Wolves, wolfkins, all your crew! A thousand deaths shall die The whimperingest cub that ever squeezed the teat! 'Take that!' we'll stab you with,--'the tenderness we met When, wretches, you danced round,--not this, thank God--not this! Hellhounds, we balk you!'

"But--Ah, God above!--Bliss, bliss,-- Not the band, no! And yet--yes, for Droug knows him! One-- This only of them all has said 'She saves a son!' His fellows disbelieve such luck: but he believes, He lets them pick the bones, laugh at him in their sleeves: He 's off and after us,--one speck, one spot, one ball Grows bigger, bound on bound,--one wolf as good as all! Oh, but I know the trick! Have at the snaky tongue! That 's the right way with wolves! Go, tell your mates I wrung The panting morsel out, left you to howl your worst! Now for it--now! Ah me! I know him--thrice-accurst Satan-face,--him to the end my foe!

"All fight 's in vain: This time the green brass points pierce to my very brain. I fall--fall as I ought--quite on the babe I guard: I overspread with flesh the whole of him. Too hard To die this way, torn piecemeal? Move hence? Not I--one inch! Gnaw through me, through and through: flat thus I lie nor flinch! O God, the feel of the fang furrowing my shoulder!--see! It grinds--it grates the bone. O Kìrill under me, Could I do more? Besides he knew wolf's way to win: I clung, closed round like wax: yet in he wedged and in, Past my neck, past my breasts, my heart, until ... how feels The onion-bulb your knife parts, pushing through its peels, Till out you scoop its clove wherein lie stalk and leaf And bloom and seed unborn?

"That slew me: yes, in brief, I died then, dead I lay doubtlessly till Droug stopped Here, I suppose. I come to life, I find me propped Thus,--how or when or why--I know not. Tell me, friends, All was a dream: laugh quick and say the nightmare ends! Soon I shall find my house: 't is over there: in proof, Save for that chimney heaped with snow, you 'd see the roof Which holds my three--my two--my one--not one?

"Life 's mixed With misery, yet we live--must live. The Satan fixed His face on mine so fast, I took its print as pitch Takes what it cools beneath. Ivàn Ivànovitch, 'T is you unharden me, you thaw, disperse the thing! Only keep looking kind, the horror will not cling. Your face smooths fast away each print of Satan. Tears --What good they do! Life 's sweet, and all its after-years, Ivàn Ivànovitch, I owe you! Yours am I! May God reward you, dear!"

Down she sank. Solemnly Ivàn rose, raised his axe,--for fitly, as she knelt, Her head lay: well-apart, each side, her arms hung,--dealt Lightning-swift thunder-strong one blow--no need of more! Headless she knelt on still: that pine was sound at core (Neighbors were used to say)--cast-iron-kernelled--which Taxed for a second stroke Ivàn Ivànovitch.

The man was scant of words as strokes. "It had to be: I could no other: God it was, bade 'Act for me!'" Then stooping, peering round--what is it now he lacks? A proper strip of bark wherewith to wipe his axe. Which done, he turns, goes in, closes the door behind. The others mute remain, watching the blood-snake wind Into a hiding-place among the splinter-heaps.

At length, still mute, all move: one lifts--from where it steeps Redder each ruddy rag of pine--the head: two more Take up the dripping body: then, mute still as before, Move in a sort of march, march on till marching ends Opposite to the church; where halting,--who suspends, By its long hair, the thing, deposits in its place The piteous head: once more the body shows no trace Of harm done: there lies whole the Loùscha, maid and wife And mother, loved until this latest of her life. Then all sit on the bank of snow which bounds a space Kept free before the porch of judgment: just the place!

Presently all the souls, man, woman, child, which make The village up, are found assembling for the sake Of what is to be done. The very Jews are there: A Gypsy-troop, though bound with horses for the Fair, Squats with the rest. Each heart with its conception seethes And simmers, but no tongue speaks: one may say,--none breathes.

Anon from out the church totters the Pope--the priest-- Hardly alive, so old, a hundred years at least. With him, the Commune's head, a hoary senior too, Stàrosta, that 's his style,--like Equity Judge with you,-- Natural Jurisconsult: then, fenced about with furs, Pomeschìk,--Lord of the Land, who wields--and none demurs-- A power of life and death. They stoop, survey the corpse.

Then, straightened on his staff, the Stàrosta--the thorpe's Sagaciousest old man--hears what you just have heard, From Droug's first inrush, all, up to Ivàn's last word-- "God bade me act for him: I dared not disobey!"

Silence--the Pomeschìk broke with "A wild wrong way Of righting wrong--if wrong there were, such wrath to rouse! Why was not law observed? What article allows Whoso may please to play the judge, and, judgment dealt, Play executioner, as promptly as we pelt To death, without appeal, the vermin whose sole fault Has been--it dared to leave the darkness of its vault, Intrude upon our day! Too sudden and too rash! What was this woman's crime? Suppose the church should crash Down where I stand, your lord: bound are my serfs to dare Their utmost that I 'scape: yet, if the crashing scare My children--as you are,--if sons fly, one and all, Leave father to his fate,--poor cowards though I call The runaways, I pause before I claim their life Because they prized it more than mine. I would each wife Died for her husband's sake, each son to save his sire: 'T is glory, I applaud--scarce duty, I require. Ivàn Ivànovitch has done a deed that 's named Murder by law and me: who doubts, may speak unblamed!"

All turned to the old Pope. "Ay, children, I am old-- How old, myself have got to know no longer. Rolled Quite round, my orb of life, from infancy to age, Seems passing back again to youth. A certain stage At least I reach, or dream I reach, where I discern Truer truths, laws behold more lawlike than we learn When first we set our foot to tread the course I trod With man to guide my steps: who leads me now is God. 'Your young men shall see visions:' and in my youth I saw And paid obedience to man's visionary law: 'Your old men shall dream dreams:' and, in my age, a hand Conducts me through the cloud round law to where I stand Firm on its base,--know cause, who, before, knew effect.

"The world lies under me: and nowhere I detect So great a gift as this--God's own--of human life. 'Shall the dead praise thee?' No! 'The whole live world is rife, God, with thy glory,' rather! Life then, God's best of gifts, For what shall man exchange? For life--when so he shifts The weight and turns the scale, lets life for life restore God's balance, sacrifice the less to gain the more, Substitute--for low life, another's or his own-- Life large and liker God's who gave it: thus alone May life extinguish life that life may trulier be! How low this law descends on earth, is not for me To trace: complexed becomes the simple, intricate The plain, when I pursue law's winding. 'T is the straight Outflow of law I know and name: to law, the fount Fresh from God's footstool, friends, follow while I remount.

"A mother bears a child: perfection is complete So far in such a birth. Enabled to repeat The miracle of life,--herself was born so just A type of womankind, that God sees fit to trust Her with the holy task of giving life in turn. Crowned by this crowning pride, how say you, should she spurn Regality--discrowned, unchilded, by her choice Of barrenness exchanged for fruit which made rejoice Creation, though life's self were lost in giving birth To life more fresh and fit to glorify God's earth? How say you, should the hand God trusted with life's torch Kindled to light the world--aware of sparks that scorch, Let fall the same? Forsooth, her flesh a fire-flake stings: The mother drops the child! Among what monstrous things Shall she he classed? Because of motherhood, each male Yields to his partner place, sinks proudly in the scale: His strength owned weakness, wit--folly, and courage--fear, Beside the female proved male's mistress--only here. The fox-dam, hunger-pined, will slay the felon sire Who dares assault her whelp: the beaver, stretched on fire, Will die-without a groan: no pang avails to wrest Her young from where they hide--her sanctuary breast. What 's here then? Answer me, thou dead one, as, I trow, Standing at God's own bar, he bids thee answer now! Thrice crowned wast thou--each crown of pride, a child--thy charge! Where are they? Lost? Enough: no need that thou enlarge On how or why the loss: life left to utter 'lost' Condemns itself beyond appeal. The soldier's post Guards from the foe's attack the camp he sentinels: That he no traitor proved, this and this only tells-- Over the corpse of him trod foe to foe's success. Yet--one by one thy crowns torn from thee--thou no less To scare the world, shame God,--livedst! I hold he saw The unexampled sin, ordained the novel law, Whereof first instrument was first intelligence Found loyal here. I hold that, failing human sense, The very earth had oped, sky fallen, to efface Humanity's new wrong, motherhood's first disgrace. Earth oped not, neither fell the sky, for prompt was found A man and mar enough, head-sober and heart-sound, Ready to hear God's voice, resolute to obey. Ivàn Ivànovitch, I hold, has done, this day, No otherwise than did, in ages long ago, Moses when he made known the purport of that flow Of fire athwart the law's twain-tables! I proclaim Ivàn Ivànovitch God's servant!"

At which name Uprose that creepy whisper from out the crowd, is wont, To swell and surge and sink when fellow-men confront A punishment that falls on fellow flesh and blood, Appallingly beheld--shudderingly understood, No less, to be the right, the just, the merciful. "God's servant!" hissed the crowd.

When the Amen grew dull And died away and left acquittal plain adjudged, "Amen!" last sighed the lord. "There 's none shall say I grudged Escape from punishment in such a novel case. Deferring to old age and holy life,--be grace Granted! say I. No less, scruples might shake a sense Firmer than I boast mine. Law 's law, and evidence Of breach therein lies plain,--blood-red-bright,--all may see! Yet all absolve the deed: absolved the deed must be!

"And next--as mercy rules the hour--methinks 't were well You signify forthwith its sentence, and dispel The doubts and fears, I judge, which busy now the head Law puts a halter round--a halo--you, instead! Ivàn Ivànovitch--what think you he expects Will follow from his feat? Go, tell him--law protects Murder, for once: no need he longer keep behind The Sacred Pictures--where skulks Innocence enshrined, Or I missay! Go, some! You others, haste and hide The dismal object there: get done, whate'er betide!"

So, while the youngers raised the corpse, the elders trooped Silently to the house: where halting, some one stooped, Listened beside the door; all there was silent too. Then they held counsel; then pushed door and, passing through, Stood in the murderer's presence.

Ivàn Ivànovitch Knelt, building on the floor that Kremlin rare and rich He deftly cut and carved on lazy winter nights. Some five young faces watched, breathlessly, as, to rights, Piece upon piece, he reared the fabric nigh complete. Stèscha, Ivàn's old mother, sat spinning by the heat Of the oven where his wife Kàtia stood baking bread. Ivàn's self, as he turned his honey-colored head, Was just in act to drop, 'twixt fir-cones,--each a dome,-- The scooped-out yellow gourd presumably the home Of Kolokol the Big: the bell, therein to hitch, --An acorn-cup--was ready: Ivàn Ivànovitch Turned with it in his mouth.

They told him he was free As air to walk abroad. "How otherwise?" asked he.

TRAY

This poem describes an actual incident witnessed in Paris by a friend of Browning's, and with accuracy of detail. The poem was written as a protest against vivisection, which the poet called "an infamous practice." He was early associated with Miss Frances Power Cobbe in her efforts to prevent vivisection; and he was a vice-president of the "Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals." Dr. Berdoe says, "He always expressed the utmost abhorrence of the practices which it opposes." To Miss Cobbe he wrote in 1874: "You have heard, 'I take an equal interest with yourself in the effort to suppress vivisection.' I dare not so honor my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this I know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two." He goes even so far as to say that the person not willing to sign the petition against vivisection certainly could not be numbered among his friends. To Miss Stackpoole he wrote in April, 1883: "I despise and abhor the pleas on behalf of that infamous practice, vivisection." G. W. COOKE.

Sing me a hero! Quench my thirst Of soul, ye bards!

Quoth Bard the first: "Sir Olaf, the good knight, did don His helm and eke his habergeon" ... Sir Olaf and his bard ----!

"That sin-scathed brow" (quoth Bard the second), "That eye wide ope as though Fate beckoned My hero to some steep, beneath Which precipice smiled tempting death" ... You too without your host have reckoned!

"A beggar-child" (let 's hear this third!) "Sat on a quay's edge: like a bird Sang to herself at careless play, And fell into the stream. 'Dismay! Help, you the standers-by!' None stirred.

"Bystanders reason, think of wives And children ere they risk their lives. Over the balustrade has bounced A mere instinctive dog, and pounced Plumb on the prize. 'How well he dives!

"'Up he comes with the child, see, tight In mouth, alive too, clutched from quite A depth of ten feet--twelve, I bet! Good dog! What, off again? There 's yet Another child to save? All right!'

"How strange we saw no other fall! It 's instinct in the animal. Good dog! But he 's a long while under: If he got drowned I should not wonder-- Strong current, that against the wall!

"'Here he comes, holds in mouth this time --What may the thing be? Well, that 's prime! Now, did you ever? Reason reigns In man alone, since all Tray's pains Have fished--the child's doll from the slime!'

"And so, amid the laughter gay, Trotted my hero off,--old Tray,-- Till somebody, prerogatived With reason, reasoned: 'Why he dived, His brain would show us, I should say.

"'John, go and catch--or, if needs be, Purchase--that animal for me! By vivisection, at expense Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, How brain secretes dog's soul, we'll see!'"

NED BRATTS

Written from memory of Bunyan's story of old Tod in The Life and Death of Mr. Badman.

'T was Bedford Special Assize, one daft Midsummer's Day: A broiling blasting June,--was never its like, men say. Corn stood sheaf-ripe already, and trees looked yellow as that; Ponds drained dust-dry, the cattle lay foaming around each flat. Inside town, dogs went mad, and folk kept bibbing beer, While the parsons prayed for rain. 'T was horrible, yes--but queer: Queer--for the sun laughed gay, yet nobody moved a hand To work one stroke at his trade: as given to understand That all was come to a stop, work and such worldly ways, And the world's old self about to end in a merry blaze, Midsummer's day moreover was the first of Bedford Fair; With Bedford Town's tag-rag and bobtail a-bowsing there.

But the Court House, Quality crammed: through doors ope, windows wide, High on the Bench you saw sit Lordships side by side. There frowned Chief Justice Jukes, fumed learned Brother Small, And fretted their fellow Judge: like threshers, one and all, Of a reek with laying down the law in a furnace. Why? Because their lungs breathed flame--the regular crowd forbye-- From gentry pouring in--quite a nosegay, to be sure! How else could they pass the time, six mortal hours endure Till night should extinguish day, when matters might haply mend? Meanwhile no bad resource was--watching begin and end Some trial for life and death, in a brisk five minutes' space, And betting which knave would 'scape, which hang, from his sort of face.

So, their Lordships toiled and moiled, and a deal of work was done (I warrant) to justify the mirth of the crazy sun, As this and t' other lout, struck dumb at the sudden show Of red robes and white wigs, boggled nor answered "Boh!" When asked why he, Tom Styles, should not--because Jack Nokes Had stolen the horse--be hanged: for Judges must have their jokes, And louts must make allowance--let 's say, for some blue fly Which punctured a dewy scalp where the frizzles stuck awry-- Else Tom had fleered scot-free, so nearly over and done Was the main of the job. Full-measure, the gentles enjoyed their fun, As a twenty-five were tried, rank puritans caught at prayer In a cow-house and laid by the heels,--have at 'em, devil may care!-- And ten were prescribed the whip, and ten a brand on the cheek, And five a slit of the nose--just leaving enough to tweak.

Well, things at jolly high-tide, amusement steeped in fire, While noon smote fierce the roof's red tiles to heart's desire, The Court a-simmer with smoke, one ferment of oozy flesh, One spirituous humming musk mount-mounting until its mesh Entoiled all heads in a fluster, and Serjeant Postlethwayte --Dashing the wig oblique as he mopped his oily pate-- Cried "Silence, or I grow grease! No loophole lets in air? Jurymen,--Guilty, Death! Gainsay me if you dare!" --Things at this pitch, I say,--what hubbub without the doors? What laughs, shrieks, hoots and yells, what rudest of uproars?

Bounce through the barrier throng a bulk comes rolling vast! Thumps, kicks,--no manner of use!--spite of them rolls at last Into the midst a ball, which, bursting, brings to view Publican Black Ned Bratts and Tabby his big wife too: Both in a muck-sweat, both ... were never such eyes uplift At the sight of yawning hell, such nostrils--snouts that sniffed Sulphur, such mouths agape ready to swallow flame! Horrified, hideous, frank fiend-faces! yet, all the same, Mixed with a certain ... eh? how shall I dare style--mirth The desperate grin of the guess that, could they break from earth, Heaven was above, and hell might rage in impotence Below the saved, the saved!

"Confound you! (no offence!) Out of our way,--push, wife! Yonder their Worships be!" Ned Bratts has reached the bar, and "Hey, my Lords," roars he, "A Jury of life and death, Judges the prime of the land, Constables, javelineers,--all met, if I understand, To decide so knotty a point as whether 't was Jack or Joan Robbed the henroost, pinched the pig, hit the King's Arms with a stone, Dropped the baby down the well, left the tithesman in the lurch, Or, three whole Sundays running, not once attended church! What a pother--do these deserve the parish-stocks or whip, More or less brow to brand, much or little nose to snip,-- When, in our Public, plain stand we--that 's we stand here I and my Tab, brass-bold, brick-built of beef and beer, --Do not we, slut? Step forth and show your beauty, jade! Wife of my bosom--that 's the word now! What a trade We drove! None said us nay: nobody loved his life So little as wag a tongue against us,--did they, wife? Yet they knew us all the while, in their hearts, for what we are --Worst couple, rogue and quean, unhanged--search near and far! Eh, Tab? The peddler, now--o'er his noggin--who warned a mate To cut and run, nor risk his pack where its loss of weight Was the least to dread,--aha, how we two laughed a-good As, stealing round the midden, he came on where I stood With billet poised and raised,--you, ready with the rope,-- Ah, but that 's past, that 's sin repented of, we hope! Men knew us for that same, yet safe and sound stood we! The lily-livered knaves knew too (I 've balked a d----) Our keeping the 'Pied Bull' was just a mere pretence: Too slow the pounds make food, drink, lodging, from out the pence! There 's not a stoppage to travel has chanced, this ten long year, No break into hall or grange, no lifting of nag or steer, Not a single roguery, from the clipping of a purse To the cutting of a throat, but paid us toll. Od's curse! When Gypsy Smouch made bold to cheat us of our due, --Eh, Tab? the Squire's strong-box we helped the rascal to-- I think he pulled a face, next Sessions' swinging-time! He danced the jig that needs no floor,--and, here 's the prime, 'T was Scroggs that houghed the mare! Ay, those were busy days!

"Well, there we flourished brave, like scripture-trees called bays, Faring high, drinking hard, in money up to head --Not to say, boots and shoes, when ... Zounds, I nearly said-- Lord, to unlearn one's language! How shall we labor, wife? Have you, fast hold, the Book? Grasp, grip it, for your life! See, sirs, here 's life, salvation! Here 's--hold but out my breath-- When did I speak so long without once swearing? 'Sdeath, No, nor unhelped by ale since man and boy! And yet All yesterday I had to keep my whistle wet While reading Tab this Book: book? don't say 'book'--they 're plays, Songs, ballads, and the like: here 's no such strawy blaze, But sky wide ope, sun, moon, and seven stars out full-flare! Tab, help and tell! I 'm hoarse. A mug! or --no, a prayer! Dip for one out of the Book! Who wrote it in the Jail --He plied his pen unhelped by beer, sirs, I 'll be bail!

"I 've got my second wind. In trundles she--that 's Tab. 'Why, Gammer, what 's come now, that--bobbing like a crab On Yule-tide bowl--your head 's a-work and both your eyes Break loose? Afeard, you fool? As if the dead can rise! Say--Bagman Dick was found last May with fuddling-cap Stuffed in his month: to choke 's a natural mishap!' 'Gaffer, be--blessed,' cries she, 'and Bagman Dick as well! I, you, and he are damned: this Public is our hell: We live in fire: live coals don't feel!--once quenched, they learn-- Cinders do, to what dust they moulder while they burn!'

"'If you don't speak straight out,' says I--belike I swore-- 'A knobstick, well you know the taste of, shall, once more, Teach you to talk, my maid!' She ups with such a face, Heart sunk inside me. 'Well, pad on, my prate-apace!'

"'I 've been about those laces we need for ... never mind! If henceforth they tie hands, 't is mine they 'll have to bind. You know who makes them best--the Tinker in our cage, Pulled-up for gospelling, twelve years ago: no age To try another trade,--yet, so he scorned to take Money he did not earn, he taught himself the make Of laces, tagged and tough--Dick Bagman found them so! Good customers were we! Well, last week, you must know, His girl,--the blind young chit, who hawks about his wares,-- She takes it in her head to come no more--such airs These hussies have! Yet, since we need a stoutish lace,-- "I 'll to the jail-bird father, abuse her to his face!" So, first I filled a jug to give me heart, and then, Primed to the proper pitch, I posted to their den-- Patmore, they style their prison! I tip the turnkey, catch My heart up, fix my face, and fearless lift the latch-- Both arms akimbo, in bounce with a good round oath Ready for rapping out: no "Lawks" nor "By my troth!"

"'There sat my man, the father. He looked up: what one feels When heart that leapt to mouth drops down again to heels! He raised his hand ... Hast seen, when drinking out the night, And in, the day, earth grow another something quite Under the sun's first stare? I stood a very stone.

"'"Woman!" (a fiery tear he put in every tone), "How should my child frequent your house where lust is sport, Violence--trade? Too true! I trust no vague report. Her angel's hand, which stops the sight of sin, leaves clear The other gate of sense, lets outrage through the ear. What has she heard!--which, heard shall never be again. Better lack food than feast, a Dives in the--wain Or reign or train--of Charles!" (His language was not ours: 'T is my belief, God spoke: no tinker has such powers.) "Bread, only bread they bring--my laces: if we broke Your lump of leavened sin, the loaf's first crumb would choke!"

"'Down on my marrow-bones! Then all at once rose he: His brown hair burst a-spread, his eyes were suns to see: Up went his hands: "Through flesh, I reach, I read thy soul! So may some stricken tree look blasted, bough and bole, Champed by the fire-tooth, charred without, and yet, thrice-bound With dreriment about, within may life be found, A prisoned power to branch and blossom as before, Could but the gardener cleave the cloister, reach the core, Loosen the vital sap: yet where shall help be found? Who says 'How save it?'--nor 'Why cumbers it the ground?' Woman, that tree art thou! All sloughed about with scurf, Thy stag-horns fright the sky, thy snake-roots sting the turf! Drunkenness, wantonness, theft, murder gnash and gnarl Thine outward, case thy soul with coating like the marle Satan stamps flat upon each head beneath his hoof! And how deliver such? The strong men keep aloof, Lover and friend stand far, the mocking ones pass by, Tophet gapes wide for prey: lost soul, despair and die! What then? 'Look unto me and be ye saved!' saith God: 'I strike the rock, outstreats the life-stream at my rod![9] Be your sins scarlet, wool shall they seem like, --although As crimson red, yet turn white as the driven snow!'"

"'There, there, there! All I seem to somehow understand Is--that, if I reached home, 't was through the guiding hand Of his blind girl which led and led me through the streets And out of town and up to door again. What greets First thing my eye, as limbs recover from their swoon? A book--this Book she gave at parting. "Father's boon-- The Book he wrote: it reads as if he spoke himself: He cannot preach in bonds, so,--take it down from shelf When you want counsel,--think you hear his very voice!

"'Wicked dear Husband, first despair and then rejoice! Dear wicked Husband, waste no tick of moment more, Be saved like me, bald trunk! There 's greenness yet at core, Sap under slough! Read, read!'

"Let me take breath, my lords! I 'd like to know, are these--hers, mine, or Bunyan's words? I 'm 'wildered--scarce with drink,--nowise with drink alone! You 'll say, with heat: but heat 's no stuff to split a stone Like this black boulder--this flint heart of mine: the Book-- That dealt the crashing blow! Sirs, here 's the fist that shook His beard till Wrestler Jem howled like a just-lugged bear! You had brained me with a feather: at once I grew aware Christmas was meant for me. A burden at your back, Good Master Christmas? Nay,--yours was that Joseph's sack, --Or whose it was,--which held the cup,--compared with mine! Robbery loads my loins, perjury cracks my chine, Adultery ... nay, Tab, you pitched me as I flung! One word, I 'll up with fist ... No, sweet spouse, hold your tongue!

"I 'm hasting to the end. The Book, sirs--take and read! You have my history in a nutshell,--ay, indeed! It must off, my burden! See,--slack straps and into pit, Roll, reach the bottom, rest, rot there--a plague on it! For a mountain 's sure to fall and bury Bedford Town, 'Destruction'--that 's the name, and fire shall burn it down! Oh, 'scape the wrath in time! Time 's now, if not too late. How can I pilgrimage up to the wicket-gate? Next comes Despond the slough: not that I fear to pull Through mud, and dry my clothes at brave House Beautiful-- But it 's late in the day, I reckon: had I left years ago Town, wife, and children dear ... Well, Christmas did, you know!-- Soon I had met in the valley and tried my cudgel's strength On the enemy horned and winged, a-straddle across its length! Have at his horns, thwick--thwack: they snap, see! Hoof and hoof-- Bang, break the fetlock-bones! For love's sake, keep aloof Angels! I 'm man and match,--this cudgel for my flail,-- To thresh him, hoofs and horns, bat's wing and serpent's tail! A chance gone by! But then, what else does Hopeful ding Into the deafest ear except--hope, hope 's the thing? Too late i' the day for me to thrid the windings: but There 's still a way to win the race by death's short cut! Did Master Faithful need climb the Delightful Mounts? No, straight to Vanity Fair,--a fair, by all accounts, Such as is held outside,--lords, ladies, grand and gay,-- Says he in the face of them, just what you hear me say. And the Judges brought him in guilty, and brought him out To die in the market-place--St. Peter's Green 's about The same thing: there they flogged, flayed, buffeted, lanced with knives, Pricked him with swords,--I 'll swear, he 'd full a cat's nine lives,-- So to his end at last came Faithful,--ha, ha, he! Who holds the highest card? for there stands hid, you see, Behind the rabble-rout, a chariot, pair and all: He 's in, he 's off, he 's up, through clouds, at trumpet-call, Carried the nearest way to Heaven-gate-! Odds my life-- Has nobody a sword to spare? not even a knife? Then hang me, draw and quarter! Tab--do the same by her! O Master Worldly-Wiseman ... that 's Master Interpreter, Take the will, not the deed! Our gibbet 's handy, close: Forestall Last Judgment-Day! Be kindly, not morose! There wants no earthly judge-and-jurying: here we stand-- Sentence our guilty selves: so, hang us out of hand! Make haste for pity's sake! A single moment's loss Means--Satan 's lord once more: his whisper shoots across All singing in my heart, all praying in my brain, 'It comes of heat and beer!'--hark how he guffaws plain! 'To-morrow you 'll wake bright, and, in a safe skin, hug Your sound selves, Tab and you, over a foaming jug! You 've had such qualms before, time out of mind!' He 's right! Did not we kick and cuff and curse away, that night When home we blindly reeled, and left poor humpback Joe I' the lurch to pay for what ... somebody did, you know! Both of us maundered then, 'Lame humpback, --never more Will he come limping, drain his tankard at our door! He 'll swing, while--somebody' ... Says Tab, 'No, for I 'll peach!' 'I 'm for you, Tab,' cries I, 'there 's rope enough for each!' So blubbered we, and bussed, and went to bed upon The grace of Tab's good thought: by morning, all was gone! We laughed--'What 's life to him, a cripple of no account?' Oh, waves increase around--I feel them mount and mount! Hang us! To-morrow brings Tom Bearward with his bears: One new black-muzzled brute beats Sackerson, he swears: (Sackerson, for my money!) And, baiting o'er, the Brawl They lead on Turner's Patch,--lads, lasses, up tails all,-- I 'm i' the thick o' the throng! That means the Iron Cage, --Means the Lost Man inside! Where 's hope for such as wage War against light? Light 's left, light 's here, I hold light still, So does Tab--make but haste to hang us both! You will?"

I promise, when he stopped you might have heard a mouse Squeak, such a death-like hush sealed up the old Mote House. But when the mass of man sank meek upon his knees, While Tab, alongside, wheezed a hoarse "Do hang us, please!" Why, then the waters rose, no eye but ran with tears, Hearts heaved, heads thumped, until, paying all past arrears Of pity and sorrow, at last a regular scream outbroke Of triumph, joy, and praise.

My Lord Chief Justice spoke, First mopping brow and cheek, where still, for one that budged, Another bead broke fresh: "What Judge, that ever judged Since first the world began, judged such a case as this? Why, Master Bratts, long since, folks smelt you out, I wis! I had my doubts, i' faith, each time you played the fox Convicting geese of crime in yonder witness-box-- Yea, much did I misdoubt, the thief that stole her eggs Was hardly goosey's self at Reynard's game, i' feggs! Yet thus much was to praise--you spoke to point, direct-- Swore you heard, saw the theft: no jury could suspect-- Dared to suspect,--I 'll say,--a spot in white so clear: Goosey was throttled, true: but thereof godly fear Came of example set, much as our laws intend; And, though a fox confessed, you proved the Judge's friend. What if I had my doubts? Suppose I gave them breath, Brought you to bar: what work to do, ere 'Guilty, Death' Had paid our pains! What heaps of witnesses to drag From holes and corners, paid from out the County's bag! Trial three dog-days long! Amicus Curiæ--that 's Your title, no dispute--truth-telling Master Bratts! Thank you, too, Mistress Tab! Why doubt one word you say? Hanging you both deserve, hanged both shall be this day! The tinker needs must be a proper man. I 've heard He lies in Jail long since: if Quality's good word Warrants me letting loose,--some householder, I mean-- Freeholder, better still,--I don't say but--between Now and next Sessions ... Well! Consider of his case, I promise to, at least: we owe him so much grace. Not that--no, God forbid!--I lean to think as you, The grace that such repent is any jail-bird's due: I rather see the fruit of twelve years' pious reign-- Astræa Redux, Charles restored his rights again! --Of which, another time! I somehow feel a peace Stealing across the world. May deeds like this increase! So, Master Sheriff, stay that sentence I pronounced On those two dozen odd: deserving to be trounced Soundly, and yet ... well, well, at all events dispatch This pair of--shall I say, sinner-saints?--ere we catch Their jail-distemper too. Stop tears, or I 'll indite All weeping Bedfordshire for turning Bunyanite!"

So, forms were galloped through. If Justice, on the spur, Proved somewhat expeditious, would Quality demur? And happily hanged were they,--why lengthen out my tale?-- Where Bunyan's Statue stands facing where stood his Jail.

SECOND SERIES

"You are sick, that 's sure,"--they say: "Sick of what?"--they disagree. "'T is the brain,"--thinks Doctor A; "'T is the heart,"--holds Doctor B; "The liver--my life I 'd lay!" "The lungs!" "The lights!" Ah me! So ignorant of man's whole Of bodily organs plain to see-- So sage and certain, frank and free, About what 's under lock and key-- Man's soul!

ECHETLOS

Here is a story, shall stir you! Stand up, Greeks dead and gone, Who breasted, beat Barbarians, stemmed Persia rolling on, Did the deed and saved the world, for the day was Marathon!

No man but did his manliest, kept rank and fought away In his tribe and file: up, back, out, down--was the spear-arm play: Like a wind-whipt branchy wood, all spear-arms a-swing that day!

But one man kept no rank, and his sole arm plied no spear, As a flashing came and went, and a form i' the van, the rear, Brightened the battle up, for he blazed now there, now here.

Nor helmed nor shielded, he! but, a goat-skin all his wear, Like a tiller of the soil, with a clown's limbs broad and bare, Went he ploughing on and on: he pushed with a ploughman's share.

Did the weak mid-line give way, as tunnies on whom the shark Precipitates his bulk? Did the right-wing halt when, stark On his heap of slain lay stretched Kallimachos Polemarch?

Did the steady phalanx falter? To the rescue, at the need, The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing Greek earth of weed, As he routed through the Sakian and rooted up the Mede.

But the deed done, battle won,--nowhere to be descried On the meadow, by the stream, at the marsh, --look far and wide From the foot of the mountain, no, to the last blood-plashed sea-side,--

Not anywhere on view blazed the large limbs thonged and brown, Shearing and clearing still with the share before which--down To the dust went Persia's pomp, as he ploughed for Greece, that clown!

How spake the Oracle? "Care for no name at all! Say but just this: 'We praise one helpful whom we call The Holder of the Ploughshare.' The great deed ne'er grows small."

Not the great name! Sing--woe for the great name Miltiadés And its end at Paros isle! Woe for Themistokles --Satrap in Sardis court! Name not the clown like these!

CLIVE

Browning had this story from Mrs. Jameson as early as 1846, she in turn having just heard Macaulay tell it. Browning's own narrative preceded Clive's death by a week only.

I and Clive were friends--and why not? Friends! I think you laugh, my lad. Clive it was gave England India, while your father gives--egad, England nothing but the graceless boy who lures him on to speak-- "Well, Sir, you and Clive were comrades--" with a tongue thrust in your cheek! Very true: in my eyes, your eyes, all the world's eyes, Clive was man, I was, am, and ever shall be--mouse, nay, mouse of all its clan Sorriest sample, if you take the kitchen's estimate for fame; While the man Clive--he fought Plassy, spoiled the clever foreign game, Conquered and annexed and Englished!

Never mind! As o'er my punch (You away) I sit of evenings,--silence, save for biscuit crunch, Black, unbroken,--thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old years, Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long-past life appears Like an outspread map of country plodded through, each mile and rood, Once, and well remembered still,--I 'm startled in my solitude Ever and anon by--what 's the sudden mocking light that breaks On me as I slap the table till no rummer-glass but shakes While I ask--aloud, I do believe, God help me!--"Was it thus? Can it be that so I faltered, stopped when just one step for us--" (Us,--you were not born, I grant, but surely some day born would be) "--One bold step had gained a province" (figurative talk, you see) "Got no end of wealth and honor,--yet I stood stock-still no less?" --"For I was not Clive," you comment: but it needs no Clive to guess Wealth were handy, honor ticklish, did no writing on the wall Warn me "Trespasser, 'ware man-traps!" Him who braves that notice--call Hero! none of such heroics suit myself who read plain words, Doff my hat, and leap no barrier. Scripture says, the land 's the Lord's: Louts then--what avail the thousand, noisy in a smock-frocked ring, All-agog to have me trespass, clear the fence, be Clive their king? Higher warrant must you show me ere I set one foot before T' other in that dark direction, though I stand forevermore Poor as Job and meek as Moses. Evermore? No! By and by Job grows rich and Moses valiant, Clive turns out less wise than I. Don't object "Why call him friend, then?" Power is power, my boy, and still Marks a man,--God's gift magnific, exercised for good or ill. You 've your boot now on my hearth-rug, tread what was a tiger's skin: Rarely such a royal monster as I lodged the bullet in! True, he murdered half a village, so his own death came to pass; Still, for size and beauty, cunning, courage--ah, the brute he was! Why, that Clive,--that youth, that greenhorn, that quill-driving clerk, in fine,-- He sustained a siege in Arcot ... But the world knows! Pass the wine.

Where did I break off at? How bring Clive in? Oh, you mentioned "fear"! Just so: and, said I, that minds me of a story you shall hear.

We were friends then, Clive and I: so, when the clouds, about the orb Late supreme, encroaching slowly, surely, threatened to absorb Ray by ray its noontide brilliance,--friendship might, with steadier eye Drawing near, bear what had burned else, now no blaze--all majesty. Too much bee's-wing floats my figure? Well, suppose a castle 's new: None presume to climb its ramparts, none find foothold sure for shoe 'Twixt those squares and squares of granite plating the impervious pile As his scale-mail's warty iron cuirasses a crocodile. Reels that castle thunder-smitten, storm-dismantled? From without Scrambling up by crack and crevice, every cockney prates about Towers--the heap he kicks now! turrets--just the measure of his cane! Will that do? Observe moreover--(same similitude again)-- Such a castle seldom crumbles by sheer stress of cannonade: 'T is when foes are foiled and fighting 's finished that vile rains invade, Grass o'ergrows, o'ergrows till night-birds congregating find no holes Fit to build in like the topmost sockets made for banner-poles. So Clive crumbled slow in London, crashed at last.

A week before, Dining with him,--after trying churchyard chat of days of yore,-- Both of us stopped, tired as tombstones, headpiece, foot-piece, when they lean Each to other, drowsed in fog-smoke, o'er a coffined Past between. As I saw his head sink heavy, guessed the soul's extinguishment By the glazing eyeball, noticed how the furtive fingers went Where a drug-box skulked behind the honest liquor,--"One more throw Try for Clive!" thought I: "Let 's venture some good rattling question!" So-- "Come Clive, tell us"--out I blurted--"what to tell in turn, years hence, When my boy--suppose I have one--asks me on what evidence I maintain my friend of Plassy proved a warrior every whit Worth your Alexanders, Cæsars, Marlboroughs and--what said Pitt?-- Frederick the Fierce himself! Clive told me once"--I want to say-- "Which feat out of all those famous doings bore the bell away --In his own calm estimation, mark you, not the mob's rough guess-- Which stood foremost as evincing what Clive called courageousness! Come! what moment of the minute, what speck-centre in the wide Circle of the action saw your mortal fairly deified? (Let alone that filthy sleep-stuff, swallow bold this wholesome Port!) If a friend has leave to question,--when were you most brave, in short?"

Up he arched his brows o' the instant--formidably Clive again. "When was I most brave? I 'd answer, were the instance half as plain As another instance that 's a brain-lodged crystal --curse it!--here Freezing when my memory touches--ugh!--the time I felt most fear. Ugh! I cannot say for certain if I showed fear--anyhow, Fear I felt, and, very likely, shuddered, since I shiver now."

"Fear!" smiled I. "Well, that 's the rarer: that 's a specimen to seek, Ticket up in one's museum, Mind-Freaks, Lord Clive's Fear, Unique!"

Down his brows dropped. On the table painfully he pored as though Tracing, in the stains and streaks there, thoughts encrusted long ago. When he spoke 't was like a lawyer reading word by word some will, Some blind jungle of a statement,--beating on and on until Out there leaps fierce life to fight with.

"This fell in my factor-days. Desk-drudge, slaving at Saint David's, one must game, or drink, or craze. I chose gaming: and,--because your high-flown gamesters hardly take Umbrage at a factor's elbow if the factor pays his stake,-- I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice, Captain This and Major That, men high of color, loud of voice, Yet indulgent, condescending to the modest juvenile Who not merely risked but lost his hard-earned guineas with a smile.

"Down I sat to cards, one evening,--had for my antagonist Somebody whose name 's a secret--you 'll know why--so, if you list, Call him Cock o' the Walk, my scarlet son of Mars from head to heel! Play commenced: and, whether Cocky fancied that a clerk must feel Quite sufficient honor came of bending over one green baize, I the scribe with him the warrior, guessed no penman dared to raise Shadow of objection should the honor stay but playing end More or less abruptly,--whether disinclined he grew to spend Practice strictly scientific on a booby born to stare At--not ask of--lace-and-ruffles if the hand they hide plays fair,-- Anyhow, I marked a movement when he bade me 'Cut!'

"I rose. 'Such the new manœuvre, Captain? I'm a novice: knowledge grows. What, you force a card, you cheat, Sir?'

"Never did a thunder-clap Cause emotion, startle Thyrsis locked with Chloe in his lap, As my word and gesture (down I flung my cards to join the pack) Fired the man of arms, whose visage, simply red before, turned black.

When he found his voice, he stammered 'That expression once again!'

"'Well, you forced a card and cheated!'

"'Possibly a factor's brain, Busied with his all-important balance of accounts, may deem Weighing words superfluous trouble: cheat to clerkly ears may seem Just the joke for friends to venture: but we are not friends, you see! When a gentleman is joked with,--if he 's good at repartee, He rejoins, as do I--Sirrah, on your knees, withdraw in full! Beg my pardon, or be sure a kindly bullet through your skull Lets in light and teaches manner to what brain it finds! Choose quick-- Have your life snuffed out or, kneeling, pray me trim yon candle-wick!'

"'Well, you cheated!' "Then outbroke a howl from all the friends around. To his feet sprang each in fury, fists were clenched and teeth were ground. 'End it! no time like the present! Captain, yours were our disgrace! No delay, begin and finish! Stand back, leave the pair a space! Let civilians be instructed: henceforth simply ply the pen, Fly the sword! This clerk 's no swordsman? Suit him with a pistol, then! Even odds! A dozen paces 'twixt the most and least expert Make a dwarf a giant's equal: nay, the dwarf, if he 's alert, Likelier hits the broader target!'

"Up we stood accordingly. As they handed me the weapon, such was my soul's thirst to try Then and there conclusions with this bully, tread on and stamp out Every spark of his existence, that,--crept close to, curled about By that toying tempting teasing fool-forefinger's middle joint,-- Don't you guess?--the trigger yielded. Gone my chance! and at the point Of such prime success moreover: scarce an inch above his head Went my ball to hit the wainscot. He was living, I was dead.

"Up he marched in flaming triumph--'t was his right, mind!--up, within Just an arm's length. 'Now, my clerkling,' chuckled Cocky with a grin As the levelled piece quite touched me, 'Now, Sir Counting-House, repeat That expression which I told you proved bad manners! Did I cheat?'

"'Cheat you did, you knew you cheated, and, this moment, know as well. As for me, my homely breeding bids you--fire and go to Hell!'

"Twice the muzzle touched my forehead. Heavy barrel, flurried wrist, Either spoils a steady lifting. Thrice: then, 'Laugh at Hell who list, I can't! God 's no fable either. Did this boy's eye wink once? No! There 's no standing him and Hell and God all three against me,--so, I did cheat!'

"And down he threw the pistol, out rushed--by the door Possibly, but, as for knowledge if by chimney, roof or floor, He effected disappearance--I 'll engage no glance was sent That way by a single starer, such a blank astonishment Swallowed up their senses: as for speaking--mute they stood as mice.

"Mute not long, though! Such reaction, such a hubbub in a trice! 'Rogue and rascal! Who 'd have thought it? What 's to be expected next, When His Majesty's Commission serves a sharper as pretext For ... But where 's the need of wasting time now? Naught requires delay: Punishment the Service cries for: let disgrace be wiped away Publicly, in good broad daylight! Resignation? No, indeed! Drum and fife must play the Rogue's-March, rank and file be free to speed Tardy marching on the rogue's part by appliance in the rear --Kicks administered shall right this wronged civilian,--never fear, Mister Clive, for--though a clerk--you bore yourself--suppose we say-- Just as would beseem a soldier?

"'Gentlemen, attention--pray! First, one word!'

"I passed each speaker severally in review. When I had precise their number, names and styles, and fully knew Over whom my supervision thenceforth must extend,--why, then--

"'Some five minutes since, my life lay--as you all saw, gentlemen-- At the mercy of your friend there. Not a single voice was raised In arrest of judgment, not one tongue--before my powder blazed-- Ventured "Can it be the youngster blundered, really seemed to mark Some irregular proceeding? We conjecture in the dark, Guess at random,--still, for sake of fair play--what if for a freak, In a fit of absence,--such things have been!--if our friend proved weak --What 's the phrase?--corrected fortune! Look into the case, at least!" Who dared interpose between the altar's victim and the priest? Yet he spared me! You eleven! Whosoever, all or each, To the disadvantage of the man who spared me, utters speech --To his face, behind his back,--that speaker has to do with me: Me who promise, if positions change and mine the chance should be, Not to imitate your friend and waive advantage!'

"Twenty-five Years ago this matter happened: and 't is certain," added Clive, "Never, to my knowledge, did Sir Cocky have a single breath Breathed against him: lips were closed throughout his life, or since his death, For if he be dead or living I can tell no more than you. All I know is--Cocky had one chance more; how he used it,--grew Out of such unlucky habits, or relapsed, and back again Brought the late-ejected devil with a score more in his train,-- That 's for you to judge. Reprieval I procured, at any rate. Ugh--the memory of that minute's fear makes gooseflesh rise! Why prate Longer? You 've my story, there 's your instance: fear I did, you see!"

"Well"--I hardly kept from laughing--"if I see it, thanks must be Wholly to your Lordship's candor. Not that --in a common case-- When a bully caught at cheating thrusts a pistol in one's face, I should under-rate, believe me, such a trial to the nerve! 'T is no joke, at one-and-twenty, for a youth to stand nor swerve. Fear I naturally look for--unless, of all men alive, I am forced to make exception when I come to Robert Clive. Since at Arcot, Plassy, elsewhere, he and death--the whole world knows-- Came to somewhat closer quarters."

Quarters? Had we come to blows, Clive and I, you had not wondered--up he sprang so, out he rapped Such a round of oaths--no matter! I 'll endeavor to adapt To our modern usage words he--well, 't was friendly license--flung At me like so many fire-balls, fast as he could wag his tongue.

"You--a soldier? You--at Plassy? Yours the faculty to nick Instantaneously occasion when your foe, if lightning-quick, --At his mercy, at his malice,--has you, through some stupid inch Undefended in your bulwark? Thus laid open,--not to flinch --That needs courage, you 'll concede me. Then, look here! Suppose the man. Checking his advance, his weapon still extended, not a span Distant from my temple,--curse him!--quietly had bade me, 'There! Keep your life, calumniator!--worthless life I freely spare: Mine you freely would have taken--murdered me and my good fame Both at once--and all the better! Go, and thank your own bad aim Which permits me to forgive you!' What if, with such words as these, He had cast away his weapon? How should I have borne me, please? Nay, I 'll spare you pains and tell you. This, and only this, remained-- Pick his weapon up and use it on myself. If so had gained Sleep the earlier, leaving England probably to pay on still Rent and taxes for half India, tenant at the Frenchman's will."

"Such the turn," said I, "the matter takes with you? Then I abate --No, by not one jot nor tittle,--of your act my estimate. Fear--I wish I could detect there: courage fronts me, plain enough-- Call it desperation, madness--never mind! for here 's in rough Why, had mine been such a trial, fear had overcome disgrace. True, disgrace were hard to bear: but such a rush against God's face --None of that for me, Lord Plassy, since I go to church at times, Say the creed my mother taught me! Many years in foreign climes Rub some marks away--not all, though! We poor sinners reach life's brink, Overlook what rolls beneath it, recklessly enough, but think There 's advantage in what 's left us--ground to stand on, time to call 'Lord, have mercy!' ere we topple over--do not leap, that 's all!"

Oh, he made no answer, re-absorbed into his cloud. I caught Something like "Yes--courage: only fools will call it fear."

If aught Comfort you, my great unhappy hero Clive, in that I heard, Next week, how your own hand dealt you doom, and uttered just the word "Fearfully courageous!"--this, be sure, and nothing else I groaned. I 'm no Clive, nor parson either: Clive's worst deed--we 'll hope condoned.

MULÉYKEH

If a stranger passed the tent of Hóseyn, he cried "A churl's!" Or haply "God help the man who has neither salt nor bread!" --"Nay," would a friend exclaim, "he needs nor pity nor scorn More than who spends small thought on the shore-sand, picking pearls, --Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears instead On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of night makes morn.

"What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of Sinán? They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand camels the due, Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old. 'God gave them, let them go! But never since time began, Muléykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of you, And you are my prize, my Pearl: I laugh at men's land and gold!'

"So in the pride of his soul laughs Hóseyn--and right, I say. Do the ten steeds run a race of glory? Outstripping all, Ever Muléykeh stands first steed at the victor's staff. Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and named, that day. 'Silence,' or, last but one, is 'The Cuffed,' as we use to call Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, Hóseyn, I say, to laugh!"

"Boasts he Muléykeh the Pearl?" the stranger replies: "Be sure On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both On Duhl the son of Sheybán, who withers away in heart For envy of Hóseyn's luck. Such sickness admits no cure. A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same with an oath, 'For the vulgar--flocks and herds! The Pearl is a prize apart.'"

Lo, Duhl the son of Sheyban comes riding to Hoséyn's tent, And he casts his saddle down, and enters and "Peace!" bids he. "You are poor, I know the cause: my plenty shall mend the wrong. 'T is said of your Pearl--the price of a hundred camels spent In her purchase were scarce ill paid: such prudence is far from me Who proffer a thousand. Speak! Long parley may last too long."

Said Hóseyn, "You feed young beasts a many, of famous breed, Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true offspring of Múzennem: There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as it climbs the hill. But I love Muléykeh's face: her forefront whitens indeed Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your camels--go gaze on them! Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am the richer still."

A year goes by: lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl. "You are open-hearted, ay--moist-handed, a very prince. Why should I speak of sale? Be the mare your simple gift! My son is pined to death for her beauty: my wife prompts 'Fool, Beg for his sake the Pearl! Be God the rewarder, since God pays debts seven for one: who squanders on Him shows thrift,'"

Said Hóseyn, "God gives each man one life, like a lamp, then gives That lamp due measure of oil: lamp lighted--hold high, wave wide Its comfort for others to share! once quench it, what help is left? The oil of your lamp is your son: I shine while Muléykeh lives. Would I beg your son to cheer my dark if Muléykeh died? It is life against life: what good avails to the life-bereft?"

Another year, and--hist! What craft is it Duhl designs? He alights not at the door of the tent as he did last time, But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by the trench Half-round till he finds the flap in the folding, for night combines With the robber--and such is he: Duhl, covetous up to crime, Must wring from Hóseyn's grasp the Pearl, by whatever the wrench.

"He was hunger-bitten, I heard: I tempted with half my store, And a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous like Spring dew? Account the fault to me who chaffered with such an one! He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he rode: nay, more-- For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in two: I will beg! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my wife and son.

"I swear by the Holy House, my head will I never wash Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I tried, then guile, And now I resort to force. He said we must live or die: Let him die, then,--let me live: Be bold--but not too rash! I have found me a peeping-place: breast, bury your breathing while I explore for myself! Now, breathe! He deceived me not, the spy!

"As he said--there lies in peace Hóseyn--how happy! Beside Stands tethered the Pearl: thrice winds her headstall about his wrist: 'T is therefore he sleeps so sound--the moon through the roof reveals. And, loose on his left, stands too that other, known far and wide, Buhéyseh, her sister born: fleet is she yet ever missed The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the thunderous heels.

"No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, in case some thief Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I mean to do. What then? The Pearl is the Pearl: once mount her we both escape." Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl,--so a serpent disturbs no leaf In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest: clean through, He is noiselessly at his work: as he planned, he performs the rape.

He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, has clipped The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice bound as before, He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert like bolt from bow. Up starts our plundered man: from his breast though the heart be ripped, Yet his mind has the mastery: behold, in a minute more, He is out and off and away on Buhéyseh, whose worth we know!

And Hóseyn--his blood turns flame, he has learned long since to ride, And Buhéyseh does her part,--they gain--they are gaining fast On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Dárraj to cross and quit, And to reach the ridge El-Sabán,--no safety till that be spied! And Buhéyseh is, bound by bound, but a horse-length off at last, For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch of the bit.

She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider the strange and queer: Buhéyseh is mad with hope--beat sister she shall and must, Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she has to thank. She is near now, nose by tail--they are neck by croup--joy! fear! What folly makes Hóseyn shout "Dog Duhl, Damned son of the Dust, Touch the right ear and press with your foot my Pearl's left flank!"

And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muléykeh as prompt perceived Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was to obey, And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished forevermore. And Hóseyn looked one long last look as who, all bereaved, Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may: Then he turned Buhéyseh's neck slow homeward, weeping sore.

And, lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hóseyn upon the ground Weeping: and neighbors came, the tribesmen of Bénu-Asád In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned him of his grief; And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl had wound His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, so bad! And how Buhéyseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained with the thief.

And they jeered him, one and all: "Poor Hóseyn is crazed past hope! How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's spite? To have simply held the tongue were a task for boy or girl, And here were Muléykeh again, the eyed like an antelope, The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by night!"-- "And the beaten in speed!" wept Hóseyn. "You never have loved my Pearl."

PIETRO OF ABANO

Petrus Aponensis--there was a magician! When that strange adventure happened, which I mean to tell my hearers, Nearly had he tried all trades--beside physician, Architect, astronomer, astrologer,--or worse: How else, as the old books warrant, was he able, All at once, through all the world, to prove the promptest of appearers Where was prince to cure, tower to build as high as Babel, Star to name or sky-sign read,--yet pouch, for pains, a curse?

--Curse: for when a vagrant,--foot-sore, travel-tattered, Now a young man, now an old man, Turk or Arab, Jew or Gypsy,-- Proffered folk in passing--Oh, for pay, what mattered?-- "I 'll be doctor, I 'll play builder, star I 'll name--sign read!" Soon as prince was cured, tower built, and fate predicted, "Who may you be?" came the question; when he answered "_Petrus ipse_," "Just as we divined!" cried folk--"A wretch convicted Long ago of dealing with the devil---you indeed!"

So, they cursed him roundly, all his labor's payment, Motioned him--the convalescent prince would--to vacate the presence: Babylonians plucked his beard and tore his raiment, Drove him from that tower he built: while, had he peered at stars, Town howled "Stone the quack who styles our Dog-star--Sirius!" Country yelled "Aroint the churl who prophesies we take no pleasance Under vine and fig-tree, since the year 's delirious, Bears no crop of any kind,--all through the planet Mars!"

Straightway would the whilom youngster grow a grisard, Or, as case might hap, the hoary eld drop off" and show a stripling. Town and country groaned--indebted to a wizard! "Curse--nay, kick and cuff him--fit requital of his pains! Gratitude in word or deed were wasted truly! Rather make the Church amends by crying out on, cramping, crippling One who, on pretence of serving man, serves duly Man's arch foe: not ours, be sure, but Satan's--his the gains!"

Peter grinned and bore it, such disgraceful usage: Somehow, cuffs and kicks and curses seem ordained his like to suffer: Prophet's pay with Christians, now as in the Jews' age, Still is--stoning: so, he meekly took his wage and went, --Safe again was found ensconced in those old quarters, Padua's blackest blindest by-street,--none the worse, nay, somewhat tougher: "Calculating," quoth he, "soon I join the martyrs, Since, who magnify my lore on burning me are bent."[10]

Therefore, on a certain evening, to his alley Peter slunk, all bruised and broken, sore in body, sick in spirit, Just escaped from Cairo where he launched a galley Needing neither sails nor oars nor help of wind or tide, --Needing but the fume of fire to set a-flying Wheels like mad which whirled you quick--North, South, where'er you pleased require it,-- That is--would have done so had not priests come prying, Broke his engine up and bastinadoed him beside.

As he reached his lodging, stopped there unmolested, (Neighbors feared him, urchins fled him, few were bold enough to follow) While his fumbling fingers tried the lock and tested Once again the queer key's virtue, oped the sullen door,-- Some one plucked his sleeve, cried, "Master, pray your pardon! Grant a word to me who patient wait you in your archway's hollow! Hard on you men's hearts are: be not your heart hard on Me who kiss your garment's hem, O Lord of magic lore!

"Mage--say I, who no less, scorning tittle-tattle, To the vulgar give no credence when they prate of Peter's magic, Deem his art brews tempest, hurts the crops and cattle, Hinders fowls from laying eggs and worms from spinning silk, Rides upon a he-goat, mounts at need a broomstick: While the price he pays for this (so turns to comic what was tragic) Is--he may not drink--dreads like the Day of Doom's tick-- One poor drop of sustenance ordained mere men--that 's milk!

"Tell such tales to Padua! Think me no such dullard! Not from these benighted parts did I derive my breath and being! I am from a land whose cloudless skies are colored Livelier, suns orb largelier, airs seem incense,--while, on earth-- What, instead of grass, our fingers and our thumbs cull, Proves true moly! sounds and sights there help the body's hearing, seeing, Till the soul grows godlike: brief,--you front no numskull Shaming by ineptitude the Greece that gave him birth!

"Mark within my eye its iris mystic-lettered-- That 's my name! and note my ear--its swan-shaped cavity, my emblem! Mine 's the swan-like nature born to fly unfettered Over land and sea in search of knowledge--food for song. Art denied the vulgar! Geese grow fat on barley, Swans require ethereal provend, undesirous to resemble 'em-- Soar to seek Apollo--favored with a parley Such as, Master, you grant me--who will not hold you long.

"Leave to learn to sing--for that your swan petitions: Master, who possess the secret, say not nay to such a suitor! All I ask is--bless mine, purest of ambitions! Grant me leave to make my kind wise, free, and happy! How? Just by making me--as you are mine--their model! Geese have goose-thoughts: make a swan their teacher first, then coadjutor,-- Let him introduce swan-notions to each noddle,-- Geese will soon grow swans, and men become what I am now!

"That 's the only magic--had but fools discernment, Could they probe and pass into the solid through the soft and seeming! Teach me such true magic--now, and no adjournment! Teach your art of making fools subserve the man of mind! Magic is the power we men of mind should practice, Draw fools to become our drudges--docile henceforth, never dreaming-- While they do our hests for fancied gain--the fact is What they toil and moil to get proves falsehood: truth 's behind!

"See now! you conceive some fabric--say, a mansion Meet for monarch's pride and pleasure: this is truth--a thought has fired you, Made you fain to give some cramped concept expansion, Put your faculty to proof, fulfil your nature's task. First you fascinate the monarch's self: he fancies He it was devised the scheme you execute as he inspired you: He in turn sets slaving insignificances Toiling, moiling till your structure stands there--all you ask!

"Soon the monarch 's known for what he was--a ninny: Soon the rabble-rout leave labor, take their work-day wage and vanish: Soon the late puffed bladder, pricked, shows lank and skinny-- 'Who was its inflator?' ask we, 'whose the giant lungs' Petri en pulmones! What though men prove ingrates? Let them--so they stop at crucifixion--buffet, ban and banish! Peter's power's apparent: human praise--its din grates Harsh as blame on ear unused to aught save angels' tongues.

"Ay, there have been always, since our world existed, Mages who possessed the secret--needed but to stand still, fix eye On the foolish mortal: straight was he enlisted Soldier, scholar, servant, slave--no matter for the style! Only through illusion; ever what seemed profit-- Love or lucre--justified obedience to the Ipse dixi: Work done--palace reared from pavement up to soffit-- Was it strange if builders smelt out cheating all the while?

"Let them pelt and pound, bruise, bray you in a mortar! What 's the odds to you who seek reward of quite another nature? You 've enrolled your name where sages of your sort are, --Michael of Constantinople, Hans of Halberstadt! Nay and were you nameless, still you 've your conviction You it was and only you--what signifies the nomenclature?-- Ruled the world in fact, though how you ruled be fiction Fit for fools: true wisdom's magic you--if e'er man--had 't!

"But perhaps you ask me, 'Since each ignoramus While he profits by such magic persecutes the benefactor, What should I expect but--once I render famous You as Michael, Hans, and Peter--just one ingrate more? If the vulgar prove thus, whatsoe'er the pelf be, Pouched through my beneficence--and doom me dungeoned, chained, or racked, or Fairly burned outright--how grateful will yourself be When, his secret gained, you match your--master just before?'

"That 's where I await you! Please, revert a little! What do folk report about you if not this--which, though chimeric, Still, as figurative, suits you to a tittle-- That,--although the elements obey your nod and wink, Fades or flowers the herb you chance to smile or sigh at, While your frown bids earth quake palled by obscuration atmospheric,-- Brief, although through nature naught resists your fiat, There 's yet one poor substance mocks you--milk you may not drink!

"Figurative language! Take my explanation! Fame with fear, and hate with homage, these your art procures in plenty. All 's but daily dry bread: what makes moist the ration? Love, the milk that sweetens man his meal--alas, you lack: I am he who, since he fears you not, can love you. Love is born of heart not mind, de corde natus haud de mente; Touch my heart and love 's yours, sure as shines above you Sun by day and star by night though earth should go to wrack!

"Stage by stage you lift me--kiss by kiss I hallow Whose but your dear hand my helper, punctual as at each new impulse I approach my aim? Shell chipped, the eaglet callow Needs a parent's pinion-push to quit the eyrie's edge: But once fairly launched forth, denizen of ether, While each effort sunward bids the blood more freely through each limb pulse, Sure the parent feels, as gay they soar together, Fully are all pains repaid when love redeems its pledge!"

Then did Peter's tristful visage lighten somewhat, Vent a watery smile as though inveterate mistrust were thawing. "Well, who knows?" he slow broke silence. "Mortals--come what Come there may--are still the dupes of hope there 's luck in store. Many scholars seek me, promise mounts and marvels: Here stand I to witness how they step 'twixt me and clapper-clawing! Dry bread,--that I 've gained me: truly I should starve else: But of milk, no drop was mine! Well, shuffle cards once more!"

At the word of promise thus implied, our stranger-- What can he but cast his arms, in rapture of embrace, round Peter? "Hold! I choke!" the mage grunts. "Shall I in the manger Any longer play the dog? Approach, my calf, and feed! Bene ... won't you wait for grace?" But sudden incense Wool-white, serpent-solid, curled up--perfume growing sweet and sweeter Till it reached the young man's nose and seemed to win sense Soul and all from out his brain through nostril: yes, indeed!

Presently the young man rubbed his eyes. "Where am I? Too much bother over books! Some reverie has proved amusing. What did Peter prate of? 'Faith, my brow is clammy! How my head throbs, how my heart thumps! Can it be I swooned? Oh, I spoke my speech out--cribbed from Plato's tractate, Dosed him with 'the Fair and Good,' swore--Dog of Egypt--I was choosing Plato's way to serve men! What 's the hour? Exact eight! Home now, and to-morrow never mind how Plato mooned!

"Peter has the secret! Fair and Good are products (So he said) of Foul and Evil: one must bring to pass the other. Just as poisons grow drugs, steal through sundry odd ducts Doctors name, and ultimately issue safe and changed. You 'd abolish poisons, treat disease with dainties Such as suit the sound and sane? With all such kickshaws vain you pother! Arsenic 's the stuff puts force into the faint eyes, Opium sets the brain to rights--by cark and care deranged.

"What, he 's safe within door?--would escape--no question-- Thanks, since thanks and more I owe, and mean to pay in time befitting. What most presses now is--after night's digestion, Peter, of thy precepts!--promptest practice of the same. Let me see! The wise man, first of all, scorns riches: But to scorn them must obtain them: none believes in his permitting Gold to lie ungathered: who picks up, then pitches Gold away--philosophizes: none disputes his claim.

"So with worldly honors: 't is by abdicating, Incontestably he proves he could have kept the crown discarded. Sulla cuts a figure, leaving off dictating: Simpletons laud private life? 'The grapes are sour,' laugh we. So, again--but why continue? All 's tumultuous Here: my head 's a-whirl with knowledge. Speedily shall be rewarded He who taught me! Greeks prove ingrates? So insult you us? When your teaching bears its first-fruits, Peter--wait and see!"

As the word, the deed proved; ere a brief year's passage, Fop--that fool he made the jokes on--now he made the jokes for, gratis: Hunks--that hoarder, long left lonely in his crass age-- Found now one appreciative deferential friend: Powder-paint-and-patch, Hag Jezebel--recovered, Strange to say, the power to please, got courtship till she cried Jam satis! Fop be-flattered. Hunks be-friended, Hag be-lovered-- Nobody o'erlooked, save God--he soon attained his end.

As he lounged at ease one morning in his villa, (Hag's the dowry) estimated (Hunks' bequest) his coin in coffer, Mused on how a fool's good word (Fop's word) could fill a Social circle with his praise, promote him man of mark,-- All at once--"An old friend fain would see your Highness!" There stood Peter, skeleton and scarecrow, plain writ Phi-lo-so-pher In the woe-worn face--for yellowness and dryness, Parchment--with, a pair of eyes--one hope their feeble spark.

"Did I counsel rightly? Have you, in accordance, Prospered greatly, dear my pupil? Sure, at just the stage I find you, When your hand may draw me forth from the mad war-dance Savages are leading round your master--down, not dead. Padua wants to burn me: balk them, let me linger Life out--rueful though its remnant--hid in some safe hold behind you! Prostrate here I lie: quick, help with but a finger Lest I house in safety's self--a tombstone o'er my head!

"Lodging, bite and sup, with--now and then--a copper --Alms for any poorer still, if such there be,--is all my asking. Take me for your bedesman,--nay, if you think proper, Menial merely,--such my perfect passion for repose! Yes, from out your plenty Peter craves a pittance --Leave to thaw his frozen hands before the fire whereat you 're basking! Double though your debt were, grant this boon--remittance He proclaims of obligation: 't is himself that owes!"

"Venerated Master--can it be, such treatment Learning meets with, magic fails to guard you from, by all appearance? Strange! for, as you entered,--what the famous feat meant, I was full of,--why you reared that fabric, Padua's boast. Nowise for man's pride, man's pleasure, did you slyly Raise it, but man's seat of rule whereby the world should soon have clearance (Happy world) from such a rout as now so vilely Handles you--and hampers me, for which I grieve the most.

"Since if it got wind you now were my familiar, How could I protect you--nay, defend myself against the rabble? Wait until the mob, now masters, willy-nilly are Servants as they should be: then has gratitude full play! Surely this experience shows how unbefitting 'T is that minds like mine should rot in ease and plenty. Geese may gabble, Gorge, and keep the ground: but swans are soon for quitting Earthly fare--as fain would I, your swan, if taught the way.

"Teach me, then, to rule men, have them at my pleasure! Solely for their good, of course,--impart a secret worth rewarding, Since the proper life's--prize! Tantalus's treasure Aught beside proves, vanishes, and leaves no trace at all. Wait awhile, nor press for payment prematurely! Over-haste defrauds you. Thanks! since,--even while I speak,--discarding Sloth and vain delights, I learn how--swiftly, surely-- Magic sways the sceptre, wears the crown and wields the ball!

"Gone again--what, is he? 'Faith, he 's soon disposed of! Peter's precepts work already, put within my lump their leaven! Ay, we needs must don glove would we pluck the rose--doff Silken garment would we climb the tree and take its fruit. Why sharp thorn, rough rind? To keep unviolated Either prize! We garland us, we mount from earth to feast in heaven, Just because exist what once we estimated Hindrances which, better taught, as helps we now compute.

"Foolishly I turned disgusted from my fellows! Pits of ignorance--to fill, and heaps of prejudice--to level-- Multitudes in motley, whites and blacks and yellows-- What a hopeless task it seemed to discipline the host! Now I see my error. Vices act like virtues --Not alone because they guard--sharp thorns--the rose we first dishevel, Not because they scrape, scratch--rough rind--through the dirt-shoes Bare feet cling to bole with, while the half-mooned boot we boast.

"No, my aim is nobler, more disinterested! Man shall keep what seemed to thwart him, since it proves his true assistance, Leads to ascertaining which head is the best head, Would he crown his body, rule its members--lawless else. Ignorant the horse stares, by deficient vision Takes a man to be a monster, lets him mount, then, twice the distance Horse could trot unridden, gallops--dream Elysian!-- Dreaming that his dwarfish guide's a giant,--jockeys tell 's."

Brief, so worked the spell, he promptly had a riddance: Heart and brain no longer felt the pricks which passed for conscience-scruples: Free henceforth his feet,--Per Bacco, how they did dance Merrily through lets and checks that stopped the way before! Politics the prize now,--such adroit adviser. Opportune suggester, with the tact that triples and quadruples Merit in each measure,--never did the Kaiser Boast as subject such a statesman, friend, and something more!

As he, up and down, one noonday, paced his closet --Council o'er, each spark (his hint) blown flame, by colleagues' breath applauded, Strokes of statecraft hailed with "Salomo si nôsset!" (His the nostrum)--every throw for luck come double-six,-- As he, pacing, hugged himself in satisfaction, Thump--the door went. "What, the Kaiser? By none else were I defrauded Thus of well-earned solace. Since 't is fate's exaction,-- Enter, Liege my Lord! Ha, Peter, you here? Teneor vix!"

"Ah, Sir, none the less, contain you, nor wax irate! You so lofty, I so lowly,--vast the space which yawns between us! Still, methinks, you--more than ever--at a high rate Needs must prize poor Peter's secret since it lifts you thus. Grant me now the boon whereat before you boggled! Ten long years your march has moved--one triumph--(though e 's short)--hactēnus, While I down and down disastrously have joggled Till I pitch against Death's door, the true Nec Ultra Plus.

"Years ago--some ten 't is--since I sought for shelter, Craved in your whole house a closet, out of all your means a comfort. Now you soar above these: as is gold to spelter So is power--you urged with reason--paramount to wealth. Power you boast in plenty: let it grant me refuge! House-room now is out of question: find for me some stronghold--some fort-- Privacy wherein, immured, shall this blind deaf huge Monster of a mob let stay the soul I 'd save by stealth!

"Ay, for all too much with magic have I tampered! --Lost the world, and gained, I fear, a certain place I 'm to describe loth! Still, if prayer and fasting tame the pride long pampered, Mercy may be mine: amendment never comes too late. How can I amend beset by cursers, kickers? Pluck this brand from out the burning! Once away, I take my Bible-oath, Never more--so long as life's weak lamp-flame flickers-- No, not once I 'll tease you, but in silence bear my fate!"

"Gently, good my Genius, Oracle unerring! Strange now! can you guess on what--as in you peeped--it was I pondered? You and I are both of one mind in preferring Power to wealth, but--here 's the point--what sort of power, I ask? Ruling men is vulgar, easy, and ignoble: Rid yourself of conscience, quick you have at beck and call the fond herd. But who wields the crozier, down may fling the crow-bill: That 's the power I covet now; soul's sway o'er souls--my task!

"'Well but,' you object, 'you have it, who by glamour Dress up lies to look like truths, mask folly in the garb of reason: Your soul acts on theirs, sure, when the people clamor, Hold their peace, now fight now fondle,--earwigged through the brains.' Possibly! but still the operation 's mundane, Grosser than a taste demands which--craving manna--kecks at peason-- Power o'er men by wants material: why should one deign Rule by sordid hopes and fears--a grunt for all one's pains?

"No, if men must praise me, let them praise to purpose! Would we move the world, not earth but heaven must be our fulcrum--pou sto! Thus I seek to move it: Master, why intérpose-- Balk my climbing close on what 's the ladder's topmost round? Statecraft 't is I step from: when by priestcraft hoisted Up to where my foot may touch the highest rung which fate allows toe, Then indeed ask favor. On you shall be foisted No excuse: I 'll pay my debt, each penny of the pound!

"Ho, my knaves without there! Lead this worthy downstairs! No farewell, good Paul--nay, Peter--what 's your name remembered rightly? Come, he 's humble: out another would have flounced--airs Suitors often give themselves when our sort bow them forth. Did I touch his rags? He surely kept his distance: Yet, there somehow passed to me from him--where'er the virtue might lie-- Something that inspires my soul--Oh, by assistance Doubtlessly of Peter!--still, he 's worth just what he 's worth!

"'T is my own soul soars now: soaring--how? By crawling! I 'll to Rome, before Rome's feet the temporal-supreme lay prostrate! 'Hands' (I 'll say) 'proficient once in pulling, hauling This and that way men as I was minded--feet now clasp!' Ay, the Kaiser's self has wrung them in his fervor! Now--they only sue to slave for Rome, nor at one doit the cost rate. Rome's adopted child--no bone, no muscle, nerve or Sinew of me but I 'll strain, though out my life I gasp!"

As he stood one evening proudly--(he had traversed Rome on horseback--peerless pageant!--claimed the Lateran as new Pope)-- Thinking "All 's attained now! Pontiff! Who could have erst Dreamed of my advance so far when, some ten years ago, I embraced devotion, grew from priest to bishop, Gained the Purple, bribed the Conclave, got the Two-thirds, saw my coop ope, Came out--what Rome hails me! O were there a wish-shop, Not one wish more would I purchase--lord of all below!

"Ha--who dares intrude now--puts aside the arras? What, old Peter, here again, at such a time, in such a presence? Satan sends this plague back merely to embarrass Me who enter on my office--little needing you! 'Faith, I 'm touched myself by age, but you look Tithon! Were it vain to seek of you the sole prize left--rejuvenescence? Well, since flesh is grass which time must lay his scythe on, Say your say and so depart and make no more ado!"

Peter faltered--coughing first by way of prologue-- "Holiness, your help comes late: a death at ninety little matters. Padua, build poor Peter's pyre now, on log roll log, Burn away--I 've lived my day! Yet here 's the sting in death-- I 've an author's pride: I want my Book's survival: See, I 've hid it in my breast to warm me 'mid the rags and tatters! Save it--tell next age your Master had no rival! Scholar's debt discharged in full, be 'Thanks' my latest breath!"

"Faugh, the frowsy bundle--scribblings harum-scarum Scattered o'er a dozen sheepskins! What 's the name of this farrago? Ha--'Conciliator Differentiarum'-- Man and book may burn together, cause the world no loss! Stop--what else? A tractate--eh, 'De Speciebus Ceremonialis Ma-gi-æ?' I dream sure! Hence, away, go, Wizard,--quick avoid me! Vain you clasp my knee, buss Hand that bears the Fisher's ring or foot that boasts the Cross!

"Help! The old magician clings like an octopus! Ah, you rise now--fuming, fretting, frowning, if I read your features! Frown, who cares? We 're Pope--once Pope, you can't unpope us! Good--you muster up a smile: that 's better! Still so brisk? All at once grown youthful? But the case is plain! Ass-- Here I dally with the fiend, yet know the Word--compels all creatures Earthly, heavenly, hellish. Apage, Sathanas Dicam verbum Salomonis--" "dicite!" When--whisk!--

What was changed? The stranger gave his eyes a rubbing: There smiled Peter's face turned back a moment at him o'er the shoulder, As the black-door shut, bang! "So he 'scapes a drubbing!" (Quoth a boy who, unespied, had stopped to hear the talk.) "That 's the way to thank these wizards when they bid men Benedicite! What ails you? You, a man, and yet no bolder? Foreign Sir, you look but foolish!" "Idmen, idmen!" Groaned the Greek. "O Peter, cheese at last I know from chalk!"

Peter lived his life out, menaced yet no martyr, Knew himself the mighty man he was--such knowledge all his guerdon, Left the world a big book--people but in part err When they style a true Scientiæ Com-pen-di-um: "Admirationem incutit" they sourly Smile, as fast they shut the folio which myself was somehow spurred on Once to ope: but love--life's milk which daily, hourly, Blockheads lap--O Peter, still thy taste of love 's to come!

Greek, was your ambition likewise doomed to failure? True, I find no record you wore purple, walked with axe and fasces, Played some antipope's part: still, friend, don't turn tail, you 're Certain, with but these two gifts, to gain earth's prize in time! Cleverness uncurbed by conscience--if you ransacked Peter's book you 'd find no potent spell like these to rule the masses; Nor should want example, had I not to transact Other business. Go your ways, you 'll thrive! So ends my rhyme.

* * * * *

When these parts Tiberius--not yet Cæsar--travelled, Passing Padua, he consulted Padua's Oracle of Geryon (God three-headed, thrice wise) just to get unravelled Certain tangles of his future. "Fling at Abano Golden dice," it answered: "dropt within the fount there, Note what sum the pips present!" And still we see each die, the very one, Turn up, through the crystal,--read the whole account there Where 't is told by Suetonius,--each its highest throw.

Scarce the sportive fancy-dice I fling show "Venus:" Still--for love of that dear land which I so oft in dreams revisit-- I have--oh, not sung! but lilted (as--between us-- Grows my lazy custom) this its legend. What the lilt?

[Music]

DOCTOR ----

A Rabbi told me: On the day allowed Satan for carping at God's rule, he came, Fresh from our earth, to brave the angel-crowd.

"What is the fault now?" "This I find to blame: Many and various are the tongues below, Yet all agree in one speech, all proclaim

"'Hell has no might to match what earth, can show: Death is the strongest-born of Hell, and yet Stronger than Death is a Bad Wife, we know.'

"Is it a wonder if I fume and fret-- Robbed of my rights, since Death am I, and mine The style of Strongest? Men pay Nature's debt

"Because they must at my demand; decline To pay it henceforth surely men will please, Provided husbands with bad wives combine

"To baffle Death. Judge between me and these!" "Thyself shalt judge. Descend to earth in shape Of mortal, marry, drain from froth to lees

"The bitter draught, then see if thou escape Concluding, with men sorrowful and sage, A Bad Wife's strength Death's self in vain would ape!"

How Satan entered on his pilgrimage, Conformed himself to earthly ordinance, Wived and played husband well from youth to age

Intrepidly--I leave untold, advance Through many a married year until I reach A day when--of his father's countenance

The very image, like him too in speech As well as thought and deed,--the union's fruit Attained maturity. "I needs must teach

"My son a trade: but trade, such son to suit, Needs seeking after. He a man of war? Too cowardly! A lawyer wins repute--

"Having to toil and moil, though--both which are Beyond this sluggard. There 's Divinity: No, that 's my own bread-winner--that be far

"From my poor offspring! Physic? Ha, we 'll try If this be practicable. Where 's my wit? Asleep?--since, now I come to think ... Ay, ay!

"Hither, my son! Exactly have I hit On a profession for thee. Medicus-- Behold, thou art appointed! Yea, I spit

"Upon thine eyes, bestow a virtue thus That henceforth not this human form I wear Shalt thou perceive alone, but--one of us

"By privilege--thy fleshly sight shall bear Me in my spirit-person as I walk The world and take my prey appointed there.

"Doctor once dubbed--what ignorance shall balk Thy march triumphant? Diagnose the gout As colic, and prescribe it cheese for chalk--

"No matter! All 's one: cure shall come about And win thee wealth--fees paid with such a roar Of thanks and praise alike from lord and lout

"As never stunned man's ears on earth before. 'How may this be?' Why, that 's my skeptic! Soon Truth will corrupt thee, soon thou doubt'st no more!

"Why is it I bestow on thee the boon Of recognizing me the while I go Invisibly among men, morning, noon,

"And night, from house to house, and--quick or slow-- Take my appointed prey? They summon thee For help, suppose: obey the summons! so!

"Enter, look round! Where 's Death? Know--I am he, Satan who work all evil: I who bring Pain to the patient in whate'er degree.

"I, then, am there: first glance thine eye shall fling Will find me--whether distant or at hand, As I am free to do my spiriting.

"At such mere first glance thou shalt understand Wherefore I reach no higher up the room Than door or window, when my form is scanned.

"Howe'er friends' faces please to gather gloom, Bent o'er the sick,--howe'er himself desponds,-- In such case Death is not the sufferer's doom.

"Contrariwise, do friends rejoice my bonds Are broken, does the captive in his turn Crow 'Life shall conquer'? Nip these foolish fronds

"Of hope a-sprout, if haply thou discern Me at the head--my victim's head, be sure! Forth now! This taught thee, little else to learn!"

And forth he went. Folk heard him ask demure, "How do you style this ailment? (There he peeps, My father through the arras!) Sirs, the cure

"Is plain as A B C! Experience steeps Blossoms of pennyroyal half an hour In sherris. Sumat!--Lo, how sound he sleeps--

"The subject you presumed was past the power Of Galen to relieve!" Or else, "How 's this? Why call for help so tardily? Clouds lour

"Portentously indeed, Sirs! (Naught 's amiss: He 's at the bed-foot merely.) Still, the storm May pass averted--not by quacks, I wis,

"Like you, my masters! You, forsooth, perform A miracle? Stand, sciolists, aside! Blood, ne'er so cold, at ignorance grows warm!"

Which boasting by result was justified, Big as might words be: whether drugged or left Drugless, the patient always lived, not died.

Great the heir's gratitude, so nigh bereft Of all he prized in this world: sweet the smile Of disconcerted rivals: "Cure?--say, theft

"From Nature in despite of Art--so style This off-hand kill-or-cure work! You did much, I had done more: folk cannot wait awhile!"

But did the case change? was it--"Scarcely such The symptoms as to warrant our recourse To your skill, Doctor! Yet since just a touch

"Of pulse, a taste of breath, has all the force With you of long investigation claimed By others,--tracks an ailment to its source

"Intuitively,--may we ask unblamed What from this pimple you prognosticate?" "Death!" was the answer, as he saw and named

The coucher by the sick man's head. "Too late You send for my assistance. I am bold Only by Nature's leave, and bow to Fate!

"Besides, you have my rivals: lavish gold! How comfortably quick shall life depart Cosseted by attentions manifold!

"One day, one hour ago, perchance my art Had done some service. Since you have yourselves Chosen--before the horse--to put the cart,

"Why, Sirs, the sooner that the sexton delves Your patient's grave the better! How you stare --Shallow, for all the deep books on your shelves!

"Fare you well, fumblers!" Do I need declare What name and fame, what riches recompensed The Doctor's practice? Never anywhere

Such an adept as daily evidenced Each new vaticination! Oh, not he Like dolts who dallied with their scruples, fenced

With subterfuge, nor gave out frank and free Something decisive! If he said "I save The patient," saved he was: if "Death will be

"His portion," you might count him dead. Thus brave, Behold our worthy, sans competitor Throughout the country, on the architrave

Of Glory's temple golden-lettered for Machaon redivivus! So, it fell That, of a sudden, when the Emperor

Was smit by sore disease, I need not tell If any other Doctor's aid was sought To come and forthwith make the sick Prince well.

"He will reward thee as a monarch ought. Not much imports the malady; but then, He clings to life and cries like one distraught

"For thee--who, from a simple citizen, Mayst look to rise in rank,--nay, haply wear A medal with his portrait,--always when

"Recovery is quite accomplished. There! Pass to the presence!" Hardly has he crossed The chamber's threshold when he halts, aware

Of who stands sentry by the head. All 's lost. "Sire, naught avails my art: you near the goal, And end the race by giving up the ghost."

"How?" cried the monarch: "Names upon your roll Of half my subjects rescued by your skill-- Old and young, rich and poor--crowd cheek by jowl

"And yet no room for mine? Be saved I will! Why else am I earth's foremost potentate? Add me to these and take as fee your fill

"Of gold--that point admits of no debate Between us: save me, as you can and must,-- Gold, till your gown's pouch cracks beneath the weight!"

This touched the Doctor. "Truly a home-thrust, Parent, you will not parry! Have I dared Entreat that you forego the meal of dust

"--Man that is snake's meat--when I saw prepared Your daily portion? Never! Just this once, Go from his head, then,--let his life be spared!"

Whisper met whisper in the gruff response; "Fool, I must have my prey: no inch I budge From where thou see'st me thus myself ensconce."

"Ah," moaned the sufferer, "by thy look I judge Wealth fails to tempt thee: what if honors prove More efficacious? Naught to him I grudge

"Who saves me. Only keep my head above The cloud that 's creeping round it--I 'll divide My empire with thee! No? What 's left but--love?

"Does love allure thee? Well then, take as bride My only daughter, fair beyond belief! Save me--to-morrow shall the knot be tied!"

"Father, you hear him! Respite ne'er so brief Is all I beg: go now and come again Next day, for aught I care: respect the grief

"Mine will be if thy first-born sues in vain!" "Fool, I must have my prey!" was all he got In answer. But a fancy crossed his brain.

"I have it! Sire, methinks a meteor shot Just now across the heavens and neutralized Jove's salutary influence: 'neath the blot

"Plumb are you placed now: well that I surmised The cause of failure! Knaves, reverse the bed!" "Stay!" groaned the monarch, "I shall be capsized--

"Jolt--jolt--my heels uplift where late my head Was lying--sure I 'm turned right round at last! What do you say now, Doctor?" Naught he said,

For why? With one brisk leap the Antic passed From couch-foot back to pillow,--as before, Lord of the situation. Long aghast

The Doctor gazed, then "Yet one trial more Is left me" inwardly he uttered. "Shame Upon thy flinty heart! Do I implore

"This trifling favor in the idle name Of mercy to the moribund? I plead The cause of all thou dost affect: my aim

"Befits my author! Why would I succeed? Simply that by success I may promote The growth of thy pet virtues--pride and greed.

"But keep thy favors!--curse thee! I devote Henceforth my service to the other side. No time to lose: the rattle 's in his throat.

"So,--not to leave one last resource untried,-- Run to my house with all haste, somebody! Bring me that knobstick thence, so often plied

"With profit by the astrologer--shall I Disdain its help, the mystic Jacob's-Staff? Sire, do but have the courage not to die

"Till this arrive! Let none of you dare laugh! Though rugged its exterior, I have seen That implement work wonders, send the chaff

"Quick and thick flying from the wheat--I mean, By metaphor, a human sheaf it threshed Flail-like. Go fetch it! Or--a word between

Just you and me, friend!--go bid, unabashed, My mother, whom you 'll find there, bring the stick Herself--herself, mind!" Out the lackey dashed

Zealous upon the errand. Craft and trick Are meat and drink to Satan: and he grinned --How else?--at an excuse so politic

For failure: scarce would Jacob's-Staff rescind Fate's firm decree! And ever as he neared The agonizing one, his breath like wind

Froze to the marrow, while his eye-flash seared Sense in the brain up: closelier and more close Pressing his prey, when at the door appeared

--Who but his Wife the Bad? Whereof one dose, One grain, one mite of the medicament, Sufficed him. Up he sprang. One word, too gross

To soil my lips with,--and through ceiling went Somehow the Husband. "That a storm 's dispersed We know for certain by the sulphury scent!

"Hail to the Doctor! Who but one so versed In all Dame Nature's secrets had prescribed The staff thus opportunely? Style him first

"And foremost of physicians!" "I've imbibed Elixir surely," smiled the prince,--"have gained New lease of life. Dear Doctor, how you bribed

"Death to forego me, boots not: you 've obtained My daughter and her dowry. Death, I 've heard, Was still on earth the strongest power that reigned,

"Except a Bad Wife!" Whereunto demurred Nowise the Doctor, so refused the fee --No dowry, no bad wife!

"You think absurd This tale?"--the Rabbi added: "True, our Talmud Boasts sundry such: yet--have our elders erred In thinking there 's some water there, not all mud?" I tell it, as the Rabbi told it me.

PAN AND LUNA

Si credere dignum est.--Georgic, III. 390.

Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was, Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines! No question, that adventure came to pass One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines, Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines, The sky's embrace,--below, above, around, All hardened into black without a bound.

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice: See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim, Turns marble to the touch of who would loose The solid smooth, grown jet from rim to rim, By turning round the bowl! So night can fuse Earth with her all-comprising sky. No less. Light, the least spark, shows air and emptiness.

And thus it proved when--diving into space, Stript of all vapor, from each web of mist Utterly film-free--entered on her race The naked Moon, full-orbed antagonist Of night and dark, night's dowry: peak to base, Upstarted mountains, and each valley, kissed To sudden life, lay silver-bright: in air Flew she revealed, Maid-Moon with limbs all bare.

Still as she fled, each depth--where refuge seemed-- Opening a lone pale chamber, left distinct Those limbs: 'mid still-retreating blue, she teemed Herself with whiteness,--virginal, uncinct By any halo save what finely gleamed To outline not disguise her: heaven was linked In one accord with earth to quaff the joy, Drain beauty to the dregs without alloy.

Whereof she grew aware. What help? When, lo, A succorable cloud with sleep lay dense: Some pinetree-top had caught it sailing slow, And tethered for a prize: in evidence Captive lay fleece on fleece of piled-up snow Drowsily patient: flake-heaped how or whence, The structure of that succorable cloud, What matter? Shamed she plunged into its shroud.

Orbed--so the woman-figure poets call Because of rounds on rounds--that apple-shaped Head which its hair binds close into a ball Each side the curving ears--that pure undraped Pout of the sister paps--that ... Once for all, Say--her consummate circle thus escaped With its innumerous circlets, sank absorbed, Safe in the cloud--O naked Moon full-orbed!

But what means this? The downy swathes combine, Conglobe, the smothery coy-caressing stuff Curdles about her! Vain each twist and twine Those lithe limbs try, encroached on by a fluff Fitting as close as fits the dented spine Its flexible ivory outside-flesh: enough! The plumy drifts contract, condense, constringe, Till she is swallowed by the feathery springe.

As when a pearl slips lost in the thin foam Churned on a sea-shore, and, o'er-frothed, conceits Herself safe-housed in Amphitrite's dome,-- If, through the bladdery wave-worked yeast, she meets What most she loathes and leaps from,--elf from gnome No gladlier,--finds that safest of retreats Bubble about a treacherous hand wide ope To grasp her--(divers who pick pearls so grope)--

So lay this Maid-Moon clasped around and caught By rough red Pan, the god of all that tract: He it was schemed the snare thus subtly wrought With simulated earth-breath,--wool-tufts packed Into a billowy wrappage. Sheep far-sought For spotless shearings yield such: take the fact As learned Virgil gives it,--how the breed Whitens itself forever: yes, indeed!

If one forefather ram, though pure as chalk From tinge on fleece, should still display a tongue Black 'neath the beast's moist palate, prompt men balk The propagating plague: he gets no young: They rather slay him,--sell his hide to calk Ships with, first steeped in pitch,--nor hands are wrung In sorrow for his fate: protected thus, The purity we love is gained for us.

So did Girl-Moon, by just her attribute Of unmatched modesty betrayed, lie trapped, Bruised to the breast of Pan, half god half brute, Raked by his bristly boar-sward while he lapped --Never say, kissed her! that were to pollute Love's language--which moreover proves unapt To tell now she recoiled--as who finds thorns Where she sought flowers--when, feeling, she touched--horns!

Then--does the legend say?--first moon-eclipse Happened, first swooning-fit which puzzled sore The early sages? Is that why she dips Into the dark, a minute and no more, Only so long as serves her while she rips The cloud's womb through and, faultless as before, Pursues her way? No lesson for a maid Left she, a maid herself thus trapped, betrayed?

Ha, Virgil? Tell the rest, you! "To the deep Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith Called her, and so she followed"--in her sleep, Surely?--"by no means spurning him." The myth Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep --As of a ruin just a monolith-- Thus much, one verse of five words, each a boon: Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon.

* * * * *

The first ten lines that follow were printed as epilogue to the second series of Dramatic Idyls; the second ten were added to them by Browning in the album of a young American girl in Venice, October, 1880. See The Century for November, 1882.

"Touch him ne'er so lightly, into song he broke: Soil so quick-receptive,--not one feather-seed, Not one flower-dust fell but straight its fall awoke Vitalizing virtue: song would song succeed Sudden as spontaneous--prove a poet-soul!" Indeed? Rock's the song-soil rather, surface hard and bare: Sun and dew their mildness, storm and frost their rage Vainly both expend,--few flowers awaken there: Quiet in its cleft broods--what the after-age Knows and names a pine, a nation's heritage.

* * * * *

Thus I wrote in London, musing on my betters, Poets dead and gone; and lo, the critics cried, "Out on such a boast!" as if I dreamed that fetters Binding Dante bind up--me! as if true pride Were not also humble! So I smiled and sighed As I oped your book in Venice this bright morning, Sweet new friend of mine! and felt the clay or sand, Whatsoe'er my soil be, break--for praise or scorning-- Out in grateful fancies--weeds; but weeds expand Almost into flowers, held by such a kindly hand.

THE BLIND MAN TO THE MAIDEN

Browning translated the following from a German poem in Wilhelmine von Hillern's novel The Hour Will Come at the request of Mrs. Clara Bell, the translator of the novel. It there appeared as the work of an anonymous friend, but was reprinted as Browning's in The Whitehall Review for March 1, 1883.

The blind man to the maiden said, "O thou of hearts the truest, Thy countenance is hid from me; Let not my question anger thee! Speak, though in words the fewest.

"Tell me, what kind of eyes are thine? Dark eyes, or light ones rather?" "My eyes are a decided brown-- So much, at least, by looking down, From the brook's glass I gather."

"And is it red--thy little month? That too the blind must care for." "Ah! I would tell it soon to thee, Only--none yet has told it me. I cannot answer, therefore.

"But dost thou ask what heart I have-- There hesitate I never. In thine own breast 't is borne, and so 'T is thine in weal, and thine in woe, For life, for death--thine ever!"

GOLDONI

The following sonnet was written by Browning for the album of the Committee of the Goldoni monument, erected in Venice in 1883.

Goldoni--good, gay, sunniest of souls,-- Glassing half Venice in that verse of thine,-- What though it just reflect the shade and shine Of common life, nor render, as it rolls, Grandeur and gloom? Sufficient for thy shoals Was Carnival; Parini's depths enshrine Secrets unsuited to that opaline Surface of things which laughs along thy scrolls. There throng the people: how they come and go, Lisp the soft language, flaunt the bright garb,--see,-- On Piazza, Calle, under Portico And over Bridge! Dear king of Comedy, Be honored! thou that didst love Venice so, Venice, and we who love her, all love thee!

VENICE, November 27, 1883.

JOCOSERIA

This collection of poems was published in 1883. The title of the volume is mentioned in a foot-note to the Note at the end of Paracelsus, where the poet speaks of "such rubbish as Melander's Jocoseria." In a letter, accompanying a copy of the volume, sent to a friend, Browning wrote: "The title is taken from the work of Melander (Schwartzmann), reviewed, by a curious coincidence, in the Blackwood of this month [February, 1883]. I referred to it in a note to Paracelsus. The two Hebrew quotations [in the note to Jochanan Hakkadosh] (put in to give a grave look to what is mere fun and invention) being translated amount to (1) 'A Collection of Lies'; and (2), an old saying, 'From Moses to Moses arose none like Moses.'"

WANTING IS--WHAT?

This is in the nature of a prelude to the entire group of poems.

Wanting is--what? Summer redundant, Blueness abundant, --Where is the blot? Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, --Framework which waits for a picture to frame: What of the leafage, what of the flower? Roses embowering with naught they embower! Come then, complete incompletion, O comer, Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer! Breathe but one breath Rose-beauty above, And all that was death Grows life, grows love, Grows love!

DONALD

This story which Browning had from the lips of the hero has also been told in prose by Sir Walter Scott.

"Will you hear my story also, --Huge Sport, brave adventure in plenty?" The boys were a band from Oxford, The oldest of whom was twenty.

The bothy we held carouse in Was bright with fire and candle; Tale followed tale like a merry-go-round Whereof Sport turned the handle.

In our eyes and noses--turf-smoke: In our ears a tune from the trivet, Whence "Boiling, boiling," the kettle sang, "And ready for fresh Glenlivet."

So, feat capped feat, with a vengeance: Truths, though,--the lads were loyal: Grouse, five-score brace to the bag! Deer, ten hours' stalk of the Royal!"

Of boasting, not one bit, boys! Only there seemed to settle Somehow above your curly heads, --Plain through the singing kettle,

Palpable through the cloud, As each new-puffed Havana Rewarded the teller's well-told tale,-- This vaunt "To Sport--Hosanna!

"Hunt, fish, shoot, Would a man fulfil life's duty! Not to the bodily frame alone Does Sport give strength and beauty,

"But character gains in--courage? Ay, Sir, and much beside it! You don't sport, more 's the pity; You soon would find, if you tried it,

"Good sportsman means good fellow, Sound-hearted he, to the centre; Your mealy-mouthed mild milksops --There 's where the rot can enter!

"There 's where the dirt will breed, The shabbiness Sport would banish! Oh no, Sir, no! In your honored case All such objections vanish.

"'T is known how hard you studied: A Double-First--what, the jigger! Give me but half your Latin and Greek, I 'll never again touch trigger!

"Still, tastes are tastes, allow me! Allow, too, where there 's keenness For Sport, there 's little likelihood Of a man's displaying meanness!"

So, put on my mettle, I interposed. "Will you hear my story?" quoth I. Never mind how long since it happed, I sat, as we sit, in a bothy;

"With as merry a band of mates, too, Undergrads all on a level: (One 's a Bishop, one 's gone to the Bench, And one's gone--well, to the Devil.)

"When, lo, a scratching and tapping! In hobbled a ghastly visitor. Listen to just what he told us himself --No need of our playing inquisitor!"

* * * * *

Do you happen to know in Ross-shire Mount Ben ... but the name scarce matters: Of the naked fact I am sure enough, Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.

You may recognize Ben by description; Behind him--a moor's immenseness: Up goes the middle mount of a range, Fringed with its firs in denseness.

Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind! For an edge there is, though narrow; From end to end of the range, a strip Of path runs straight as an arrow.

And the mountaineer who takes that path Saves himself miles of journey He has to plod if he crosses the moor Through heather, peat, and burnie.

But a mountaineer he needs must be, For, look you, right in the middle Projects bluff Ben--with an end in ich-- Why planted there, is a riddle:

Since all Ben's brothers little and big Keep rank, set shoulder to shoulder, And only this burliest out must bulge Till it seems--to the beholder

From down in the gully,--as if Ben's breast, To a sudden spike diminished, Would signify to the boldest foot "All further passage finished!"

Yet the mountaineer who sidles on And on to the very bending, Discovers, if heart and brain be proof, No necessary ending.

Foot up, foot down, to the turn abrupt Having trod, he, there arriving, Finds--what he took for a point was breadth, A mercy of Nature's contriving.

So, he rounds what, when 't is reached, proves straight, From one side gains the other: The wee path widens--resume the march, And he foils you, Ben my brother!

But Donald--(that name, I hope, will do)-- I wrong him if I call "foiling" The tramp of the callant, whistling the while As blithe as our kettle's boiling.

He had dared the danger from boyhood up, And now,--when perchance was waiting A lass at the brig below,--'twixt mount And moor would he stand debating?

Moreover this Donald was twenty-five, A glory of bone and muscle: Did a fiend dispute the right of way, Donald would try a tussle.

Lightsomely marched he out of the broad On to the narrow and narrow; A step more, rounding the angular rock, Reached the front straight as an arrow.

He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood, When--whom found he full-facing? What fellow in courage and wariness too, Had scouted ignoble pacing,

And left low safety to timid mates, And made for the dread dear danger, And gained the height where--who could guess He would meet with a rival ranger?

'T was a gold-red stag that stood and stared, Gigantic and magnific, By the wonder--ay, and the peril--struck Intelligent and pacific:

For a red deer is no fallow deer Grown cowardly through park-feeding; He batters you like a thunderbolt If you brave his haunts unheeding.

I doubt he could hardly perform volte-face Had valor advised discretion: You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a rope No Blondin makes profession.

Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit, Though pride ill brooks retiring: Each eyed each--mute man, motionless beast-- Less fearing than admiring.

These are the moments when quite new sense, To meet some need as novel, Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource: --"Nor advance nor retreat but--grovel!"

And slowly, surely, never a whit Relaxing the steady tension Of eye-stare which binds man to beast,-- By an inch and inch declension,

Sank Donald sidewise down and down: Till flat, breast upwards, lying At his six-foot length, no corpse more still, --"If he cross me! The trick 's worth trying."

Minutes were an eternity; But a new sense was created In the stag's brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure, With eye-stare unabated,

Feelingly he extends a foot Which tastes the way ere it touches Earth's solid and just escapes man's soft, Nor hold of the same unclutches

Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk, Lands itself no less finely: So a mother removes a fly from the face Of her babe asleep supinely.

And now 't is the haunch and hind-foot's turn --That 's hard: can the beast quite raise it? Yes, traversing half the prostrate length, His hoof-tip does not graze it.

Just one more lift! But Donald, you see, Was sportsman first, man after: A fancy lightened his caution through, --He wellnigh broke into laughter:

"It were nothing short of a miracle! Unrivalled, unexampled-- All sporting feats with this feat matched Were down and dead and trampled!"

The last of the legs as tenderly Follows the rest: or never Or now is the time! His knife in reach, And his right-hand loose--how clever!

For this can stab up the stomach's soft, While the left-hand grasps the pastern. A rise on the elbow, and--now 's the time Or never: this turn 's the last turn!

I shall dare to place myself by God Who scanned--for he does--each feature Of the face thrown up in appeal to him By the agonizing creature.

Nay, I hear plain words: "Thy gift brings this!" Up he sprang, back he staggered, Over he fell, and with him our friend --At following game no laggard.

Yet he was not dead when they picked next day From the gully's depth the wreck of him; His fall had been stayed by the stag beneath Who cushioned and saved the neck of him.

But the rest of his body--why, doctors said, Whatever could break was broken; Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toast In a tumbler of port-wine soaken.

"That your life is left you, thank the stag!" Said they when--the slow cure ended-- They opened the hospital-door, and thence --Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended,

And minor damage left wisely alone,-- Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled, Out--what went in a Goliath wellnigh,-- Some half of a David hobbled.

"You must ask an alms from house to house: Sell the stag's head for a bracket, With its grand twelve tines--I 'd buy it myself-- And use the skin for a jacket!"

He was wiser, made both head and hide His win-penny: hands and knees on, Would manage to crawl--poor crab--by the roads In the misty stalking-season.

And if he discovered a bothy like this, Why, harvest was sure: folk listened. He told his tale to the lovers of Sport: Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened.

And when he had come to the close, and spread His spoils for the gazers' wonder, With "Gentlemen, here 's the skull of the stag I was over, thank God, not under!"--

The company broke out in applause; "By Jingo, a lucky cripple! Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread, And a tug, besides, at our tipple!"

And "There 's my pay for your pluck!" cried This, "And mine for your jolly story!" Cried That, while T' other--but he was drunk-- Hiccupped "A trump, a Tory!"

I hope I gave twice as much as the rest; For, as Homer would say, "within grate Though teeth kept tongue," my whole soul growled, "Rightly rewarded,--Ingrate!"

SOLOMON AND BALKIS

Solomon King of the Jews and the Queen of Sheba, Balkis, Talk on the ivory throne, and we well may conjecture their talk is Solely of things sublime: why else has she sought Mount Zion, Climbed the six golden steps, and sat betwixt lion and lion?

She proves him with hard questions: before she has reached the middle He smiling supplies the end, straight solves them riddle by riddle; Until, dead-beaten at last, there is left no spirit in her, And thus would she close the game whereof she was first beginner:

"O wisest thou of the wise, world's marvel and wellnigh monster, One crabbed question more to construe or vulgo conster! Who are those, of all mankind, a monarch of perfect wisdom Should open to, when they knock at spheteron do--that 's, his dome?"

The King makes tart reply: "Whom else but the wise his equals Should he welcome with heart and voice?--since, king though he be, such weak walls Of circumstance--power and pomp--divide souls each from other That whoso proves kingly in craft I needs must acknowledge my brother.

"Come poet, come painter, come sculptor, come builder--whate'er his condition, Is he prime in his art? We are peers! My insight has pierced the partition And hails--for the poem, the picture, the statue, the building--my fellow! Gold 's gold though dim in the dust: court-polish soon turns it yellow.

"But tell me in turn, O thou to thy weakling sex superior, That for knowledge hast travelled so far yet seemest nowhit the wearier,-- Who are those, of all mankind, a queen like thyself, consummate In wisdom, should call to her side with an affable 'Up hither, come, mate'?"

"The Good are my mates--how else? Why doubt it?" the Queen upbridled: "Sure even above the Wise,--or in travel my eyes have idled,-- I see the Good stand plain: be they rich, poor, shrewd, or simple, If Good they only are.... Permit me to drop my wimple!"

And, in that bashful jerk of her body, she--peace, thou scoffer!-- Jostled the King's right-hand stretched courtously help to proffer, And so disclosed a portent: all unaware the Prince eyed The Ring which bore the Name--turned outside now from inside!

The truth-compelling Name!--and at once, "I greet the Wise--oh, Certainly welcome such to my court--with this proviso: The building must be my temple, my person stand forth the statue, The picture my portrait prove, and the poem my praise--you cat, you!"

But Solomon nonplussed? Nay! "Be truthful in turn!" so bade he: "See the Name, obey its hest!" And at once subjoins the lady, --"Provided the Good are the young, men strong and tall and proper, Such servants I straightway enlist,--which means" ... But the blushes stop her.

"Ah, Soul," the Monarch sighed, "that wouldst soar yet ever crawlest, How comes it thou canst discern the greatest yet choose the smallest, Unless because heaven is far, where wings find fit expansion, While creeping on all-fours suits, suffices the earthly mansion?

"Aspire to the Best! But which? There are Bests and Bests so many, With a habitat each for each, earth's Best as much Best as any! On Lebanon roots the cedar--soil lofty, yet stony and sandy-- While hyssop, of worth in its way, on the wall grows low but handy.

"Above may the Soul spread wing, spurn body and sense beneath her; Below she must condescend, to plodding unbuoyed by ether. In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity; On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools--that 's Vanity.

"It is naught, it will go, it can never presume above to trouble me; But here,--why, it toys and tickles and teases, howe'er I redouble me In a doggedest of endeavors to play the indifferent. Therefore, Suppose we resume discourse? Thou hast travelled thus far: but wherefore?

"Solely for Solomon's sake, to see whom earth styles Sagest?" Through her blushes laughed the Queen. "For the sake of a Sage? The gay jest! On high, be communion with Mind--there, Body concerns not Balkis: Down here,--do I make too bold? Sage Solomon,--one fool's small kiss!"

CRISTINA AND MONALDESCHI

Ah, but how each loved each, Marquis! Here 's the gallery they trod Both together, he her god, She his idol,--lend your rod, Chamberlain!--ay, there they are--"Quis Separabit?"--plain those two Touching words come into view, Apposite for me and you:

Since they witness to incessant Love like ours: King Francis, he-- Diane the adored one, she-- Prototypes of you and me. Everywhere is carved her Crescent With his Salamander-sign-- Flame-fed creature: flame benign To itself or, if malign,

Only to the meddling curious, --So, be warned, Sir! Where 's my head? How it wanders! What I said Merely meant--the creature, fed Thus on flame, was scarce injurious Save to fools who woke its ire, Thinking fit to play with fire. 'T is the Crescent you admire?

Then, be Diane! I 'll be Francis. Crescents change,--true!--wax and wane, Woman-like: male hearts retain Heat nor, once warm, cool again. So, we figure--such our chance is-- I as man and you as ... What? Take offence? My Love forgot He plays woman, I do not?

I--the woman? See my habit, Ask my people! Anyhow, Be we what we may, one vow Binds us, male or female. Now,-- Stand, Sir! Read! "Quis separabit?" Half a mile of pictured way Past these palace-walls to-day Traversed, this I came to say.

You must needs begin to love me; First I hated, then, at best, --Have it so!--I acquiesced; Pure compassion did the rest. From below thus raised above me, Would you, step by step, descend, Pity me, become my friend, Like me, like less, loathe at end?

That 's the ladder's round you rose by! That--my own foot kicked away, Having raised you: let it stay, Serve you for retreating? Nay. Close to me you climbed: as close by, Keep your station, though the peak Reached proves somewhat bare and bleak! Woman 's strong if man is weak.

Keep here, loving me forever! Love's look, gesture, speech, I claim: Act love, lie love, all the same-- Play as earnest were our game! Lonely I stood long: 't was clever When you climbed, before men's eyes, Spurned the earth and scaled the skies, Gained my peak and grasped your prize.

Here you stood, then, to men's wonder; Here you tire of standing? Kneel! Cure what giddiness you feel, This way! Do your senses reel? Not unlikely! What rolls under? Yawning death in yon abyss Where the waters whirl and hiss Round more frightful peaks than this.

Should my buffet dash you thither ... But be sage! No watery grave Needs await you: seeming brave Kneel on safe, dear timid slave! You surmised, when you climbed hither, Just as easy were retreat Should you tire, conceive unmeet Longer patience at my feet?

Me as standing, you as stooping,-- Who arranged for each the pose? Lest men think us friends turned foes, Keep the attitude you chose! Men are used to this same grouping-- I and you like statues seen. You and I, no third between, Kneel and stand! That makes the scene.

Mar it--and one buffet ... Pardon! Needless warmth--wise words in waste! 'T was prostration that replaced Kneeling, then? A proof of taste. Crouch, not kneel, while I mount guard on Prostrate love--become no waif, No estray to waves that chafe Disappointed--love 's so safe!

Waves that chafe? The idlest fancy! Peaks that scare? I think we know Walls enclose our sculpture: so Grouped, we pose in Fontainebleau. Up now! Wherefore hesitancy? Arm in arm and cheek by cheek, Laugh with me at waves and peak! Silent still? Why, pictures speak.

See, where Juno strikes Ixion, Primatice speaks plainly! Pooh-- Rather, Florentine Le Roux! I 've lost head for who is who-- So it swims and wanders! Fie on What still proves me female! Here, By the staircase!--for we near That dark "Gallery of the Deer."

Look me in the eyes once! Steady! Are you faithful now as erst On that eve when we two first Vowed at Avon, blessed and cursed Faith and falsehood? Pale already? Forward! Must my hand compel Entrance--this way? Exit--well, Somehow, somewhere. Who can tell?

What if to the selfsame place in Rustic Avon, at the door Of the village church once more, Where a tombstone paves the floor By that holy-water basin You appealed to--"As, below. This stone hides its corpse, e'en so I your secrets hide"? What ho!

Friends, my four! You, Priest, confess him! I have judged the culprit there: Execute my sentence! Care For no mail such cowards wear! Done, Priest? Then, absolve and bless him! Now--you three, stab thick and fast, Deep and deeper! Dead at last? Thanks, friends--Father, thanks! Aghast?

What one word of his confession Would you tell me, though I lured With that royal crown abjured Just because its bars immured Love too much? Love burst compression, Fled free, finally confessed All its secrets to that breast Whence ... let Avon tell the rest!

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND FUSELI

Oh, but is it not hard, Dear? Mine are the nerves to quake at a mouse: If a spider drops I shrink with fear: I should die outright in a haunted house; While for you--did the danger dared bring help-- From a lion's den I could steal his whelp, With a serpent round me, stand stock-still, Go sleep in a churchyard,--so would will Give me the power to dare and do Valiantly--just for you!

Much amiss in the head, Dear, I toil at a language, tax my brain Attempting to draw--the scratches here! I play, play, practise, and all in vain: But for you--if my triumph brought you pride, I would grapple with Greek Plays till I died, Paint a portrait of you--who can tell? Work my fingers off for your "Pretty well:" Language and painting and music too, Easily done--for you!

Strong and fierce in the heart, Dear, With--more than a will--what seems a power To pounce on my prey, love outbroke here In flame devouring and to devour. Such love has labored its best and worst To win me a lover; yet, last as first, I have not quickened his pulse one beat, Fixed a moment's fancy, bitter or sweet: Yet the strong fierce heart's love's labor's due, Utterly lost, was--you!

ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE

One day, it thundered and lightened. Two women, fairly frightened, Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed, At the feet of the man who sat betwixt; And "Mercy!" cried each--"if I tell the truth Of a passage in my youth!"

Said This: "Do you mind the morning I met your love with scorning? As the worst of the venom left my lips, I thought, 'If, despite this lie, he strips The mask from my soul with a kiss--I crawl His slave,--soul, body, and all!'"

Said That: "We stood to be married; The priest, or some one, tarried; 'If Paradise-door prove locked?' smiled you. I thought, as I nodded, smiling too, 'Did one, that 's away, arrive--nor late Nor soon should unlock Hell's gate!'"

It ceased to lighten and thunder. Up started both in wonder, Looked round and saw that the sky was clear, Then laughed "Confess you believed us, Dear!" "I saw through the joke!" the man replied They re-seated themselves beside.

IXION

High in the dome, suspended, of Hell, sad triumph, behold us! Here the revenge of a God, there the amends of a Man. Whirling forever in torment, flesh once mortal, immortal Made--for a purpose of hate--able to die and revive, Pays to the uttermost pang, then, newly for payment replenished, Doles out--old yet young--agonies ever afresh; Whence the result above me: torment is bridged by a rainbow,-- Tears, sweat, blood,--each spasm, ghastly once, glorified now. Wrung, by the rush of the wheel ordained my place of reposing, Off in a sparklike spray,--flesh become vapor through pain,-- Flies the bestowment of Zeus, soul's vaunted bodily vesture, Made that his feats observed gain the approval of Man,-- Flesh that he fashioned with sense of the earth and the sky and the ocean, Framed should pierce to the star, fitted to pore on the plant,-- All, for a purpose of hate, re-framed, re-fashioned, re-fitted, Till, consummate at length,--lo, the employment of sense! Pain's mere minister now to the soul, once pledged to her pleasure-- Soul, if untrammelled by flesh, unapprehensive of pain! Body, professed soul's slave, which serving beguiled and betrayed her, Made things false seem true, cheated through eye and through ear, Lured thus heart and brain to believe in the lying reported,-- Spurn but the trait'rous slave, uttermost atom, away, What should obstruct soul's rush on the real, the only apparent? Say I have erred,--how else? Was I Ixion or Zeus? Foiled by my senses I dreamed; I doubtless awaken in wonder: This proves shine, that--shade? Good was the evil that seemed? Shall I, with sight thus gained, by torture be taught I was blind once? Sisuphos, teaches thy stone--Tantalos, teaches thy thirst Aught which unaided sense, purged pure, less plainly demonstrates? No, for the past was dream: now that the dreamers awake, Sisuphos scouts low fraud, and to Tantalos treason is folly. Ask of myself, whose form melts on the murderous wheel, What is the sin which throe and throe prove sin to the sinner! Say the false charge was true,--thus do I expiate, say, Arrogant thought, word, deed,--mere man who conceited me godlike, Sat beside Zeus, my friend--knelt before Heré, my love! What were the need but of pitying power to touch and disperse it, Film-work--eye's and ear's--all the distraction of sense? How should the soul not see, not hear,--perceive and as plainly Render, in thought, word, deed, back again truth--not a lie? "Ay, but the pain is to punish thee!" Zeus, once more for a pastime, Play the familiar, the frank! Speak and have speech in return! I was of Thessaly king, there ruled and a people obeyed me: Mine to establish the law, theirs to obey it or die: Wherefore? Because of the good to the people, because of the honor Thence accruing to me, king, the king's law was supreme. What of the weakling, the ignorant criminal? Not who, excuseless, Breaking my law braved death, knowing his deed and its due-- Nay, but the feeble and foolish, the poor transgressor, of purpose No whit more than a tree, born to erectness of bole, Palm or plane or pine, we laud if lofty, columnar-- Loathe if athwart, askew,--leave to the axe and the flame! Where is the vision may penetrate earth and beholding acknowledge Just one pebble at root ruined the straightness of stem? Whose fine vigilance follows the sapling, accounts for the failure, --Here blew wind, so it bent: there the snow lodged, so it broke? Also the tooth of the beast, bird's bill, mere bite of the insect Gnawed, gnarled, warped their worst: passive it lay to offence. King--I was man, no more: what I recognized faulty I punished, Laying it prone: be sure, more than a man had I proved, Watch and ward o'er the sapling at birthtime had saved it, nor simply Owned the distortion's excuse,--hindered it wholly: nay, more-- Even a man, as I sat in my place to do judgment, and pallid Criminals passing to doom shuddered away at my foot, Could I have probed through the face to the heart, read plain a repentance, Crime confessed fools' play, virtue ascribed to the wise, Had I not stayed the consignment to doom, not dealt the renewed ones Life to retraverse the past, light to retrieve the misdeed? Thus had I done, and thus to have done much more it behooves thee, Zeus who madest man--flawless or faulty, thy work! What if the charge were true, as thou mouthest,--Ixion the cherished Minion of Zeus grew vain, vied with the godships and fell, Forfeit through arrogance? Stranger! I clothed, with the grace of our human, Inhumanity--gods, natures I likened to ours. Man among men I had borne me till gods forsooth must regard me --Nay, must approve, applaud, claim as a comrade at last. Summoned to enter their circle, I sat--their equal, how other? Love should be absolute love, faith is in fulness or naught. "I am thy friend, be mine!" smiled Zeus: "If Heré attract thee," Blushed the imperial cheek, "then--as thy heart may suggest!" Faith in me sprang to the faith, my love hailed love as its fellow, "Zeus, we are friends--how fast! Heré, my heart for thy heart!" Then broke smile into fury of frown, and the thunder of "Hence, fool!" Then through the kiss laughed scorn "Limbs or a cloud was to clasp?" Then from Olumpos to Erebos, then from the rapture to torment, Then from the fellow of gods--misery's mate, to the man! --Man henceforth and forever, who lent from the glow of his nature Warmth to the cold, with light colored the black and the blank. So did a man conceive of your passion, you passion-protesters! So did he trust, so love--being the truth of your lie! You to aspire to be Man! Man made you who vainly would ape him: You are the hollowness, he--filling you, falsifies void. Even as--witness the emblem, Hell's sad triumph suspended, Born of my tears, sweat, blood--bursting to vapor above-- Arching my torment, an iris ghostlike startles the darkness, Cold white--jewelry quenched--justifies, glorifies pain. Strive, mankind, though strife endure through endless obstruction, Stage after stage, each rise marred by as certain a fall! Baffled forever--yet never so baffled but, e'en in the baffling, When Man's strength proves weak, checked in the body or soul, Whatsoever the medium, flesh or essence,--Ixion's Made for a purpose of hate,--clothing the entity Thou, --Medium whence that entity strives for the Not-Thou beyond it, Fire elemental, free, frame unencumbered, the All,-- Never so baffled but--when, on the verge of an alien existence, Heartened to press, by pangs burst to the infinite Pure, Nothing is reached but the ancient weakness still that arrests strength, Circumambient still, still the poor human array, Pride and revenge and hate and cruelty--all it has burst through, Thought to escape,--fresh formed, found in the fashion it fled, Never so baffled but--when Man pays the price of endeavor, Thunderstruck, downthrust, Tartaros-doomed to the wheel,-- Then, ay, then, from the tears and sweat and blood of his torment, E'en from the triumph of Hell, up let him look and rejoice! What is the influence, high o'er Hell, that turns to a rapture Pain--and despair's murk mist blends in a rainbow of hope? What is beyond the obstruction, stage by stage though it baffle? Back must I fall, confess "Ever the weakness I fled"? No, for beyond, far, far is a Purity all-unobstructed! Zeus was Zeus--not Man: wrecked by his weakness, I whirl. Out of the wreck I rise--past Zeus to the Potency o'er him! I--to have hailed him my friend! I--to have clasped her--my love! Pallid birth of my pain,--where light, where light is, aspiring Thither I rise, whilst thou--Zeus, keep the godship and sink!

JOCHANAN HAKKADOSH

"This now, this other story makes amends And justifies our Mishna," quoth the Jew Aforesaid. "Tell it, learnedest of friends!"

* * * * *

A certain morn broke beautiful and blue O'er Schiphaz city, bringing joy and mirth, --So had ye deemed; while the reverse was true,

Since one small house there gave a sorrow birth In such black sort that, to each faithful eye, Midnight, not morning settled on the earth.

How else, when it grew certain thou wouldst die, Our much-enlightened master, Israel's prop, Eximious Jochanan Ben Sabbathai?

Old, yea, but, undiminished of a drop, The vital essence pulsed through heart and brain; Time left unsickled yet the plenteous crop

On poll and chin and cheek, whereof a skein Handmaids might weave--hairs silk-soft, silver-white, Such as the wool-plant's; none the less in vain

Had Physic striven her best against the spite Of fell disease: the Rabbi must succumb; And, round the couch whereon in piteous plight

He lay a-dying, scholars,--awe-struck, dumb Throughout the night-watch,--roused themselves and spoke One to the other: "Ere death's touch benumb

"His active sense,--while yet 'neath Reason's yoke Obedient toils his tongue,--befits we claim The fruit of long experience, bid this oak

"Shed us an acorn which may, all the same, Grow to a temple-pillar,--dear that day!-- When Israel's scattered seed finds place and name

"Among the envious nations. Lamp us, pray, Thou the Enlightener! Partest hence in peace? Hailest without regret--much less, dismay--

"The hour of thine approximate release From fleshly bondage soul hath found obstruct? Calmly envisagest the sure increase

"Of knowledge? Eden's tree must hold unplucked Some apple, sure, has never tried thy tooth, Juicy with sapience thou hast sought, not sucked?

"Say, does age acquiesce in vanished youth? Still towers thy purity above--as erst-- Our pleasant follies? Be thy last word--truth!"

The Rabbi groaned; then, grimly, "Last as first The truth speak I--in boyhood who began Striving to live an angel, and, amerced

"For such presumption, die now hardly man. What have I proved of life? To live, indeed, That much I learned: but here lies Jochanan

"More luckless than stood David when, to speed His fighting with the Philistine, they brought Saul's harness forth: whereat, 'Alack, I need

"Armor to arm me, but have never fought With sword and spear, nor tried to manage shield, Proving arms' use, as well-trained warrior ought,

"'Only a sling and pebbles can I wield!' So he: while I, contrariwise, 'No trick Of weapon helpful on the battlefield

"'Comes unfamiliar to my theoric: But, bid me put in practice what I know, Give me a sword--it stings like Moses' stick,

"'A serpent I let drop apace.' E'en so, I,--able to comport me at each stage Of human life as never here below

"Man played his part,--since mine the heritage Of wisdom carried to that perfect pitch, Ye rightly praise,--I, therefore, who, thus sage,

"Could sure act man triumphantly, enrich Life's annals, with example how I played Lover, Bard, Soldier, Statist,--(all of which

"Parts in presentment failing, cries invade The world's ear--'Ah, the Past, the pearl-gift thrown To hogs, time's opportunity we made

"'So light of, only recognized when flown! Had we been wise!')---in fine, I--wise enough,-- What profit brings me wisdom never shown

"Just when its showing would from each rebuff Shelter weak virtue, threaten back to bounds Encroaching vice, tread smooth each track too rough

"For youth's unsteady footstep, climb the rounds Of life's long ladder, one by slippery one, Yet make no stumble? Me hard fate confounds

"With that same crowd of wailers I outrun By promising to teach another cry Of more hilarious mood than theirs, the sun

"I look my last at is insulted by. What cry,--ye ask? Give ear on every side! Witness yon Lover! 'How entrapped am I!

"'Methought, because a virgin's rose-lip vied With ripe Khubbezleh's, needs must beauty mate With meekness and discretion in a bride:

"'Bride she became to me who wail--too late-- Unwise I loved!' That 's one cry. 'Mind 's my gift: I might have loaded me with lore, full weight

"'Pressed down and running over at each rift O' the brain-bag where the famished clung and fed. I filled it with what rubbish!--would not sift

"'The wheat from chaff, sound grain from musty--shed Poison abroad as oft as nutriment-- And sighing say but as my fellows said,

"'Unwise I learned!' That 's two. 'In dwarfs-play spent Was giant's prowess: warrior all unversed In war's right waging, I struck brand, was lent

"'For steel's fit service, on mere stone--and cursed Alike the shocked limb and the shivered steel, Seeing too late the blade's true use which erst