part I

clutch my case Which, in entirety now,--momentous task-- My lords demand, so render them I must, Since, one poor pleading more and I have done. But shall I ply my papers, play my proofs, Parade my studies, fifty in a row, As though the Court were yet in pupilage, Claimed not the artist's ultimate appeal? Much rather let me soar the height prescribed And, bowing low, proffer my picture's self! No more of proof, disproof,--such virtue was, Such vice was never in Pompilia, now! (Far better say "Behold Pompilia!"--for I leave the family as unmanageable, And stick to just one portrait, but life-size.) Hath calumny imputed to the fair A blemish, mole on cheek or wart on chin, Much more, blind hidden horrors best unnamed? Shall I descend to prove you, point by point, Never was knock-knee known nor splay-foot found In Phryne? (I must let the portrait go, Content me with the model, I believe)-- --I prove this? An indignant sweep of hand, Dash at and doing away with drapery, And,--use your eyes, Athenians, smooth she smiles! Or,--since my client can no longer smile, And more appropriate instances abound,-- What is this Tale of Tarquin, how the slave Was caught by him, preferred to Collatine? Thou, even from thy corpse-clothes virginal, Look'st the lie dead, Lucretia! Thus at least I, by the guidance of antiquity, (Our one infallible guide,) now operate, Sure that the innocence thus shown is safe; Sure, too, that, while I plead, the echoes cry (Lend my weak voice thy trump, sonorous Fame!) "Monstrosity the Phrynean shape shall mar, Lucretia's soul comport with Tarquin's lie, When thistles grow on vines or thorns yield figs, Or oblique sentence leave this judgment-seat!"

A great theme: may my strength be adequate! For--paint Pompilia, dares my feebleness? How did I unaware engage so much --Find myself undertaking to produce A faultless nature in a flawless form? What 's here? Oh, turn aside nor dare the blaze Of such a crown, such constellation, say, As jewels here thy front, Humanity! First, infancy, pellucid as a pearl; Then, childhood--stone which, dewdrop at the first, (An old conjecture) sucks, by dint of gaze, Blue from the sky and turns to sapphire so: Yet both these gems eclipsed by, last and best, Womanliness and wifehood opaline, Its milk-white pallor,--chastity,--suffused With here and there a tint and hint of flame,-- Desire,--the lapidary loves to find. Such jewels bind conspicuously thy brow, Pompilia, infant, child, maid, woman, wife-- Crown the ideal in our earth at last! What should a faculty like mine do here? Close eyes, or else, the rashlier hurry hand!

Which is to say,--lose no time but begin! _Sermocinando ne declamem_, Sirs, _Ultra clepsydram_, as our preachers smile, Lest I exceed my hour-glass. Whereupon, As Flaccus prompts, I dare the epic plunge-- Begin at once with marriage, up till when Little or nothing would arrest your love, In the easeful life o' the lady; lamb and lamb, How do they differ? Know one, you know all Manners of maidenhood: mere maiden she. And since all lambs are like in more than fleece, Prepare to find that, lamb-like, she too frisks-- O' the weaker sex, my lords, the weaker sex! To whom, the Teian teaches us, for gift, Not strength,--man's dower,--but beauty, nature gave, "Beauty in lieu of spears, in lieu of shields!" And what is beauty's sure concomitant, Nay, intimate essential character, But melting wiles, deliciousest deceits, The whole redoubted armory of love? Therefore of vernal pranks, dishevellings O' the hair of youth that dances April in, And easily-imagined Hebe-slips O'er sward which May makes over-smooth for foot-- These shall we pry into?--or wiselier wink, Though numerous and dear they may have been?

For lo, advancing Hymen and his pomp! _Discedunt nunc amores_, loves, farewell! _Maneat amor_, let love, the sole, remain! Farewell to dewiness and prime of life! Remains the rough determined day: dance done, To work, with plough and harrow! What comes next? 'T is Guido henceforth guides Pompilia's step, Cries, "No more friskings o'er the foodful glebe, Else, 'ware the whip!" Accordingly,--first crack O' the thong,--we hear that his young wife was barred, _Cohibita fuit_, from the old free life, _Vitam liberiorem ducere._ Demur we? Nowise: heifer brave the hind? We seek not there should lapse the natural law, The proper piety to lord and king And husband: let the heifer bear the yoke! Only, I crave he cast not patience off, This hind; for deem you she endures the whip, Nor winces at the goad, nay, restive, kicks? What if the adversary's charge be just, And all untowardly she pursue her way With groan and grunt, though hind strike ne'er so hard? If petulant remonstrance made appeal, Unseasonable, o'erprotracted,--if Importunate challenge taxed the public ear When silence more decorously had served For protestation,--if Pompilian plaint Wrought but to aggravate Guidonion ire,-- Why, such mishaps, ungainly though they be, Ever companion change, are incident To altered modes and novelty of life: The philosophic mind expects no less, Smilingly knows and names the crisis, sits Waiting till old things go and new arrive. Therefore, I hold a husband but inept Who turns impatient at such transit-time, As if this running from the rod would last!

Since, even while I speak, the end is reached: Success awaits the soon-disheartened man. The parents turn their backs and leave the house, The wife may wail but none shall intervene: He hath attained his object, groom and bride Partake the nuptial bower no soul can see, Old things are passed and all again is new, Over and gone the obstacles to peace, _Novorum_--tenderly the Mantuan turns The expression, some such purpose in his eye-- _Nascitur ordo!_ Every storm is laid, And forth from plain each pleasant herb may peep, Each bloom of wifehood in abeyance late: (Confer a passage in the Canticles.)

But what if, as 't is wont with plant and wife, Flowers--after a suppression to good end, Still, when they do spring forth--sprout here, spread there, Anywhere likelier than beneath the foot O' the lawful good-man gardener of the ground? He dug and dibbled, sowed and watered,--still 'T is a chance wayfarer shall pluck the increase. Just so, respecting persons not too much, The lady, foes allege, put forth each charm And proper floweret of feminity To whosoever had a nose to smell Or breast to deck: what if the charge be true? The fault were graver had she looked with choice, Fastidiously appointed who should grasp, Who, in the whole town, go without the prize! To nobody she destined donative, But, first come was first served, the accuser saith. Put case her sort of ... in this kind ... escapes Were many and oft and indiscriminate-- Impute ye as the action were prepense, The gift particular, arguing malice so? Which butterfly of the wide air shall brag "I was preferred to Guido"--when 't is clear The cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breast Open to gnat, midge, bee and moth as well? One chalice entertained the company; And if its peevish lord object the more, Mistake, misname such bounty in a wife, Haste we to advertise him--charm of cheek, Lustre of eye, allowance of the lip, All womanly components in a spouse, These are no household-bread each stranger's bite Leaves by so much diminished for the mouth O' the master of the house at supper-time: But rather like a lump of spice they lie, Morsel of myrrh, which scents the neighborhood Yet greets its lord no lighter by a grain.

Nay, even so, he shall be satisfied! Concede we there was reason in his wrong, Grant we his grievance and content the man! For lo, Pompilia, she submits herself; Ere three revolving years have crowned their course, Off and away she puts this same reproach Of lavish bounty, inconsiderate gift O' the sweets of wifehood stored to other ends: No longer shall he blame "She none excludes," But substitute "She laudably sees all, Searches the best out and selects the same." For who is here, long sought and latest found, Waiting his turn unmoved amid the whirl, "_Constans in levitate_,"--Ha, my lords? Calm in his levity,--indulge the quip!-- Since 't is a levite bears the bell away, Parades him henceforth as Pompilia's choice, 'T is no ignoble object, husband! Doubt'st? When here comes tripping Flaccus with his phrase, "Trust me, no miscreant singled from the mob, _Crede non illum tibi de scelesta_ _Plebe delectum_," but a man of mark, A priest, dost hear? Why then, submit thyself! Priest, ay, and very phœnix of such fowl, Well-born, of culture, young and vigorous, Comely too, since precise the precept points-- On the selected levite be there found Nor mole nor scar nor blemish, lest the mind Come all uncandid through the thwarting flesh! Was not the son of Jesse ruddy, sleek, Pleasant to look on, pleasant every way? Since well he smote the harp and sweetly sang, And danced till Abigail came out to see, And seeing smiled and smiling ministered The raisin-cluster and the cake of figs, With ready meal refreshed the gifted youth, Till Nabal, who was absent shearing sheep, Felt heart sink, took to bed (discreetly done-- They might have been beforehand with him else) And died--would Guido have behaved as well? But ah, the faith of early days is gone, _Heu prisca fides!_ Nothing died in him Save courtesy, good sense and proper trust, Which, when they ebb from souls they should o'erflow, Discover stub, weed, sludge and ugliness. (The Pope, we know, is Neapolitan And relishes a sea-side simile.) Deserted by each charitable wave, Guido, left high and dry, shows jealous now! Jealous avouched, paraded: tax the fool With any peccadillo, he responds, "Truly I beat my wife through jealousy, Imprisoned her and punished otherwise, Being jealous: now would threaten, sword in hand, Now manage to mix poison in her sight, And so forth: jealously I dealt, in fine." Concede thus much, and what remains to prove? Have I to teach my masters what effect Hath jealousy, and how, befooling men, It makes false true, abuses eye and ear, Turns mere mist adamantine, loads with sound Silence, and into void and vacancy Crowds a whole phalanx of conspiring foes? Therefore who owns "I watched with jealousy My wife," adds "for no reason in the world!" What need that, thus proved madman, he remark "The thing I thought a serpent proved an eel"?-- Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length, And not an inch too long for that rare pie (Master Arcangeli has heard of such) Whose succulence makes fasting bearable; Meant to regale some moody splenetic Who, pleasing to mistake the donor's gift, Spying I know not what Lernæan snake I' the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsooth The dainty in the dust.

Enough! Prepare, Such lunes announced, for downright lunacy! _Insanit homo_, threat succeeds to threat, And blow redoubles blow,--his wife, the block. But, if a block, shall not she jar the hand That buffets her? The injurious idle stone Rebounds and hits the head of him who flung. Causeless rage breeds, i' the wife now, rageful cause, Tyranny wakes rebellion from its sleep. Rebellion, say I?--rather, self-defence, Laudable wish to live and see good days, Pricks our Pompilia now to fly the fool By any means, at any price,--nay, more, Nay, most of all, i' the very interest O' the fool that, baffled of his blind desire At any price, were truliest victor so. Shall he effect his crime and lose his soul? No, dictates duty to a loving wife! Far better that the unconsummate blow, Adroitly balked by her, should back again, Correctively admonish his own pate!

Crime then,--the Court is with me?--she must crush; How crush it? By all efficacious means; And these,--why, what in woman should they be? "With horns the bull, with teeth the lion fights; To woman," quoth the lyrist quoted late, "Nor teeth, nor horns, but beauty, Nature gave!" Pretty i' the Pagan! Who dares blame the use Of armory thus allowed for natural,-- Exclaim against a seeming-dubious play O' the sole permitted weapon, spear and shield Alike, resorted to i' the circumstance By poor Pompilia? Grant she somewhat plied Arts that allure, the magic nod and wink, The witchery of gesture, spell of word, Whereby the likelier to enlist this friend, Yea stranger, as a champion on her side? Such man, being but mere man, ('t was all she knew,) Must be made sure by beauty's silken bond, The weakness that subdues the strong, and bows Wisdom alike and folly. Grant the tale O' the husband, which is false, were proved and true To the letter--or the letters, I should say, Abominations he professed to find And fix upon Pompilia and the priest,-- Allow them hers--for though she could not write, In early days of Eve-like innocence That plucked no apple from the knowledge-tree, Yet, at the Serpent's word, Eve plucks and eats And knows--especially how to read and write: And so Pompilia,--as the move o' the maw, Quoth Persius, makes a parrot bid "Good day!" A crow salute the concave, and a pie Endeavor at proficiency in speech,-- So she, through hunger after fellowship, May well have learned, though late, to play the scribe: As indeed, there 's one letter on the list Explicitly declares did happen here. "You thought my letters could be none of mine," She tells her parents--"mine, who wanted skill; But now I have the skill, and write, you see!" She needed write love-letters, so she learned, "_Negatas artifex sequi voces_"--though This letter nowise 'scapes the common lot, But lies i' the condemnation of the rest, Found by the husband's self who forged them all. Yet, for the sacredness of argument, For this once an exemption shall it plead-- Anything, anything to let the wheels Of argument run glibly to their goal! Concede she wrote (which were preposterous) This and the other epistle,--what of it? Where does the figment touch her candid fame? Being in peril of her life--"my life, Not an hour's purchase," as the letter runs,-- And having but one stay in this extreme, Out of the wide world but a single friend-- What could she other than resort to him, And how with any hope resort but thus? Shall modesty dare bid a stranger brave Danger, disgrace, nay death in her behalf-- Think to entice the sternness of the steel Yet spare love's loadstone moving manly mind? --Most of all, when such mind is hampered so By growth of circumstance athwart the life O' the natural man, that decency forbids He stoop and take the common privilege, Say frank "I love," as all the vulgar do. A man is wedded to philosophy, Married to statesmanship; a man is old; A man is fettered by the foolishness He took for wisdom and talked ten years since; A man is, like our friend the Canon here, A priest, and wicked if he break his vow: Shall he dare love, who may be Pope one day? Despite the coil of such encumbrance here, Suppose this man could love, unhappily, And would love, dared he only let love show! In case the woman of his love speaks first, From what embarrassment she sets him free! "'T is I who break reserve, begin appeal, Confess that, whether you love me or no, I love you!" What an ease to dignity, What help of pride from the hard high-backed chair Down to the carpet where the kittens bask, All under the pretence of gratitude!

From all which, I deduce--the lady here Was bound to proffer nothing short of love To the priest whose service was to save her. What? Shall she propose him lucre, dust o' the mine, Rubbish o' the rock, some diamond, muckworms prize, Some pearl secreted by a sickly fish? Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste. 'T is love shall beckon, beauty bid to breast. Till all the Samson sink into the snare! Because, permit the end--permit therewith Means to the end! How say you, good my lords? I hope you heard my adversary ring The changes on this precept: now, let me Reverse the peal! _Quia dato licito fine,_ _Ad illum assequendum ordinata_ _Non sunt damnanda media_,--licit end Enough was found in mere escape from death, To legalize our means illicit else Of feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact. Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day, (See that _Idyllium Moschi_) seeking help, In the anxiety of motherhood, Allowably promised, "Who shall bring report Where he is wandered to, my wingèd babe, I give him for reward a nectared kiss; But who brings safely back the truant's self, His be a super-sweet makes kiss seem cold!" Are not these things writ for example-sake?

To such permitted motive, then, refer All those professions, else were hard explain, Of hope, fear, jealousy, and the rest of love! He is Myrtillus, Amaryllis she, She burns, he freezes,--all a mere device To catch and keep the man, may save her life, Whom otherwise nor catches she nor keeps! Worst, once, turns best now: in all faith, she feigns: Feigning,--the liker innocence to guilt, The truer to the life in what she feigns! How if Ulysses,--when, for public good He sunk particular qualms and played the spy, Entered Troy's hostile gate in beggar's garb-- How if he first had boggled at this clout, Grown dainty o'er that clack-dish? Grime is grace To whoso gropes amid the dung for gold.

Hence, beyond promises, we praise each proof That promise was not simply made to break, Mere moonshine-structure meant to fade at dawn: We praise, as consequent and requisite, What, enemies allege, were more than words, Deeds--meetings at the window, twilight-trysts, Nocturnal entertainments in the dim Old labyrinthine palace; lies, we know-- Inventions we, long since, turned inside out. Must such external semblance of intrigue Demonstrate that intrigue there lurks perdue? Does every hazel-sheath disclose a nut? He were a Molinist who dared maintain That midnight meetings in a screened alcove Must argue folly in a matron--since So would he bring a slur on Judith's self, Commended beyond women, that she lured The lustful to destruction through his lust. Pompilia took not Judith's liberty, No falchion find you in her hand to smite, No damsel to convey in dish the head Of Holofernes,--style the Canon so-- Or is it the Count? If I entangle me With my similitudes,--if wax wings melt, And earthward down I drop, not mine the fault: Blame your beneficence, O Court, O sun, Whereof the beamy smile affects my flight! What matter, so Pompilia's fame revive I' the warmth that proves the bane of Icarus?

Yea, we have shown it lawful, necessary Pompilia leave her husband, seek the house O' the parents: and because 'twixt home and home Lies a long road with many a danger rife, Lions by the way and serpents in the path, To rob and ravish,--much behooves she keep Each shadow of suspicion from fair fame, For her own sake much, but for his sake more, The ingrate husband's. Evidence shall be, Plain witness to the world how white she walks I' the mire she wanders through ere Rome she reach. And who so proper witness as a priest? Gainsay ye? Let me hear who dares gainsay! I hope we still can punish heretics! "Give me the man," I say with him of Gath, "That we may fight together!" None, I think: The priest is granted me.

Then, if a priest, One juvenile and potent: else, mayhap, That dragon, our Saint George would slay, slays him. And should fair face accompany strong hand, The more complete equipment: nothing mars Work, else praiseworthy, like a bodily flaw I' the worker: as 't is said Saint Paul himself Deplored the check o' the puny presence, still Cheating his fulmination of its flash, Albeit the bolt therein went true to oak. Therefore the agent, as prescribed, she takes,-- Both juvenile and potent, handsome too,-- In all obedience: "good," you grant again. Do you? I would you were the husband, lords! How prompt and facile might departure be! How boldly would Pompilia and the priest March out of door, spread flag at beat of drum, But that inapprehensive Guido grants Neither premiss nor yet conclusion here, And, purblind, dreads a bear in every bush! For his own quietude and comfort, then, Means must be found for flight in masquerade At hour when all things sleep--"Save jealousy!" Right, Judges! Therefore shall the lady's wit Supply the boon thwart nature balks him of, And do him service with the potent drug (Helen's nepenthe, as my lords opine) Which respites blessedly each fretted nerve O' the much-enduring man: accordingly, There lies he, duly dosed and sound asleep, Relieved of woes or real or raved about. While soft she leaves his side, he shall not wake; Nor stop who steals away to join her friend, Nor do him mischief should he catch that friend Intent on more than friendly office,--nay, Nor get himself raw head and bones laid bare In payment of his apparition!

Thus Would I defend the step,--were the thing true Which is a fable,--see my former speech,-- That Guido slept (who never slept a wink) Through treachery, an opiate from his wife, Who not so much as knew what opiates mean.

Now she may start: or hist,--a stoppage still! A journey is an enterprise of cost! As in campaigns, we fight but others pay, _Suis expensis, nemo militat_. 'T is Guido's self we guard from accident, Ensuring safety to Pompilia, versed Nowise in misadventures by the way, Hard riding and rough quarters, the rude fare, The unready host. What magic mitigates Each plague of travel to the unpractised wife? Money, sweet Sirs! And were the fiction fact She helped herself thereto with liberal hand From out her husband's store,--what fitter use Was ever husband's money destined to? With bag and baggage thus did Dido once Decamp,--for more authority, a queen!

So is she fairly on her route at last, Prepared for either fortune: nay and if The priest, now all aglow with enterprise, Cool somewhat presently when fades the flush O' the first adventure, clouded o'er belike By doubts, misgivings how the day may die, Though born with such auroral brilliance,--if The brow seem over-pensive and the lip 'Gin lag and lose the prattle lightsome late,-- Vanquished by tedium of a prolonged jaunt In a close carriage o'er a jolting road, With only one young female substitute For seventeen other Canons of ripe age Were wont to keep him company in church,-- Shall not Pompilia haste to dissipate The silent cloud that, gathering, bodes her bale?-- Prop the irresoluteness may portend Suspension of the project, cheek the flight, Bring ruin on them both? Use every means, Since means to the end are lawful! What i' the way Of wile should have allowance like a kiss Sagely and sisterly administered, _Sororia saltem oscula?_ We find Such was the remedy her wit applied To each incipient scruple of the priest, If we believe,--as, while my wit is mine I cannot,--what the driver testifies, Borsi, called Venerino, the mere tool Of Guido and his friend the Governor,-- Avowal I proved wrung from out the wretch. After long rotting in imprisonment, As price of liberty and favor: long They tempted, he at last succumbed, and lo Counted them out full tale each kiss and more, "The journey being one long embrace," quoth he. Still, though we should believe the driver's lie, Nor even admit as probable excuse, Right reading of the riddle,--as I urged In my first argument, with fruit perhaps-- That what the owl-like eyes (at back of head!) O' the driver, drowsed by driving night and day, Supposed a vulgar interchange of lips, This was but innocent jog of head 'gainst head, Cheek meeting jowl as apple may touch pear From branch and branch contiguous in the wind, When Autumn blusters and the orchard-rocks:-- That rapid run and the rough road were cause O' the casual ambiguity, no harm I' the world to eyes awake and penetrative:-- Say,--not to grasp a truth I can release And safely fight without, yet conquer still,-- Say, she kissed him, say, he kissed her again! Such osculation was a potent means, A very efficacious help, no doubt: Such with a third part of her nectar did Venus imbue: why should Pompilia fling The poet's declaration in his teeth?-- Pause to employ what--since it had success, And kept the priest her servant to the end-- We must presume of energy enough, No whit superfluous, so permissible?

The goal is gained: day, night, and yet a day Have run their round: a long and devious road Is traversed,--many manners, various men Passed in review, what cities did they see, What hamlets mark, what profitable food For after-meditation cull and store! Till Rome, that Rome whereof--this voice Would it might make our Molinists observe, That she is built upon a rock nor shall Their powers prevail against her!--Rome, I say, Is all but reached; one stage more and they stop Saved: pluck up heart, ye pair, and forward, then!

Ah, Nature--baffled she recurs, alas! Nature imperiously exacts her due, Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak: Pompilia needs must acquiesce and swoon, Give hopes alike and fears a breathing-while. The innocent sleep soundly: sound she sleeps, So let her slumber, then, unguarded save By her own chastity, a triple mail, And his good hand whose stalwart arms have borne The sweet and senseless burden like a babe From coach to couch,--the serviceable strength! Nay, what and if he gazed rewardedly On the pale beauty prisoned in embrace, Stooped over, stole a balmy breath perhaps For more assurance sleep was not decease-- "_Ut vidi_," "how I saw!" succeeded by "_Ut perii_," "how I sudden lost my brains!" --What harm ensued to her unconscious quite? For, curiosity--how natural! Importunateness--what a privilege In the ardent sex! And why curb ardor here? How can the priest but pity whom he saved? And pity is so near to love, and love So neighborly to all unreasonableness! As to love's object, whether love were sage Or foolish, could Pompilia know or care, Being still sound asleep, as I premised? Thus the philosopher absorbed by thought, Even Archimedes, busy o'er a book The while besiegers sacked his Syracuse, Was ignorant of the imminence o' the point O' the sword till it surprised him: let it stab, And never knew himself was dead at all. So sleep thou on, secure whate'er betide! For thou, too, hast thy problem hard to solve-- How so much beauty is compatible With so much innocence!

Fit place, methinks, While in this task she rosily is lost, To treat of and repel objection here Which,--frivolous, I grant,--my mind misgives, May somehow still have flitted, gadfly-like, And teased the Court at times--as if, all said And done, there seemed, the Court might nearly say, In a certain acceptation, somewhat more Of what may pass for insincerity, Falsehood, throughout the course Pompilia took, Than befits Christian. Pagans held, we know, Man always ought to aim at good and truth, Not always put one thing in the same words: _Non idem semper dicere sed spectare_ _Debemus._ But the Pagan yoke was light; "Lie not at all," the exacter precept bids: Each least lie breaks the law,--is sin, we hold. I humble me, but venture to submit-- What prevents sin, itself is sinless, sure: And sin, which hinders sin of deeper dye, Softens itself away by contrast so. Conceive me! Little sin, by none at all, Were properly condemned for great: but great, By greater, dwindles into small again. Now, what is greatest sin of womanhood? That which unwomans it, abolishes The nature of the woman,--impudence. Who contradicts me here? Concede me, then, Whatever friendly fault may interpose To save the sex from self-abolishment Is three-parts on the way to virtue's rank! And, what is taxed here as duplicity, Feint, wile, and trick,--admitted for the nonce,-- What worse do one and all than interpose, Hold, as it were, a deprecating hand, Statuesquely, in the Medicean mode, Before some shame which modesty would veil? Who blames the gesture prettily perverse? Thus,--lest ye miss a point illustrative,-- Admit the husband's calumny--allow That the wife, having penned the epistle fraught With horrors, charge on charge of crime she heaped O' the head of Pietro and Violante--(still Presumed her parents)--having dispatched the same To their arch-enemy Paolo, through free choice And no sort of compulsion in the world-- Put case she next discards simplicity For craft, denies the voluntary act, Declares herself a passive instrument I' the husband's hands; that, duped by knavery, She traced the characters she could not write, And took on trust the unread sense which, read, And recognized were to be spurned at once: Allow this calumny, I reiterate! Who is so dull as wonder at the pose Of our Pompilia in the circumstance? Who sees not that the too-ingenuous soul, Repugnant even at a duty done Which brought beneath too scrutinizing glare The misdemeanors,--buried in the dark,-- Of the authors of her being, was believed,-- Stung to the quick at her impulsive deed, And willing to repair what harm it worked, She--wise in this beyond what Nero proved, Who, when folk urged the candid juvenile To sign the warrant, doom the guilty dead, "Would I had never learned to write!" quoth he! --Pompilia rose above the Roman, cried, "To read or write I never learned at all!" O splendidly mendacious!

But time fleets: Let us not linger: hurry to the end, Since flight does end, and that disastrously. Beware ye blame desert for unsuccess, Disparage each expedient else to praise, Call failure folly! Man's best effort fails. After ten years' resistance Troy succumbed: Could valor save a town, Troy still had stood. Pompilia came off halting in no point Of courage, conduct, her long journey through: But nature sank exhausted at the close, And, as I said, she swooned and slept all night. Morn breaks and brings the husband: we assist At the spectacle. Discovery succeeds. Ha, how is this? What moonstruck rage is here? Though we confess to partial frailty now, To error in a woman and a wife, Is 't by the rough way she shall be reclaimed? Who bursts upon her chambered privacy? What crowd profanes the chaste _cubiculum?_ What outcries and lewd laughter, scurril gibe And ribald jest to scare the ministrant Good angels that commerce with souls in sleep? Why, had the worst crowned Guido to his wish, Confirmed his most irrational surmise, Yet there be bounds to man's emotion, checks To an immoderate astonishment. 'T is decent horror, regulated wrath, Befit our dispensation: have we back The old Pagan license? Shall a Vulcan clap His net o' the sudden and expose the pair To the unquenchable universal mirth? A feat, antiquity saw scandal in So clearly, that the nauseous tale thereof-- Demodocus his nugatory song-- Hath ever been concluded modern stuff Impossible to the mouth of the grave Muse, So, foisted into that Eighth Odyssey By some impertinent pickthank. O thou fool, Count Guido Franceschini, what didst gain By publishing thy secret to the world? Were all the precepts of the wise a waste-- Bred in thee not one touch of reverence? Admit thy wife--admonish we the fool-- Were falseness' self, why chronicle thy shame? Much rather should thy teeth bite out thy tongue, Dumb lip consort with desecrated brow, Silence become historiographer, And thou--thine own Cornelius Tacitus! But virtue, barred, still leaps the barrier, lords! --Still, moon-like, penetrates the encroaching mist And bursts, all broad and bare, on night, ye know! Surprised, then, in the garb of truth, perhaps, Pompilia, thus opposed, breaks obstacle, Springs to her feet, and stands Thalassian-pure, Confronts the foe,--nay, catches at his sword And tries to kill the intruder, he complains. Why, so she gave her lord his lesson back, Crowned him, this time, the virtuous woman's way, With an exact obedience; he brought sword, She drew the same, since swords are meant to draw. Tell not me 't is sharp play with tools on edge! It was the husband chose the weapon here Why did not he inaugurate the game With some gentility of apophthegm Still pregnant on the philosophic page, Some captivating cadence still a-lisp O' the poet's lyre? Such spells subdue the surge, Make tame the tempest, much more mitigate The passions of the mind, and probably Had moved Pompilia to a smiling blush. No, he must needs prefer the argument O' the blow: and she obeyed, in duty bound, Returned him buffet ratiocinative-- Ay, in the reasoner's own interest, For wife must follow whither husband leads, Vindicate honor as himself prescribes, Save him the very way himself bids save! No question but who jumps into a quag Should stretch forth hand and pray us "Pull me out By the hand!" such were the customary cry: But Guido pleased to bid "Leave hand alone! Join both feet, rather, jump upon my head: I extricate myself by the rebound!" And dutifully as enjoined she jumped-- Drew his own sword and menaced his own life, Anything to content a wilful spouse.

And so he was contented--one must do Justice to the expedient which succeeds, Strange as it seem: at flourish of the blade, The crowd drew back, stood breathless and abashed, Then murmured, "This should be no wanton wife, No conscience-stricken sinner, caught i' the act, And patiently awaiting our first stone: But a poor hard-pressed all-bewildered thing, Has rushed so far, misguidedly perhaps, Meaning no more harm than a frightened sheep. She sought for aid; and if she made mistake I' the man could aid most, why--so mortals do: Even the blessed Magdalen mistook Far less forgivably: consult the place-- Supposing him to be the gardener, 'Sir,' said she, and so following." Why more words? Forthwith the wife is pronounced innocent: What would the husband more than gain his cause, And find that honor flash in the world's eye. His apprehension was lest soil had smirched?

So, happily the adventure comes to close Whereon my fat opponent grounds his charge Preposterous: at mid-day he groans "How dark!" Listen to me, thou Archangelic swine! Where is the ambiguity to blame, The flaw to find in our Pompilia? Safe She stands, see! Does thy comment follow quick, "Safe, inasmuch as at the end proposed; But thither she picked way by devious path-- Stands dirtied, no dubiety at all! I recognize success, yet, all the same, Importunately will suggestion prompt-- Better Pompilia gained the right to boast, 'No devious path, no doubtful patch was mine, I saved my head nor sacrificed my foot!' Why, being in a peril, show mistrust Of the angels set to guard the innocent? Why rather hold by obvious vulgar help Of stratagem and subterfuge, excused Somewhat, but still no less a foil, a fault, Since low with high, and good with bad is linked? Methinks I view some ancient bas-relief. There stands Hesione thrust out by Troy, Her father's hand has chained her to a crag, Her mother's from the virgin plucked the vest, At a safe distance both distressful watch, While near and nearer comes the snorting orc. I look that, white and perfect to the end, She wait till Jove dispatch some demigod; Not that,--impatient of celestial club Alcmena's son should brandish at the beast,-- She daub, disguise her dainty limbs with pitch, And so elude the purblind monster! Ay, The trick succeeds, but 't is an ugly trick, Where needs have been no trick!"

My answer? Faugh! _Nimis incongrue!_ Too absurdly put! _Sententiam ego teneo contrariam_, Trick, I maintain, had no alternative. The heavens were bound with brass,--Jove far at feast (No feast like that thou didst not ask me to, Arcangeli,--I heard of thy regale!) With the unblamed Æthiop,--Hercules spun wool I' the lap of Omphale, while Virtue shrieked-- The brute came paddling all the faster. You Of Troy, who stood at distance, where 's the aid You offered in the extremity? Most and least, Gentle and simple, here the Governor, There the Archbishop, everywhere the friends, Shook heads and waited for a miracle, Or went their way, left Virtue to her fate. Just this one rough and ready man leapt forth! --Was found, sole anti-Fabius (dare I say) Who restored things, with no delay at all, _Qui haud cunctando rem restituit!_ He, He only, Caponsacchi 'mid a crowd, Caught Virtue up, carried Pompilia off Through gaping impotence of sympathy In ranged Arezzo: what you take for pitch Is nothing worse, belike, than black and blue, Mere evanescent proof that hardy hands Did yeoman's service, cared not where the gripe Was more than duly energetic: bruised, She smarts a little, but her bones are saved A fracture, and her skin will soon show sleek. How it disgusts when weakness, false-refined, Censures the honest rude effective strength,-- When sickly dreamers of the impossible Decry plain sturdiness which does the feat With eyes wide open!

Did occasion serve, I could illustrate, if my lords allow; _Quid vetat_, what forbids I aptly ask With Horace, that I give my anger vent, While I let breathe, no less, and recreate, The gravity of my Judges, by a tale? A case in point--what though an apologue Graced by tradition?--possibly a fact: Tradition must precede all scripture, words Serve as our warrant ere our books can be: So, to tradition back we needs must go For any fact's authority: and this Hath lived so far (like jewel hid in muck) On page of that old lying vanity Called "Sepher Toldoth Yeschu:" God be praised, I read no Hebrew,--take the thing on trust: But I believe the writer meant no good (Blind as he was to truth in some respects) To our pestiferous and schismatic ... well, My lords' conjecture be the touchstone, show The thing for what it is! The author lacks Discretion, and his zeal exceeds: but zeal,-- How rare in our degenerate day! Enough! Here is the story: fear not, I shall chop And change a little, else my Jew would press All too unmannerly before the Court.

It happened once,--begins this foolish Jew, Pretending to write Christian history,-- That three, held greatest, best and worst of men, Peter and John and Judas, spent a day In toil and travel through the country-side On some sufficient business--I suspect, Suppression of some Molinism i' the bud. Foot-sore and hungry, dropping with fatigue, They reached by nightfall a poor lonely grange, Hostel or inn: so, knocked and entered there. "Your pleasure, great ones?"--"Shelter, rest and food!" For shelter, there was one bare room above; For rest therein, three beds of bundled straw: For food, one wretched starveling fowl, no more-- Meat for one mouth, but mockery for three. "You have my utmost." How should supper serve? Peter broke silence: "To the spit with fowl! And while 't is cooking, sleep!--since beds there be, And, so far, satisfaction of a want. Sleep we an hour, awake at supper-time, Then each of us narrate the dream he had, And he whose dream shall prove the happiest, point The clearliest out the dreamer as ordained Beyond his fellows to receive the fowl, Him let our shares be cheerful tribute to, His the entire meal, may it do him good!" Who could dispute so plain a consequence? So said, so done: each hurried to his straw, Slept his hour's-sleep and dreamed his dream, and woke. "I," commenced John, "dreamed that I gained the prize We all aspire to: the proud place was mine, Throughout the earth and to the end of time I was the Loved Disciple: mine the meal!" "But I," proceeded Peter, "dreamed, a word Gave me the headship of our company, Made me the Vicar and Vice-gerent, gave The keys of heaven and hell into my hand, And o'er the earth, dominion: mine the meal!" "While I," submitted in soft under-tone The Iscariot--sense of his unworthiness Turning each eye up to the inmost white-- With long-drawn sigh, yet letting both lips smack, "I have had just the pitifullest dream That ever proved man meanest of his mates, And born foot-washer and foot-wiper, nay Foot-kisser to each comrade of you all! I dreamed I dreamed; and in that mimic dream (Impalpable to dream as dream to fact) Methought I meanly chose to sleep no wink But wait until I heard my brethren snore; Then stole from couch, slipped noiseless o'er the planks, Slid downstairs, furtively approached the hearth, Found the fowl duly brown, both back and breast, Hissing in harmony with the cricket's chirp, Grilled to a point; said no grace, but fell to, Nor finished till the skeleton lay bare. In penitence for which ignoble dream, Lo, I renounce my portion cheerfully! Fie on the flesh--be mine the ethereal gust, And yours the sublunary sustenance! See that whate'er be left ye give the poor!" Down the two scuttled, one on other's heel, Stung by a fell surmise; and found, alack, A goodly savor, both the drumstick bones, And that which henceforth took the appropriate name O' the Merry-thought, in memory of the fact That to keep wide awake is man's best dream.

So,--as was said once of Thucydides And his sole joke, "The lion, lo, hath laughed!"-- Just so, the Governor and all that 's great I' the city never meant that Innocence Should quite starve while Authority sat at meat; They meant to fling a bone at banquet's end: Wished well to our Pompilia--in their dreams, Nor bore the secular sword in vain--asleep. Just so the Archbishop and all good like him Went to bed meaning to pour oil and wine I' the wounds of her, next day,--but long ere day, They had burned the one and drunk the other, while Just so, again, contrariwise, the priest Sustained poor Nature in extremity By stuffing barley-bread into her mouth, Saving Pompilia (grant the parallel) By the plain homely and straightforward way Taught him by common sense. Let others shriek "Oh what refined expedients did we dream Proved us the only fit to help the fair!" He cried, "A carriage waits, jump in with me!"

And now, this application pardoned, lords,-- This recreative pause and breathing-while,-- Back to beseemingness and gravity! For Law steps in: Guido appeals to Law, Demands she arbitrate,--does well for once. O Law, of thee how neatly was it said By that old Sophocles, thou hast thy seat I' the very breast of Jove, no meanlier throned! Here is a piece of work now, hitherto Begun and carried on, concluded near, Without an eye-glance cast thy sceptre's way; And, lo, the stumbling and discomfiture! Well may you call them "lawless" means, men take To extricate themselves through mother-wit When tangled haply in the toils of life! Guido would try conclusions with his foe, Whoe'er the foe was and whate'er the offence; He would recover certain dowry-dues: Instead of asking Law to lend a hand, What pother of sword drawn and pistol cocked, What peddling with forged letters and paid spies, Politic circumvention!--all to end As it began--by loss of the fool's head, First in a figure, presently in a fact. It is a lesson to mankind at large. How other were the end, would men be sage And bear confidingly each quarrel straight, O Law, to thy recipient mother-knees! How would the children light come and prompt go, This, with a red-cheeked apple for reward, The other, peradventure red-cheeked too I' the rear, by taste of birch for punishment. No foolish brawling murder any more! Peace for the household, practice for the Fisc, And plenty for the exchequer of my lords! Too much to hope, in this world: in the next, Who knows? Since, why should sit the Twelve enthroned To judge the tribes, unless the tribes be judged? And 't is impossible but offences come: So, all 's one lawsuit, all one long leet-day!

Forgive me this digression--that I stand Entranced awhile at Law's first beam, outbreak O' the business, when the Count's good angel bade "Put up thy sword, born enemy to the ear, And let Law listen to thy difference!" And Law does listen and compose the strife, Settle the suit, how wisely and how well! On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault, Law bends a brow maternally severe, Implies the worth of perfect chastity, By fancying the flaw she cannot find. Superfluous sifting snow, nor helps nor harms: 'T is safe to censure levity in youth, Tax womanhood with indiscretion, sure! Since toys, permissible to-day, become Follies to-morrow: prattle shocks in church: And that curt skirt which lets a maiden skip, The matron changes for a trailing robe. Mothers may aim a blow with half-shut eyes Nodding above their spindles by the fire, And chance to hit some hidden fault, else safe. Just so, Law hazarded a punishment-- If applicable to the circumstance, Why, well! if not so apposite, well too. "Quit the gay range o' the world," I hear her cry, "Enter, in lieu, the penitential pound: Exchange the gauds of pomp for ashes, dust! Leave each mollitious haunt of luxury! The golden-garnished silken-couched alcove, The many-columned terrace that so tempts Feminine soul put foot forth, extend ear To fluttering joy of lover's serenade,-- Leave these for cellular seclusion! mask And dance no more, but fast and pray! avaunt-- Be burned, thy wicked townsman's sonnet-book! Welcome, mild hymnal by ... some better scribe! For the warm arms were wont enfold thy flesh, Let wire-shirt plough and whip-cord discipline!" If such an exhortation proved, perchance, Inapplicable, words bestowed in waste, What harm, since Law has store, can spend nor miss?

And so, our paragon submits herself, Goes at command into the holy house, And, also at command, comes out again: For, could the effect of such obedience prove Too certain, too immediate? Being healed, Go blaze abroad the matter, blessed one! Art thou sound forthwith? Speedily vacate The step by pool-side, leave Bethesda free To patients plentifully posted round, Since the whole need not the physician! Brief, She may betake her to her parents' place. Welcome her, father, with wide arms once more; Motion her, mother, to thy breast again! For why? Since Law relinquishes the charge, Grants to your dwelling-place a prison's style. Rejoice you with Pompilia! golden days, _Redeunt Saturnia regna_. Six weeks slip, And she is domiciled in house and home As though she thence had never budged at all. And thither let the husband--joyous, ay, But contrite also--quick betake himself, Proud that his dove which lay among the pots Hath mued those dingy feathers,--moulted now, Shows silver bosom clothed with yellow gold! So shall he tempt her to the perch she fled, Bid to domestic bliss the truant back.

But let him not delay! Time fleets how fast, And opportunity, the irrevocable, Once flown will flout him! Is the furrow traced? If field with corn ye fail preoccupy, Darnel for wheat and thistle-beards for grain, _Infelix lolium, carduus horridus_, Will grow apace in combination prompt, Defraud the husbandman of his desire. Already--hist--what murmurs 'monish now The laggard?--doubtful, nay, fantastic bruit Of such an apparition, such return _Interdum_, to anticipate the spouse, Of Caponsacchi's very self! 'T is said, When nights are lone and company is rare, His visitations brighten winter up. If so they did--which nowise I believe-- (How can I?--proof abounding that the priest, Once fairly at his relegation-place, Never once left it), still, admit he stole A midnight march, would fain see friend again, Find matter for instruction in the past, Renew the old adventure in such chat As cheers a fireside! He was lonely too, He, too, must need his recreative hour. Shall it amaze the philosophic mind If he, long wont the empurpled cup to quaff, Have feminine society at will, Being debarred abruptly from all drink Save at the spring which Adam used for wine, Dreads harm to just the health he hoped to guard, And, trying abstinence, gains malady? Ask Tozzi, now physician to the Pope! "Little by little break"--(I hear he bids Master Arcangeli my antagonist, Who loves good cheer, and may indulge too much: So I explain the logic of the plea Wherewith he opened our proceedings late)-- "Little by little break a habit, Don, Become necessity to feeble flesh!" And thus, nocturnal taste of intercourse (Which never happened,--but, suppose it did) May have been used to dishabituate By sip and sip this drainer to the dregs O' the draught of conversation,--heady stuff, Brewage which, broached, it took two days and nights To properly discuss i' the journey, Sirs! Such power has second-nature, men call use, That undelightful objects get to charm Instead of chafe: the daily colocynth Tickles the palate by repeated dose, Old sores scratch kindly, the ass makes a push Although the mill-yoke-wound be smarting yet, For mill-door bolted on a holiday: Nor must we marvel here if impulse urge To talk the old story over now and then, The hopes and fears, the stoppage and the haste,-- Subjects of colloquy to surfeit once. "Here did you bid me twine a rosy wreath!" "And there you paid my lips a compliment!" "Here you admired the tower could be so tall!" "And there you likened that of Lebanon To the nose of the beloved!" Trifles! still, "_Forsan et hæc olim_,"--such trifles serve To make the minutes pass in winter-time.

Husband, return then, I re-counsel thee! For, finally, of all glad circumstance Should make a prompt return imperative, What in the world awaits thee, dost suppose? O' the sudden, as good gifts are wont befall, What is the hap of our unconscious Count? That which lights bonfire and sets cask a-tilt, Dissolves the stubborn'st heart in jollity. O admirable, there is born a babe, A son, an heir, a Franceschini last And best o' the stock! Pompilia, thine the palm! Repaying incredulity with faith, Ungenerous thrift of each marital debt With bounty in profuse expenditure, Pompilia scorns to have the old year end Without a present shall ring in the new-- Bestows on her too-parsimonious lord An infant for the apple of his eye, Core of his heart, and crown completing life, True _summum bonum_ of the earthly lot! "We," saith ingeniously the sage, "are born Solely that others may be born of us." So, father, take thy child, for thine that child, Oh nothing doubt! In wedlock born, law holds Baseness impossible: since "_filius est_ _Quem nuptiæ demonstrant_," twits the text Whoever dares to doubt.

Yet doubt he dares! O faith, where art thou flown from out the world? Already on what an age of doubt we fall! Instead of each disputing for the prize, The babe is bandied here from that to this. Whose the babe? "_Cujum pecus?_" Guido's lamb? "_An Melibæi?_" Nay, but of the priest! "_Non sed Ægonis!_" Some one must be sire: And who shall say, in such a puzzling strait, If there were not vouchsafed some miracle To the wife who had been harassed and abused More than enough by Guido's family For non-production of the promised fruit Of marriage? What if Nature, I demand, Touched to the quick by taunts upon her sloth, Had roused herself, put forth recondite power, Bestowed this birth to vindicate her sway, Like the strange favor Maro memorized As granted Aristæus when his hive Lay empty of the swarm? not one more bee-- Not one more babe to Franceschini's house! And lo, a new birth filled the air with joy, Sprung from the bowels of the generous steer, A novel son and heir rejoiced the Count! Spontaneous generation, need I prove Were facile feat to Nature at a pinch? Let whoso doubts, steep horsehair certain weeks, In water, there will be produced a snake; Spontaneous product of the horse, which horse Happens to be the representative-- Now that I think on 't--of Arezzo's self, The very city our conception blessed: Is not a prancing horse the City-arms? What sane eye fails to see coincidence? _Cur ego_, boast thou, my Pompilia, then, _Desperem fieri sine conjuge_ _Mater_--How well the Ovidian distich suits!-- _Et parere intacto dummodo_ _Casta viro?_ such miracle was wrought! Note, further, as to mark the prodigy, The babe in question neither took the name Of Guido, from the sire presumptive, nor Giuseppe, from the sire potential, but Gaetano--last saint of our hierarchy, And newest namer for a thing so new! What other motive could have prompted choice?

Therefore be peace again: exult, ye hills! Ye vales rejoicingly break forth in song! _Incipe, parve puer_, begin, small boy, _Risu cognoscere patrem_, with a laugh To recognize thy parent! Nor do thou Boggle, O parent, to return the grace! _Nec anceps hære, pater, puero_ _Cognoscendo_--one may well eke out the prayer! In vain! The perverse Guido doubts his eyes, Distrusts assurance, lets the devil drive. Because his house is swept and garnished now, He, having summoned seven like himself, Must hurry thither, knock and enter in, And make the last worse than the first, indeed! Is he content? We are. No further blame O' the man and murder! They were stigmatized Befittingly: the Court heard long ago My mind o' the matter, which, outpouring full, Has long since swept like surge, i' the simile Of Homer, overborne both dyke and dam, And whelmed alike client and advocate: His fate is sealed, his life as good as gone, On him I am not tempted to waste word. Yet though my purpose holds,--which was and is And solely shall be to the very end, To draw the true _effigies_ of a saint, Do justice to perfection in the sex,-- Yet let not some gross pamperer of the flesh And niggard in the spirit's nourishment, Whose feeding hath obfuscated his wit Rather than law,--he never had, to lose-- Let not such advocate object to me I leave my proper function of attack! "What 's this to Bacchus?"--(in the classic phrase, Well used, for once) he hiccups probably. O Advocate o' the Poor, thou born to make Their blessing void--_beati pauperes!_ By painting saintship I depicture sin: Beside my pearl, I prove how black thy jet, And, through Pompilia's virtue, Guido's crime.

Back to her, then,--with but one beauty more, End we our argument,--one crowning grace Pre-eminent 'mid agony and death. For to the last Pompilia played her part, Used the right means to the permissible end, And, wily as an eel that stirs the mud Thick overhead, so baffling spearman's thrust, She, while he stabbed her, simulated death, Delayed, for his sake, the catastrophe, Obtained herself a respite, four days' grace, Whereby she told her story to the world, Enabled me to make the present speech, And, by a full confession, saved her soul.

Yet hold, even here would malice leer its last, Gurgle its choked remonstrance: snake, hiss free! Oh, that 's the objection? And to whom?--not her But me, forsooth--as, in the very act Of both confession and (what followed close) Subsequent talk, chatter and gossipry, Babble to sympathizing he and she Whoever chose besiege her dying-bed,-- As this were found at variance with my tale, Falsified all I have adduced for truth, Admitted not one peccadillo here, Pretended to perfection, first and last, O' the whole procedure--perfect in the end, Perfect i' the means, perfect in everything, Leaving a lawyer nothing to excuse, Reason away and show his skill about! --A flight, impossible to Adamic flesh, Just to be fancied, scarcely to be wished, And, anyhow, unpleadable in court! "How reconcile," gasps Malice, "that with this?"

Your "this," friend, is extraneous to the law, Comes of men's outside meddling, the unskilled Interposition of such fools as press Out of their province. Must I speak my mind? Far better had Pompilia died o' the spot Than found a tongue to wag and shame the law, Shame most of all herself,--could friendship fail, And advocacy lie less on the alert: But no, they shall protect her to the end! Do I credit the alleged narration? No! Lied our Pompilia then, to laud herself? Still, no! Clear up what seems discrepancy? The means abound: art 's long, though time is short; So, keeping me in compass, all I urge Is--since, confession at the point of death, _Nam in articulo mortis_, with the Church Passes for statement honest and sincere, _Nemo presumitur reus esse_,--then, If sure that all affirmed would be believed, 'T was charity, in her so circumstanced, To spend the last breath in one effort more For universal good of friend and foe: And,--by pretending utter innocence, Nay, freedom from each foible we forgive,-- Re-integrate--not solely her own fame, But do the like kind office for the priest Whom telling the crude truth about might vex, Haply expose to peril, abbreviate Indeed the long career of usefulness Presumably before him: while her lord, Whose fleeting life is forfeit to the law,-- What mercy to the culprit if, by just The gift of such a full certificate Of his immitigable guiltiness, She stifled in him the absurd conceit Of murder as it were a mere revenge --Stopped confirmation of that jealousy Which, did she but acknowledge the first flaw, The faintest foible, had emboldened him To battle with the charge, balk penitence, Bar preparation for impending fate! Whereas, persuade him that he slew a saint Who sinned not even where she may have sinned, You urge him all the brisklier to repent Of most and least and aught and everything! Still, if this view of mine content you not, Lords, nor excuse the genial falsehood here, We come to our _Triarii_, last resource: We fall back on the inexpugnable, Submitting,--she confessed before she talked! The sacrament obliterates the sin: What is not,--was not, therefore, in a sense. Let Molinists distinguish, "Souls washed white But red once, still show pinkish to the eye!" We say, abolishment is nothingness, And nothingness has neither head nor tail, End nor beginning! Better estimate Exorbitantly, than disparage aught Of the efficacity of the act, I hope!

_Solvuntur tabulæ?_ May we laugh and go? Well,--not before (in filial gratitude To Law, who, mighty mother, waves adieu) We take on us to vindicate Law's self! For,--yea, Sirs,--curb the start, curtail the stare!-- Remains that we apologize for haste I' the Law, our lady who here bristles up, "Blame my procedure? Could the Court mistake? (Which were indeed a misery to think); Did not my sentence in the former stage O' the business bear a title plain enough? _Decretum_"--I translate it word for word-- "'Decreed: the priest, for his complicity I' the flight and deviation of the dame, As well as for unlawful intercourse, Is banished three years:' crime and penalty Declared alike. If he be taxed with guilt, How can you call Pompilia innocent? If both be innocent, have I been just?"

Gently, O mother, judge men--whose mistake Is in the mere misapprehensiveness! The _Titulus_ a-top of your decree Was but to ticket there the kind of charge You in good time would arbitrate upon. Title is one thing,--arbitration's self, _Probatio_, quite another possibly. _Subsistit;_ there holds good the old response, _Responsio tradita_, we must not stick, _Quod non sit attendendus Titulus_, To the Title, _sed Probatio_, but the Proof, _Resultans ex processu_, the result O' the Trial, and the style of punishment, _Et pœna per sententiam imposita_. All is tentative, till the sentence come: An indication of what men expect, But nowise an assurance they shall find. Lords, what if we permissibly relax The tense bow, as the law-god Phœbus bids, Relieve our gravity at labor's close? I traverse Rome, feel thirsty, need a draught, Look for a wine-shop, find it by the bough Projecting as to say "Here wine is sold!" So much I know,--"sold:" but what sort of wine? Strong, weak, sweet, sour, home-made or foreign drink? That much must I discover by myself. "Wine is sold," quoth the bough, "but good or bad, Find, and inform us when you smack your lips!" Exactly so, Law hangs her title forth, To show she entertains you with such case About such crime. Come in! she pours, you quaff. You find the Priest good liquor in the main, But heady and provocative of brawls: Remand the residue to flask once more, Lay it low where it may deposit lees, I' the cellar: thence produce it presently, Three years the brighter and the better!

Thus, Law's son, have I bestowed my filial help, And thus I end, _tenax proposito;_ Point to point as I purposed have I drawn Pompilia, and implied as terribly Guido: so, gazing, let the world crown Law-- Able once more, despite my impotence, And helped by the acumen of the Court, To eliminate, display, make triumph truth! What other prize than truth were worth the pains?

* * * * *

There 's my oration--much exceeds in length That famed panegyric of Isocrates, They say it took him fifteen years to pen. But all those ancients could say anything! He put in just what rushed into his head: While I shall have to prune and pare and print. This comes of being born in modern times With priests for auditory. Still, it pays.

X

THE POPE

Like to Ahasuerus, that shrewd prince, I will begin,--as is, these seven years now, My daily wont,--and read a History (Written by one whose deft right hand was dust To the last digit, ages ere my birth) Of all my predecessors, Popes of Rome: For though mine ancient early dropped the pen, Yet others picked it up and wrote it dry, Since of the making books there is no end. And so I have the Papacy complete From Peter first to Alexander last; Can question each and take instruction so. Have I to dare!--I ask, how dared this Pope? To suffer? Such-an-one, how suffered he? Being about to judge, as now, I seek How judged once, well or ill, some other Pope; Study some signal judgment that subsists To blaze on, or else blot, the page which seals The sum up of what gain or loss to God Came of his one more Vicar in the world. So, do I find example, rule of life; So, square and set in order the next page, Shall be stretched smooth o'er my own funeral cyst.

Eight hundred years exact before the year I was made Pope, men made Formosus Pope, Say Sigebert and other chroniclers. Ere I confirm or quash the Trial here Of Guido Franceschini and his friends, Read,--How there was a ghastly Trial once Of a dead man by a live man, and both, Popes: Thus--in the antique penman's very phrase.

"Then Stephen, Pope and seventh of the name, Cried out, in synod as he sat in state, While choler quivered on his brow and beard, 'Come into court, Formosus, thou lost wretch, That claimedst to be late Pope as even I!'

"And at the word, the great door of the church Flew wide, and in they brought Formosus' self, The body of him, dead, even as embalmed And buried duly in the Vatican Eight months before, exhumed thus for the nonce. They set it, that dead body of a Pope, Clothed in pontific vesture now again, Upright on Peter's chair as if alive.

"And Stephen, springing up, cried furiously, 'Bishop of Porto, wherefore didst presume To leave that see and take this Roman see, Exchange the lesser for the greater see, --A thing against the canons of the Church?'

"Then one--(a Deacon who, observing forms, Was placed by Stephen to repel the charge, Be advocate and mouthpiece of the corpse)-- Spoke as he dared, set stammeringly forth With white lips and dry tongue,--as but a youth, For frightful was the corpse-face to behold,-- How nowise lacked there precedent for this. "But when, for his last precedent of all, Emboldened by the Spirit, out he blurts, 'And, Holy Father, didst not thou thyself Vacate the lesser for the greater see, Half a year since change Arago for Rome?' '--Ye have the sin's defence now, synod mine!' Shrieks Stephen in a beastly froth of rage: 'Judge now betwixt him dead and me alive! Hath he intruded, or do I pretend? Judge, judge!'--breaks wavelike one whole foam of wrath.

"Whereupon they, being friends and followers, Said, 'Ay, thou art Christ's Vicar, and not he! Away with what is frightful to behold! This act was uncanonic and a fault.'

"Then, swallowed up in rage, Stephen exclaimed, 'So, guilty! So, remains I punish guilt! He is unpoped, and all he did I damn: The Bishop, that ordained him, I degrade: Depose to laics those he raised to priests: What they have wrought is mischief nor shall stand, It is confusion, let it vex no more! Since I revoke, annul and abrogate All his decrees in all kinds: they are void! In token whereof and warning to the world, Strip me yon miscreant of those robes usurped, And clothe him with vile serge befitting such! Then hale the carrion to the market-place; Let the town-hangman chop from his right hand Those same three fingers which he blessed withal; Next cut the head off, once was crowned forsooth: And last go fling them, fingers, head and trunk, To Tiber that my Christian fish may sup!' --Either because of ΙΧΘΥΣ which means Fish And very aptly symbolizes Christ, Or else because the Pope is Fisherman, And seals with Fisher's-signet.

"Anyway, So said, so done: himself, to see it done, Followed the corpse they trailed from street to street Till into Tiber wave they threw the thing. The people, crowded on the banks to see, Were loud or mute, wept or laughed, cursed or jeered, According as the deed addressed their sense; A scandal verily: and out spake a Jew, 'Wot ye your Christ had vexed our Herod thus?'

"Now when, Formosus being dead a year, His judge Pope Stephen tasted death in turn, Made captive by the mob and strangled straight, Romanus, his successor for a month, Did make protest Formosus was with God, Holy, just, true in thought and word and deed. Next Theodore, who reigned but twenty days, Therein convoked a synod, whose decree Did reinstate, repope the late unpoped, And do away with Stephen as accursed.

So that when presently certain fisher-folk (As if the queasy river could not hold Its swallowed Jonas, but discharged the meal) Produced the timely product of their nets, The mutilated man, Formosus,--saved From putrefaction by the embalmer's spice, Or, as some said, by sanctity of flesh,-- 'Why, lay the body again,' bade Theodore, 'Among his predecessors, in the church And burial-place of Peter!' which was done. 'And,' addeth Luitprand, 'many of repute, Pious and still alive, avouch to me That, as they bore the body up the aisle, The saints in imaged row bowed each his head For welcome to a brother-saint come back.' As for Romanus and this Theodore, These two Popes, through the brief reign granted each, Could but initiate what John came to close And give the final stamp to: he it was, Ninth of the name, (I follow the best guides) Who,--in full synod at Ravenna held With Bishops seventy-four, and present too Eude King of France with his Archbishopry,-- Did condemn Stephen, anathematize The disinterment, and make all blots blank. 'For,' argueth here Auxilius in a place _De Ordinationibus_, 'precedents Had been, no lack, before Formosus long, Of Bishops so transferred from see to see,-- Marinus, for example:' read the tract.

"But, after John, came Sergius, reaffirmed The right of Stephen, cursed Formosus, nay Cast out, some say, his corpse a second time, And here,--because the matter went to ground, Fretted by new griefs, other cares of the age,-- Here is the last pronouncing of the Church, Her sentence that subsists unto this day. Yet constantly opinion hath prevailed I' the Church, Formosus was a holy man."

Which of the judgments was infallible? Which of my predecessors spoke for God? And what availed Formosus that this cursed, That blessed, and then this other cursed again? "Fear ye not those whose power can kill the body And not the soul," saith Christ, "but rather those Can cast both soul and body into hell!"

John judged thus in Eight Hundred Ninety Eight, Exact eight hundred years ago to-day When, sitting in his stead, Vicegerent here, I must give judgment on my own behoof. So worked the predecessor: now, my turn!

In God's name! Once more on this earth of God's, While twilight lasts and time wherein to work, I take his staff with my uncertain hand, And stay my six and fourscore years, my due Labor and sorrow, on his judgment-seat, And forthwith think, speak, act, in place of him-- The Pope for Christ. Once more appeal is made From man's assize to mine: I sit and see Another poor weak trembling human wretch Pushed by his fellows, who pretend the right, Up to the gulf which, where I gaze, begins From this world to the next,--gives way and way, Just on the edge over the awful dark: With nothing to arrest him but my feet. He catches at me with convulsive face, Cries "Leave to live the natural minute more!" While hollowly the avengers echo "Leave? None! So has he exceeded man's due share In man's fit license, wrung by Adam's fall, To sin and yet not surely die,--that we, All of us sinful, all with need of grace, All chary of our life,--the minute more Or minute less of grace which saves a soul,-- Bound to make common cause with who craves time, --We yet protest against the exorbitance Of sin in this one sinner, and demand That his poor sole remaining piece of time Be plucked from out his clutch: put him to death! Punish him now! As for the weal or woe Hereafter, God grant mercy! Man be just. Nor let the felon boast he went scot-free!" And I am bound, the solitary judge, To weigh the worth, decide upon the plea, And either hold a hand out, or withdraw A foot and let the wretch drift to the fall. Ay, and while thus I dally, dare perchance Put fancies for a comfort 'twixt this calm And yonder passion that I have to bear,-- As if reprieve were possible for both Prisoner and Pope,--how easy were reprieve! A touch o' the hand-bell here, a hasty word To those who wait, and wonder they wait long, I' the passage there, and I should gain the life!-- Yea, though I flatter me with fancy thus, I know it is but Nature's craven-trick. The case is over, judgment at an end, And all things done now and irrevocable: A mere dead man is Franceschini here, Even as Formosus centuries ago. I have worn through this sombre wintry day, With winter in my soul beyond the world's, Over these dismalest of documents Which drew night down on me ere eve befell,-- Pleadings and counter-pleadings, figure of fact Beside fact's self, these summaries, to wit,-- How certain three were slain by certain five: I read here why it was, and how it went, And how the chief o' the five preferred excuse, And how law rather chose defence should lie,-- What argument he urged by wary word When free to play off wile, start subterfuge, And what the unguarded groan told, torture's feat When law grew brutal, outbroke, overbore And glutted hunger on the truth, at last,-- No matter for the flesh and blood between. All 's a clear rede and no more riddle now. Truth, nowhere, lies yet everywhere in these-- Not absolutely in a portion, yet Evolvable from the whole: evolved at last Painfully, held tenaciously by me. Therefore there is not any doubt to clear When I shall write the brief word presently And chink the hand-bell, which I pause to do. Irresolute? Not I, more than the mound With the pine-trees on it yonder! Some surmise, Perchance, that since man's wit is fallible, Mine may fail here? Suppose it so,--what then? Say,--Guido, I count guilty, there 's no babe So guiltless, for I misconceive the man! What 's in the chance should move me from my mind? If, as I walk in a rough country-side, Peasants of mine cry, "Thou art he can help, Lord of the land and counted wise to boot: Look at our brother, strangling in his foam, He fell so where we find him,--prove thy worth!" I may presume, pronounce, "A frenzy-fit, A falling-sickness or a fever-stroke! Breathe a vein, copiously let blood at once!" So perishes the patient, and anon I hear my peasants--"All was error, lore! Our story, thy prescription: for there crawled In due time from our hapless brother's breast The serpent which had stung him: bleeding slew Whom a prompt cordial had restored to health." What other should I say than "God so willed: Mankind is ignorant, a man am I: Call ignorance my sorrow, not my sin!" So and not otherwise, in after-time, If some acuter wit, fresh probing, sound This multifarious mass of words and deeds Deeper, and reach through guilt to innocence, I shall face Guido's ghost nor blench a jot. "God who set me to judge thee, meted out So much of judging faculty, no more: Ask him if I was slack in use thereof!" I hold a heavier fault imputable Inasmuch as I changed a chaplain once, For no cause,--no, if I must bare my heart,-- Save that he snuffled somewhat saying mass. For I am 'ware it is the seed of act, God holds appraising in his hollow palm, Not act grown great thence on the world below, Leafage and branchage, vulgar eyes admire. Therefore I stand on my integrity, Nor fear at all: and if I hesitate, It is because I need to breathe awhile, Rest, as the human right allows, review Intent the little seeds of act, my tree,-- The thought, which, clothed in deed, I give the world At chink of bell and push of arrased door.

O pale departure, dim disgrace of day! Winter's in wane, his vengeful worst art thou, To dash the boldness of advancing March! Thy chill persistent rain has purged our streets Of gossipry; pert tongue and idle ear By this, consort 'neath archway, portico. But wheresoe'er Rome gathers in the gray, Two names now snap and flash from mouth to mouth-- (Sparks, flint and steel strike)--Guido and the Pope. By this same hour to-morrow eve--aha, How do they call him?--the sagacious Swede Who finds by figures how the chances prove, Why one comes rather than another thing, As, say, such dots turn up by throw of dice, Or, if we dip in Virgil here and there And prick for such a verse, when such shall point. Take this Swede, tell him, hiding name and rank, Two men are in our city this dull eve; One doomed to death,--but hundreds in such plight Slip aside, clean escape by leave of law Which leans to mercy in this latter time; Moreover in the plenitude of life Is he, with strength of limb and brain adroit, Presumably of service here: beside, The man is noble, backed by nobler friends: Nay, they so wish him well, the city's self Makes common cause with who--house-magistrate, Patron of hearth and home, domestic lord-- But ruled his own, let aliens cavil. Die? He 'll bribe a jailer or break prison first! Nay, a sedition may be helpful, give Hint to the mob to batter wall, burn gate, And bid the favorite malefactor march. Calculate now these chances of escape! "It is not probable, but well may be." Again, there is another man, weighed now By twice eight years beyond the seven-times-ten, Appointed overweight to break our branch. And this man's loaded branch lifts, more than snow, All the world's cark and care, though a bird's nest Were a superfluous burden: notably Hath he been pressed, as if his age were youth, From to-day's dawn till now that day departs, Trying one question with true sweat of soul, "Shall the said doomed man fitlier die or live?" When a straw swallowed in his posset, stool Stumbled on where his path lies, any puff That 's incident to such a smoking flax, Hurries the natural end and quenches him! Now calculate, thou sage, the chances here, Say, which shall die the sooner, this or that? "That, possibly, this in all likelihood." I thought so: yet thou tripp'st, my foreign friend! No, it will be quite otherwise,--to-day Is Guido's last: my term is yet to run.

But say the Swede were right, and I forthwith Acknowledge a prompt summons and lie dead: Why, then I stand already in God's face And hear, "Since by its fruit a tree is judged, Show me thy fruit, the latest act of thine! For in the last is summed the first and all,-- What thy life last put heart and soul into, There shall I taste thy product." I must plead This condemnation of a man to-day. Not so! Expect nor question nor reply At what we figure as God's judgment-bar! None of this vile way by the barren words Which, more than any deed, characterize Man as made subject to a curse: no speech-- That still bursts o'er some lie which lurks inside, As the split skin across the coppery snake, And most denotes man! since, in all beside, In hate or lust or guile or unbelief, Out of some core of truth the excrescence comes, And, in the last resort, the man may urge "So was I made, a weak thing that gave way To truth, to impulse only strong since true, And hated, lusted, used guile, forwent faith." But when man walks the garden of this world For his own solace, and, unchecked by law, Speaks or keeps silence as himself sees fit, Without the least incumbency to lie, --Why, can he tell you what a rose is like, Or how the birds fly, and not slip to false Though truth serve better? Man must tell his mate Of you, me and himself, knowing he lies, Knowing his fellow knows the same,--will think "He lies, it is the method of a man!" And yet will speak for answer "It is truth" To him who shall rejoin "Again a lie!" Therefore these filthy rags of speech, this coil Of statement, comment, query and response, Tatters all too contaminate for use, Have no renewing: He the Truth is, too, The Word. We men, in our degree, may know There, simply, instantaneously, as here After long time and amid many lies, Whatever we dare think we know indeed --That I am I, as He is He,--what else? But be man's method for man's life at least! Wherefore, Antonio Pignatelli, thou My ancient self, who wast no Pope so long But studiedst God and man, the many years I' the school, i' the cloister, in the diocese Domestic, legate-rule in foreign lands,-- Thou other force in those old busy days Than this gray ultimate decrepitude,-- Yet sensible of fires that more and more Visit a soul, in passage to the sky, Left nakeder than when flesh-robe was new-- Thou, not Pope but the mere old man o' the world, Supposed inquisitive and dispassionate, Wilt thou, the one whose speech I somewhat trust, Question the after-me, this self now Pope, Hear his procedure, criticise his work? Wise in its generation is the world.

This is why Guido is found reprobate. I see him furnished forth for his career, On starting for the life-chance in our world, With nearly all we count sufficient help: Body and mind in balance, a sound frame, A solid intellect: the wit to seek, Wisdom to choose, and courage wherewithal To deal in whatsoever circumstance Should minister to man, make life succeed. Oh, and much drawback! what were earth without? Is this our ultimate stage, or starting-place To try man's foot, if it will creep or climb, 'Mid obstacles in seeming, points that prove Advantage for who vaults from low to high And makes the stumbling-block a stepping-stone? So, Guido, born with appetite, lacks food: Is poor, who yet could deftly play-off wealth: Straitened, whose limbs are restless till at large. He, as he eyes each outlet of the cirque And narrow penfold for probation, pines After the good things just outside its grate, With less monition, fainter conscience-twitch, Rarer instinctive qualm at the first feel Of greed unseemly, prompting grasp undue, Than nature furnishes her main mankind,-- Making it harder to do wrong than right The first time, careful lest the common ear Break measure, miss the outstep of life's march. Wherein I see a trial fair and fit For one else too unfairly fenced about, Set above sin, beyond his fellows here: Guarded from the arch-tempter all must fight, By a great birth, traditionary name, Diligent culture, choice companionship, Above all, conversancy with the faith Which puts forth for its base of doctrine just, "Man is born nowise to content himself, But please God." He accepted such a rule, Recognized man's obedience; and the Church, Which simply is such rule's embodiment, He clave to, he held on by,--nay, indeed, Near pushed inside of, deep as layman durst, Professed so much of priesthood as might sue For priest's-exemption where the layman sinned,-- Go this arm frocked which, bare, the law would bruise, Hence, at this moment, what's his last resource, His extreme stay and utmost stretch of hope But that,--convicted of such crime as law Wipes not away save with a worldling's blood,-- Guido, the three-parts consecrate, may 'scape? Nay, the portentous brothers of the man Are veritably priests, protected each May do his murder in the Church's pale, Abate Paul, Canon Girolamo! This is the man proves irreligiousest Of all mankind, religion's parasite! This may forsooth plead dinned ear, jaded sense, The vice o' the watcher who bides near the bell, Sleeps sound because the clock is vigilant, And cares not whether it be shade or shine, Doling out day and night to all men else! Why was the choice o' the man to niche himself Perversely 'neath the tower where Time's own tongue Thus undertakes to sermonize the world? Why, but because the solemn is safe too, The belfry proves a fortress of a sort, Has other uses than to teach the hour: Turns sunscreen, paravent and ombrifuge To whoso seeks a shelter in its pale, --Ay, and attractive to unwary folk Who gaze at storied portal, statued spire, And go home with full head but empty purse. Nor dare suspect the sacristan the thief! Shall Judas--hard upon the donor's heel, To filch the fragments of the basket--plead He was too near the preacher's mouth, nor sat Attent with fifties in a company? No,--closer to promulgated decree, Clearer the censure of default. Proceed!

I find him bound, then, to begin life well; Fortified by propitious circumstance, Great birth, good breeding, with the Church for guide, How lives he? Cased thus in a coat of proof, Mailed like a man-at-arms, though all the while A puny starveling,--does the breast pant big, The limb swell to the limit, emptiness Strive to become solidity indeed? Bather, he shrinks up like the ambiguous fish, Detaches flesh from shell and outside show, And steals by moonlight (I have seen the thing) In and out, now to prey and now to skulk. Armor he boasts when a wave breaks on beach, Or bird stoops for the prize: with peril nigh,-- The man of rank, the much-befriended man, The man almost affiliate to the Church, Such is to deal with, let the world beware! Does the world recognize, pass prudently? Do tides abate and sea-fowl hunt i' the deep? Already is the slug from out its mew, Ignobly faring with all loose and free, Sand-fly and slush-worm at their garbage-feast, A naked blotch no better than they all: Guido has dropped nobility, slipped the Church, Plays trickster if not cut-purse, body and soul Prostrate among the filthy feeders--faugh! And when Law takes him by surprise at last, Catches the foul thing on its carrion-prey, Behold, he points to shell left high and dry, Pleads "But the case out yonder is myself!" Nay, it is thou, Law prongs amid thy peers, Congenial vermin; that was none of thee, Thine outside,--give it to the soldier-crab!

For I find this black mark impinge the man, That he believes in just the vile of life. Low instinct, base pretension, are these truth? Then, that aforesaid armor, probity, He figures in, is falsehood scale on scale; Honor and faith,--a lie and a disguise, Probably for all livers in this world, Certainly for himself! All say good words To who will hear, all do thereby bad deeds To who must undergo; so thrive mankind! See this habitual creed exemplified Most in the last deliberate act; as last, So, very sum and substance of the soul Of him that planned and leaves one perfect piece, The sin brought under jurisdiction now, Even the marriage of the man: this act I sever from his life as sample, show For Guido's self, intend to test him by, As, from a cup filled fairly at the fount, By the components we decide enough Or to let flow as late, or stanch the source.

He purposes this marriage, I remark, On no one motive that should prompt thereto-- Farthest, by consequence, from ends alleged Appropriate to the action; so they were: The best, he knew and feigned, the worst he took. Not one permissible impulse moves the man, From the mere liking of the eye and ear, To the true longing of the heart that loves, No trace of these: but all to instigate, Is what sinks man past level of the brute, Whose appetite if brutish is a truth. All is the lust for money: to get gold,-- Why, lie, rob, if it must be, murder! Make Body and soul wring gold out, lured within The clutch of hate by love, the trap's pretence! What good else get from bodies and from souls? This got, there were some life to lead thereby, --What, where or how, appreciate those who tell How the toad lives: it lives,--enough for me! To get this good--but with a groan or so, Then, silence of the victims--were the feat. He foresaw, made a picture in his mind,-- Of father and mother stunned and echoless To the blow, as they lie staring at fate's jaws Their folly danced into, till the woe fell; Edged in a month by strenuous cruelty From even the poor nook whence they watched the wolf Feast on their heart, the lamb-like child his prey; Plundered to the last remnant of their wealth, (What daily pittance pleased the plunderer dole,) Hunted forth to go hide head, starve and die, And leave the pale awe-stricken wife, past hope Of help i' the world now, mute and motionless, His slave, his chattel, to first use, then destroy. All this, he bent mind, how to bring about, Put plain in act and life, as painted plain, So have success, reach crown of earthly good, In this particular enterprise of man, By marriage--undertaken in God's face With all these lies so opposite God's truth, For end so other than man's end.

Thus schemes Guido, and thus would carry out his scheme: But when an obstacle first blocks the path, When he finds none may boast monopoly Of lies and trick i' the tricking lying world,-- That sorry timid natures, even this sort O' the Comparini, want nor trick nor lie Proper to the kind,--that as the gor-crow treats The bramble-finch so treats the finch the moth, And the great Guido is minutely matched By this same couple,--whether true or false The revelation of Pompilia's birth, Which in a moment brings his scheme to naught,-- Then, he is piqued, advances yet a stage, Leaves the low region to the finch and fly, Soars to the zenith whence the fiercer fowl May dare the inimitable swoop. I see. He draws now on the curious crime, the fine Felicity and flower of wickedness; Determines, by the utmost exercise Of violence, made safe and sure by craft. To satiate malice, pluck one last arch-pang From the parents, else would triumph out of reach, By punishing their child, within reach yet, Who, by thought, word or deed, could nowise wrong I' the matter that now moves him. So plans he, Always subordinating (note the point!) Revenge, the manlier sin, to interest The meaner,--would pluck pang forth, but unclench No gripe in the act, let fall no money-piece. Hence a plan for so plaguing, body and soul, His wife, so putting, day by day, hour by hour, The untried torture to the untouched place, As must precipitate an end foreseen, Goad her into some plain revolt, most like Plunge upon patent suicidal shame, Death to herself, damnation by rebound To those whose hearts he, holding hers, holds still: Such plan as, in its bad completeness, shall Ruin the three together and alike, Yet leave himself in luck and liberty, No claim renounced, no right a forfeiture, His person unendangered, his good fame Without a flaw, his pristine worth intact,-- While they, with all their claims and rights that cling, Shall forthwith crumble off him every side, Scorched into dust, a plaything for the winds. As when, in our Campagna, there is fired The nest-like work that overruns a hut; And, as the thatch burns here, there, everywhere, Even to the ivy and wild vine, that bound And blessed the home where men were happy once, There rises gradual, black amid the blaze, Some grim and unscathed nucleus of the nest,-- Some old malicious tower, some obscene tomb They thought a temple in their ignorance, And clung about and thought to lean upon-- There laughs it o'er their ravage,--where are they? So did his cruelty burn life about, And lay the ruin bare in dreadfulness, Try the persistency of torment so Upon the wife, that, at extremity, Some crisis brought about by fire and flame, The patient frenzy-stung must needs break loose, Fly anyhow, find refuge anywhere, Even in the arms of who should front her first, No monster but a man--while nature shrieked "Or thus escape, or die!" The spasm arrived, Not the escape by way of sin,--O God, Who shall pluck sheep thou holdest, from thy hand? Therefore she lay resigned to die,--so far The simple cruelty was foiled. Why then, Craft to the rescue, let craft supplement Cruelty and show hell a masterpiece! Hence this consummate lie, this love-intrigue, Unmanly simulation of a sin, With place and time and circumstance to suit-- These letters false beyond all forgery-- Not just handwriting and mere authorship, But false to body and soul they figure forth-- As though the man had cut out shape and shape From fancies of that other Aretine, To paste below--incorporate the filth With cherub faces on a missal-page!

Whereby the man so far attains his end That strange temptation is permitted,--see! Pompilia, wife, and Caponsacchi, priest, Are brought together as nor priest nor wife Should stand, and there is passion in the place, Power in the air for evil as for good, Promptings from heaven and hell, as if the stars Fought in their courses for a fate to be. Thus stand the wife and priest, a spectacle, I doubt not, to unseen assemblage there. No lamp will mark that window for a shrine, No tablet signalize the terrace, teach New generations which succeed the old, The pavement of the street is holy ground: No bard describe in verse how Christ prevailed And Satan fell like lightning! Why repine? What does the world, told truth, but lie the more?

A second time the plot is foiled; nor, now, By corresponding sin for countercheck, No wile and trick that baffle trick and wile,-- The play o' the parents! Here the blot is blanched By God's gift of a purity of soul That will not take pollution, ermine-like Armed from dishonor by its own soft snow. Such was this gift of God who showed for once How he would have the world go white: it seems As a new attribute were born of each Champion of truth, the priest and wife I praise,-- As a new safeguard sprang up in defence Of their new noble nature: so a thorn Comes to the aid of and completes the rose-- Courage to wit, no woman's gift nor priest's, I' the crisis; might leaps vindicating right. See how the strong aggressor, bad and bold, With every vantage, preconcerts surprise, Leaps of a sudden at his victim's throat In a byway,--how fares he when face to face With Caponsacchi? Who fights, who fears now? There quails Count Guido, armed to the chattering teeth, Cowers at the steadfast eye and quiet word O' the Canon of the Pieve! There skulks crime Behind law called in to back cowardice! While out of the poor trampled worm the wife, Springs up a serpent!

But anon of these! Him I judge now,--of him proceed to note, Failing the first, a second chance befriends Guido, gives pause ere punishment arrive. The law he called, comes, hears, adjudicates, Nor does amiss i' the main,--secludes the wife From the husband, respites the oppressed one, grants Probation to the oppressor, could he know The mercy of a minute's fiery purge! The furnace-coals alike of public scorn, Private remorse, heaped glowing on his head, What if--the force and guile, the ore's alloy, Eliminate, his baser soul refined-- The lost be saved even yet, so as by fire? Let him, rebuked, go softly all his days And, when no graver musings claim their due, Meditate on a man's immense mistake Who, fashioned to use feet and walk, deigns crawl-- Takes the unmanly means--ay, though to ends Man scarce should make for, would but reach through wrong,-- May sin, but nowise needs shame manhood so: Since fowlers hawk, shoot, nay and snare the game, And yet eschew vile practice, nor find sport In torch-light treachery or the luring owl.

But how hunts Guido? Why, the fraudful trap-- Late spurned to ruin by the indignant feet Of fellows in the chase who loved fair play-- Here he picks up its fragments to the least, Lades him and hies to the old lurking-place Where haply he may patch again, refit The mischief, file its blunted teeth anew, Make sure, next time, first snap shall break the bone. Craft, greed and violence complot revenge: Craft, for its quota, schemes to bring about And seize occasion and be safe withal: Greed craves its act may work both far and near, Crush the tree, branch and trunk and root beside, Whichever twig or leaf arrests a streak Of possible sunshine else would coin itself, And drop down one more gold piece in the path: Violence stipulates, "Advantage proved, And safety sure, be pain the overplus! Murder with jagged knife! Cut but tear too! Foiled oft, starved long, glut malice for amends!" And what, craft's scheme? scheme sorrowful and strange As though the elements, whom mercy cheeked, Had mustered hate for one eruption more, One final deluge to surprise the Ark Cradled and sleeping on its mountain-top: Their outbreak-signal--what but the dove's coo, Back with the olive in her bill for news Sorrow was over? 'T is an infant's birth, Guido's first-born, his son and heir, that gives The occasion: other men cut free their souls From care in such a case, fly up in thanks To God, reach, recognize his love for once: Guido cries, "Soul, at last the mire is thine! Lie there in likeness of a money-bag, My babe's birth so pins down past moving now, That I dare cut adrift the lives I late Scrupled to touch lest thou escape with them! These parents and their child my wife,--touch one, Lose all! Their rights determined on a head I could but hate, not harm, since from each hair Dangled a hope for me: now--chance and change! No right was in their child but passes plain To that child's child and through such child to me. I am a father now,--come what come will, I represent my child; he comes between-- Cuts sudden off the sunshine of this life From those three: why, the gold is in his curls! Not with old Pietro's, Violante's head, Not his gray horror, her more hideous black-- Go these, devoted to the knife!" 'T is done: Wherefore should mind misgive, heart hesitate? He calls to counsel, fashions certain four Colorless natures counted clean till now, --Rustic simplicity, uncorrupted youth, Ignorant virtue! Here 's the gold o' the prime When Saturn ruled, shall shock our leaden day-- The clown abash the courtier! Mark it, bards! The courtier tries his hand on clownship here, Speaks a word, names a crime, appoints a price,-- Just breathes on what, suffused with all himself, Is red-hot henceforth past distinction now I' the common glow of hell. And thus they break And blaze on us at Rome, Christ's birthnight-eve! Oh angels that sang erst "On the earth, peace! To man, good will!"--such peace finds earth to-day! After the seventeen hundred years, so man Wills good to man, so Guido makes complete His murder! what is it I said?--cuts loose Three lives that hitherto he suffered cling, Simply because each served to nail secure, By a corner of the money-bag, his soul,-- Therefore, lives sacred till the babe's first breath O'erweights them in the balance,--off they fly!

So is the murder managed, sin conceived To the full: and why not crowned with triumph too? Why must the sin, conceived thus, bring forth death? I note how, within hair's-breadth of escape, Impunity and the thing supposed success, Guido is found when the check comes, the change, The monitory touch o' the tether--felt By few, not marked by many, named by none At the moment, only recognized aright I' the fulness of the days, for God's, lest sin Exceed the service, leap the line: such check-- A secret which this life finds hard to keep, And, often guessed, is never quite revealed-- Needs must trip Guido on a stumbling-block Too vulgar, too absurdly plain i' the path! Study this single oversight of care, This hebetude that marred sagacity, Forgetfulness of all the man best knew,-- How any stranger having need to fly, Needs but to ask and have the means of flight. Why, the first urchin tells you, to leave Rome, Get horses, you must show the warrant, just The banal scrap, clerk's scribble, a fair word buys, Or foul one, if a ducat sweeten word,-- And straight authority will back demand, Give you the pick o' the post-house!--how should he, Then, resident at Rome for thirty years, Guido, instruct a stranger! And himself Forgets just this poor paper scrap, wherewith Armed, every door he knocks at opens wide To save him: horsed and manned, with such advance O' the hunt behind, why, 't were the easy task Of hours told on the fingers of one hand, To reach the Tuscan frontier, laugh at home, Light-hearted with his fellows of the place,-- Prepared by that strange shameful judgment, that Satire upon a sentence just pronounced By the Rota and confirmed by the Granduke,-- Ready in a circle to receive their peer, Appreciate his good story how, when Rome, The Pope-King and the populace of priests Made common cause with their confederate The other priestling who seduced his wife, He, all unaided, wiped out the affront With decent bloodshed and could face his friends, Frolic it in the world's eye. Ay, such tale Missed such applause, and by such oversight! So, tired and footsore, those blood-flustered five Went reeling on the road through dark and cold, The few permissible miles, to sink at length, Wallow and sleep in the first wayside straw, As the other herd quenched, i' the wash o' the wave, --Each swine, the devil inside him: so slept they, And so were caught and caged--all through one trip. One touch of fool in Guido the astute! He curses the omission, I surmise, More than the murder. Why, thou fool and blind, It is the mercy-stroke that stops thy fate, Hamstrings and holds thee to thy hurt,--but how? On the edge o' the precipice! One minute more, Thou hadst gone farther and fared worse, my son, Fathoms down on the flint and fire beneath! Thy comrades each and all were of one mind, Thy murder done, to straightway murder thee In turn, because of promised pay withheld. So, to the last, greed found itself at odds With craft in thee, and, proving conqueror, Had sent thee, the same night that crowned thy hope, Thither where, this same day, I see thee not, Nor, through God's mercy, need, to-morrow, see. Such I find Guido, midmost blotch of black Discernible in this group of clustered crimes Huddling together in the cave they call Their palace, outraged day thus penetrates. Around him ranged, now close and now remote, Prominent or obscure to meet the needs O' the mage and master, I detect each shape Subsidiary i' the scene nor loathed the less, All alike colored, all descried akin By one and the same pitchy furnace stirred At the centre: see, they lick the master's hand,-- This fox-faced horrible priest, this brother-brute The Abate,--why, mere wolfishness looks well, Guido stands honest in the red o' the flame, Beside this yellow that would pass for white, Twice Guido, all craft but no violence, This copier of the mien and gait and garb Of Peter and Paul, that he may go disguised, Rob halt and lame, sick folk i' the temple-porch! Armed with religion, fortified by law, A man of peace, who trims the midnight lamp And turns the classic page--and all for craft, All to work harm with, yet incur no scratch! While Guido brings the struggle to a close, Paul steps back the due distance, clear o' the trap He builds and baits. Guido I catch and judge; Paul is past reach in this world and my time: That is a case reserved. Pass to the next, The boy of the brood, the young Girolamo, Priest, Canon, and what more? nor wolf nor fox. But hybrid, neither craft nor violence Wholly, part violence part craft: such cross Tempts speculation--will both blend one day, And prove hell's better product? Or subside And let the simple quality emerge, Go on with Satan's service the old way? Meanwhile, what promise,--what performance too! For there 's a new distinctive touch, I see, Lust--lacking in the two--hell's own blue tint That gives a character and marks the man More than a match for yellow and red. Once more, A case reserved: why should I doubt? Then comes The gaunt gray nightmare in the furthest smoke, The hag that gave these three abortions birth, Unmotherly mother and unwomanly Woman, that near turns motherhood to shame, Womanliness to loathing: no one word, No gesture to curb cruelty a whit More than the she-pard thwarts her playsome whelps Trying their milk-teeth on the soft o' the throat O' the first fawn, flung, with those beseeching eyes, Flat in the covert! How should she but couch, Lick the dry lips, unsheathe the blunted claw, Catch 'twixt her placid eyewinks at what chance Old bloody half-forgotten dream may flit, Born when herself was novice to the taste, The while she lets youth take its pleasure. Last, These God-abandoned wretched lumps of life, These four companions,--country-folk this time, Not tainted by the unwholesome civic breath, Much less the curse o' the court! Mere striplings too, Fit to do human nature justice still! Surely when impudence in Guido's shape Shall propose crime and proffer money's-worth To these stout tall rough bright-eyed black-haired boys, The blood shall bound in answer to each cheek Before the indignant outcry break from lip! Are these i' the mood to murder, hardly loosed From healthy autumn-finish of ploughed glebe, Grapes in the barrel, work at happy end, And winter near with rest and Christmas play? How greet they Guido with his final task-- (As if he but proposed "One vineyard more To dig, ere frost come, then relax indeed!") "Anywhere, anyhow and anywhy, Murder me some three people, old and young, Ye never heard the names of,--and be paid So much!" And the whole four accede at once. Demur? Do cattle bidden march or halt? Is it some lingering habit, old fond faith I' the lord o' the land, instructs them,--birthright badge Of feudal tenure claims its slaves again? Not so at all, thou noble human heart! All is done purely for the pay,--which, earned, And not forthcoming at the instant, makes Religion heresy, and the lord o' the land Fit subject for a murder in his turn. The patron with cut throat and rifled purse, Deposited i' the roadside-ditch, his due, Naught hinders each good fellow trudging home, The heavier by a piece or two in poke, And so with new zest to the common life, Mattock and spade, plough-tail and wagon-shaft, Till some such other piece of luck betide, Who knows? Since this is a mere start in life, And none of them exceeds the twentieth year. Nay, more i' the background yet? Unnoticed forms Claim to be classed, subordinately vile? Complacent lookers-on that laugh,--perchance Shake head as their friend's horse-play grows too rough With the mere child he manages amiss-- But would not interfere and make bad worse For twice the fractious tears and prayers: thou know'st Civility better, Marzi-Medici, Governor for thy kinsman the Granduke! Fit representative of law, man's lamp I' the magistrate's grasp full-flare, no rushlight-end Sputtering 'twixt thumb and finger of the priest! Whose answer to the couple's cry for help Is a threat,--whose remedy of Pompilia's wrong, A shrug o' the shoulder, and facetious word Or wink, traditional with Tuscan wits, To Guido in the doorway. Laud to law! The wife is pushed back to the husband, he Who knows how these home-squabblings persecute People who have the public good to mind, And work best with a silence in the court!

Ah, but I save my word at least for thee, Archbishop, who art under, i' the Church, As I am under God,--thou, chosen by both To do the shepherd's office, feed the sheep-- How of this lamb that panted at thy foot While the wolf pressed on her within crook's reach? Wast thou the hireling that did turn and flee? With thee at least anon the little word!

Such denizens o' the cave now cluster round And heat the furnace sevenfold: time indeed A bolt from heaven should cleave roof and clear place, Transfix and show the world, suspiring flame, The main offender, scar and brand the rest Hurrying, each miscreant to his hole: then flood And purify the scene with outside day-- Which yet, in the absolutest drench of dark, Ne'er wants a witness, some stray beauty-beam To the despair of hell.

First of the first, Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now Perfect in whiteness: stoop thou down, my child, Give one good moment to the poor old Pope Heart-sick at having all his world to blame-- Let me look at thee in the flesh as erst, Let me enjoy the old clean linen garb, Not the new splendid vesture! Armed and crowned, Would Michael, yonder, be, nor crowned nor armed, The less pre-eminent angel? Everywhere I see in the world the intellect of man, That sword, the energy his subtle spear, The knowledge which defends him like a shield-- Everywhere; but they make not up, I think, The marvel of a soul like thine, earth's flower She holds up to the softened gaze of God! It was not given Pompilia to know much, Speak much, to write a book, to move mankind, Be memorized by who records my time. Yet if in purity and patience, if In faith held fast despite the plucking fiend, Safe like the signet stone with the new name That saints are known by,--if in right returned For wrong, most pardon for worst injury, If there be any virtue, any praise,-- Then will this woman-child have proved--who knows?-- Just the one prize vouchsafed unworthy me, Seven years a gardener of the untoward ground I till,--this earth, my sweat and blood manure All the long day that barrenly grows dusk: At least one blossom makes me proud at eve Born 'mid the briers of my enclosure! Still (Oh, here as elsewhere, nothingness of man!) Those be the plants, imbedded yonder South To mellow in the morning, those made fat By the master's eye, that yield such timid leaf, Uncertain bud, as product of his pains! While--see how this mere chance-sown, cleft-nursed seed, That sprang up by the wayside 'neath the foot Of the enemy, this breaks all into blaze, Spreads itself, one wide glory of desire To incorporate the whole great sun it loves From the inch-height whence it looks and longs! My flower, My rose, I gather for the breast of God, This I praise most in thee, where all I praise, That having been obedient to the end According to the light allotted, law Prescribed thy life, still tried, still standing test,-- Dutiful to the foolish parents first, Submissive next to the bad husband,--nay, Tolerant of those meaner miserable That did his hests, eked out the dole of pain,-- Thou, patient thus, couldst rise from law to law, The old to the new, promoted at one cry O' the trump of God to the new service, not To longer bear, but henceforth fight, be found Sublime in new impatience with the foe! Endure man and obey God: plant firm foot On neck of man, tread man into the hell Meet for him, and obey God all the more! Oh child that didst despise thy life so much When it seemed only thine to keep or lose, How the fine ear felt fall the first low word "Value life, and preserve life for My sake!" Thou didst ... how shall I say?... receive so long The standing ordinance of God on earth, What wonder if the novel claim had clashed With old requirement, seemed to supersede Too much the customary law? But, brave, Thou at first prompting of what I call God, And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend, Accept the obligation laid on thee, Mother elect, to save the unborn child, As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly, Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant And flower o' the field, all in a common pact To worthily defend the trust of trusts, Life from the Ever Living:--didst resist-- Anticipate the office that is mine-- And with his own sword stay the upraised arm, The endeavor of the wicked, and defend Him who--again in my default--was there For visible providence: one less true than thou To touch, i' the past, less practised in the right, Approved less far in all docility To all instruction,--how had such an one Made scruple "Is this motion a decree?" It was authentic to the experienced ear O' the good and faithful servant. Go past me And get thy praise,--and be not far to seek Presently when I follow if I may!

And surely not so very much apart Need I place thee, my warrior-priest,--in whom What if I gain the other rose, the gold, We grave to imitate God's miracle, Greet monarchs with, good rose in its degree? Irregular noble scapegrace--son the same! Faulty--and peradventure ours the fault Who still misteach, mislead, throw hook and line, Thinking to land leviathan forsooth, Tame the scaled neck, play with him as a bird, And bind him for our maidens! Better bear The King of Pride go wantoning awhile, Unplagued by cord in nose and thorn in jaw, Through deep to deep, followed by all that shine, Churning the blackness hoary: He who made The comely terror, He shall make the sword To match that piece of netherstone his heart, Ay, nor miss praise thereby; who else shut fire I' the stone, to leap from mouth at sword's first stroke, In lamps of love and faith, the chivalry That dares the right and disregards alike The yea and nay o' the world? Self-sacrifice,-- What if an idol took it? Ask the Church Why she was wont to turn each Venus here,-- Poor Rome perversely lingered round, despite Instruction, for the sake of purblind love,-- Into Madonna's shape, and waste no whit Of aught so rare on earth as gratitude! All this sweet savor was not ours but thine, Nard of the rock, a natural wealth we name Incense, and treasure up as food for saints, When flung to us--whose function was to give Not find the costly perfume. Do I smile? Nay, Caponsacchi, much I find amiss, Blameworthy, punishable in this freak Of thine, this youth prolonged, though age was ripe, This masquerade in sober day, with change Of motley too,--now hypocrite's disguise, Now fool's-costume: which lie was least like truth, Which the ungainlier, more discordant garb, With that symmetric soul inside my son, The churchman's or the worldling's,--let him judge, Our adversary who enjoys the task! I rather chronicle the healthy rage,-- When the first moan broke from the martyr-maid At that uncaging of the beasts,--made bare My athlete on the instant, gave such good Great undisguised leap over post and pale Right into the mid-cirque, free fighting-place. There may have been rash stripping--every rag Went to the winds,--infringement manifold Of laws prescribed pudicity, I fear, In this impulsive and prompt self-display! Ever such tax comes of the foolish youth; Men mulct the wiser manhood, and suspect No veritable star swims out of cloud. Bear thou such imputation, undergo The penalty I nowise dare relax,-- Conventional chastisement and rebuke. But for the outcome, the brave starry birth Conciliating earth with all that cloud, Thank heaven as I do! Ay, such championship Of God at first blush, such prompt cheery thud Of glove on ground that answers ringingly The challenge of the false knight,--watch we long, And wait we vainly for its gallant like From those appointed to the service, sworn His body-guard with pay and privilege-- White-cinct, because in white walks sanctity, Red-socked, how else proclaim fine scorn of flesh, Unchariness of blood when blood faith begs! Where are the men-at-arms with cross on coat? Aloof, bewraying their attire: whilst thou In mask and motley, pledged to dance not fight, Sprang'st forth the hero! In thought, word and deed, How throughout all thy warfare thou wast pure, I find it easy to believe: and if At any fateful moment of the strange Adventure, the strong passion of that strait, Fear and surprise, may have revealed too much,-- As when a thundrous midnight, with black air That burns, raindrops that blister, breaks a spell, Draws out the excessive virtue of some sheathed Shut unsuspected flower that hoards and hides Immensity of sweetness,--so, perchance, Might the surprise and fear release too much The perfect beauty of the body and soul Thou sayedst in thy passion for God's sake, He who is Pity. Was the trial sore? Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time! Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestalled in triumph? Pray "Lead us into no such temptations, Lord!" Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold, Lead such temptations by the head and hair, Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, That so he may do battle and have praise! Do I not see the praise?--that while thy mates Bound to deserve i' the matter, prove at need Unprofitable through the very pains We gave to train them well and start them fair,-- Are found too stiff, with standing ranked and ranged, For onset in good earnest, too obtuse Of ear, through iteration of command, For catching quick the sense of the real cry,-- Thou, whose sword-hand was used to strike the lute, Whose sentry-station graced some wanton's gate, Thou didst push forward and show mettle, shame The laggards, and retrieve the day. Well done! Be glad thou hast let light into the world, Through that irregular breach o' the boundary,--see The same upon thy path and march assured, Learning anew the use of soldiership, Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear, Loyalty to the life's end! Ruminate, Deserve the initiatory spasm,--once more Work, be unhappy but bear life, my son!

And troop you, somewhere 'twixt the best and worst, Where crowd the indifferent product, all too poor Makeshift, starved samples of humanity! Father and mother, huddle there and hide! A gracious eye may find you! Foul and fair, Sadly mixed natures: self-indulgent,--yet Self-sacrificing too: how the love soars, How the craft, avarice, vanity and spite Sink again! So they keep the middle course, Slide into silly crime at unaware, Slip back upon the stupid virtue, stay Nowhere enough for being classed, I hope And fear. Accept the swift and rueful death, Taught, somewhat sternlier than is wont, what waits The ambiguous creature,--how the one black tuft Steadies the aim of the arrow just as well As the wide faultless white on the bird's breast! Nay, you were punished in the very part That looked most pure of speck, 't was honest love Betrayed you,--did love seem most worthy pains, Challenge such purging, since ordained survive When all the rest of you was done with? Go! Never again elude the choice of tints! White shall not neutralize the black, nor good Compensate bad in man, absolve him so: Life's business being just the terrible choice.

So do I see, pronounce on all and some Grouped for my judgment now,--profess no doubt While I pronounce: dark, difficult enough The human sphere, yet eyes grow sharp by use, I find the truth, dispart the shine from shade, As a mere man may, with no special touch O' the lynx-gift in each ordinary orb: Nay, if the popular notion class me right, One of wellnigh decayed intelligence,-- What of that? Through hard labor and good will, And habitude that gives a blind man sight At the practised finger-ends of him, I do Discern, and dare decree in consequence, Whatever prove the peril of mistake. Whence, then, this quite new quick cold thrill,--cloud-like, This keen dread creeping from a quarter scarce Suspected in the skies I nightly scan? What slacks the tense nerve, saps the wound-up spring Of the act that should and shall be, sends the mount And mass o' the whole man's-strength,--conglobed so late-- Shudderingly into dust, a moment's work? While I stand firm, go fearless, in this world, For this life recognize and arbitrate, Touch and let stay, or else remove a thing, Judge "This is right, this object out of place," Candle in hand that helps me and to spare,-- What if a voice deride me, "Perk and pry! Brighten each nook with thine intelligence! Play the good householder, ply man and maid With tasks prolonged into the midnight, test Their work and nowise stint of the due wage Each worthy worker: but with gyves and whip Pay thou misprision of a single point Plain to thy happy self who lift'st the light, Lament'st the darkling,--bold to all beneath! What if thyself adventure, now the place Is purged so well? Leave pavement and mount roof, Look round thee for the light of the upper sky, The fire which lit thy fire which finds default In Guido Franceschini to his cost! What if, above in the domain of light, Thou miss the accustomed signs, remark eclipse? Shalt thou still gaze on ground nor lift a lid,-- Steady in thy superb prerogative, Thy inch of inkling,--nor once face the doubt I' the sphere above thee, darkness to be felt?"

Yet my poor spark had for its source, the sun; Thither I sent the great looks which compel Light from its fount: all that I do and am Comes from the truth, or seen or else surmised, Remembered or divined, as mere man may: I know just so, nor otherwise. As I know, I speak,--what should I know, then, and how speak Were there a wild mistake of eye or brain As to recorded governance above? If my own breath, only, blew coal alight I styled celestial and the morning-star? I, who in this world act resolvedly, Dispose of men, their bodies and their souls, As they acknowledge or gainsay the light I show them,--shall I too lack courage?--leave I, too, the post of me, like those I blame? Refuse, with kindred inconsistency, To grapple danger whereby souls grow strong? I am near the end; but still not at the end; All to the very end is trial in life: At this stage is the trial of my soul Danger to face, or danger to refuse? Shall I dare try the doubt now, or not dare?

O Thou,--as represented here to me In such conception as my soul allows,-- Under Thy measureless, my atom width!-- Man's mind, what is it but a convex glass Wherein are gathered all the scattered points Picked out of the immensity of sky, To reunite there, be our heaven for earth, Our known unknown, our God revealed to man? Existent somewhere, somehow, as a whole; Here, as a whole proportioned to our sense,-- There, (which is nowhere, speech must babble thus!) In the absolute immensity, the whole Appreciable solely by Thyself,-- Here, by the little mind of man, reduced To littleness that suits his faculty, In the degree appreciable too; Between Thee and ourselves--nay even, again, Below us, to the extreme of the minute, Appreciable by how many and what diverse Modes of the life Thou madest be! (why live Except for love,--how love unless they know?) Each of them, only filling to the edge, Insect or angel, his just length and breadth, Due facet of reflection,--full, no less, Angel or insect, as Thou framedst things. I it is who have been appointed here To represent Thee, in my turn, on earth, Just as, if new philosophy know aught, This one earth, out of all the multitude Of peopled worlds, as stars are now supposed,-- Was chosen, and no sun-star of the swarm, For stage and scene of Thy transcendent act Beside which even the creation fades Into a puny exercise of power. Choice of the world, choice of the thing I am, Both emanate alike from Thy dread play Of operation outside this our sphere Where things are classed and counted small or great,-- Incomprehensibly the choice is Thine! I therefore bow my head and take Thy place. There is, beside the works, a tale of Thee In the world's mouth, which I find credible: I love it with my heart: unsatisfied, I try it with my reason, nor discept From any point I probe and pronounce sound. Mind is not matter nor from matter, but Above,--leave matter then, proceed with mind! Man's be the mind recognized at the height,-- Leave the inferior minds and look at man! Is he the strong, intelligent and good Up to his own conceivable height? Nowise. Enough o' the low,--soar the conceivable height, Find cause to match the effect in evidence, The work i' the world, not man's but God's; leave man! Conjecture of the worker by the work: Is there strength there?--enough: intelligence? Ample: but goodness in a like degree? Not to the human eye in the present state, An isoscele deficient in the base. What lacks, then, of perfection fit for God But just the instance which this tale supplies Of love without a limit? So is strength, So is intelligence; let love be so, Unlimited in its self-sacrifice, Then is the tale true and God shows complete. Beyond the tale, I reach into the dark, Feel what I cannot see, and still faith stands: I can believe this dread machinery Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else, Devised--all pain, at most expenditure Of pain by Who devised pain--to evolve, By new machinery in counterpart, The moral qualities of man--how else?-- To make him love in turn and be beloved, Creative and self-sacrificing too, And thus eventually God-like, (ay, "I have said ye are Gods,"--shall it be said for naught?) Enable man to wring, from out all pain, All pleasure for a common heritage To all eternity: this may be surmised, The other is revealed,--whether a fact, Absolute, abstract, independent truth, Historic, not reduced to suit man's mind,-- Or only truth reverberate, changed, made pass A spectrum into mind, the narrow eye,-- The same and not the same, else unconceived-- Though quite conceivable to the next grade Above it in intelligence,--as truth Easy to man were blindness to the beast By parity of procedure,--the same truth In a new form, but changed in either case: What matter so intelligence be filled? To a child, the sea is angry, for it roars: Frost bites, else why the tooth-like fret on face? Man makes acoustics deal with the sea's wrath, Explains the choppy cheek by chymic law,-- To man and child remains the same effect On drum of ear and root of nose, change cause Never so thoroughly: so my heart be struck, What care I,--by God's gloved hand or the bare? Nor do I much perplex me with aught hard, Dubious in the transmitting of the tale,-- No, nor with certain riddles set to solve. This life is training and a passage; pass,-- Still, we march over some flat obstacle We made give way before us; solid truth In front of it, what motion for the world? The moral sense grows but by exercise. 'T is even as man grew probatively Initiated in Godship, set to make A fairer moral world than this he finds, Guess now what shall be known hereafter. Deal Thus with the present problem: as we see, A faultless creature is destroyed, and sin Has had its way i' the world where God should rule. Ay, but for this irrelevant circumstance Of inquisition after blood, we see Pompilia lost and Guido saved: how long? For his whole life: how much is that whole life? We are not babes, but know the minute's worth, And feel that life is large and the world small, So, wait till life have passed from out the world. Neither does this astonish at the end, That whereas I can so receive and trust, Other men, made with hearts and souls the same, Reject and disbelieve,--subordinate The future to the present,--sin, nor fear. This I refer still to the foremost fact, Life is probation and the earth no goal But starting-point of man: compel him strive, Which means, in man, as good as reach the goal,-- Why institute that race, his life, at all? But this does overwhelm me with surprise, Touch me to terror,--not that faith, the pearl, Should be let lie by fishers wanting food,-- Nor, seen and handled by a certain few Critical and contemptuous, straight consigned To shore and shingle for the pebble it proves,-- But that, when haply found and known and named By the residue made rich forevermore, These,--that these favored ones, should in a trice Turn, and with double zest go dredge for whelks, Mud-worms that make the savory soup! Enough O' the disbelievers, see the faithful few! How do the Christians here deport them, keep Their robes of white unspotted by the world? What is this Aretine Archbishop, this Man under me as I am under God, This champion of the faith, I armed and decked, Pushed forward, put upon a pinnacle, To show the enemy his victor,--see! What 's the best fighting when the couple close? Pompilia cries, "Protect me from the wolf!" He--"No, thy Guido is rough, heady, strong, Dangerous to disquiet: let him bide! He needs some bone to mumble, help amuse The darkness of his den with: so, the fawn Which limps up bleeding to my foot and lies, --Come to me, daughter!--thus I throw him back!" Have we misjudged here, over-armed our knight, Given gold and silk where plain hard steel serves best, Enfeebled whom we sought to fortify, Made an archbishop and undone a saint? Well, then, descend these heights, this pride of life, Sit in the ashes with a barefoot monk Who long ago stamped out the worldly sparks, By fasting, watching, stone cell and wire scourge, --No such indulgence as unknits the strength-- These breed the tight nerve and tough cuticle, And the world's praise or blame runs rillet-wise Off the broad back and brawny breast, we know! He meets the first cold sprinkle of the world, And shudders to the marrow. "Save this child? Oh, my superiors, oh, the Archbishop's self! Who was it dared lay hand upon the ark His betters saw fall nor put finger forth? Great ones could help yet help not: why should small? I break my promise: let her break her heart!" These are the Christians not the worldlings, not The sceptics, who thus battle for the faith! If foolish virgins disobey and sleep, What wonder? But, this time, the wise that watch, Sell lamps and buy lutes, exchange oil for wine, The mystic Spouse betrays the Bridegroom here, To our last resource, then! Since all flesh is weak, Bind weaknesses together, we get strength: The individual weighed, found wanting, try Some institution, honest artifice Whereby the units grow compact and firm! Each props the other, and so stand is made By our embodied cowards that grow brave. The Monastery called of Convertites, Meant to help women because these helped Christ,-- A thing existent only while it acts, Does as designed, else a nonentity,-- For what is an idea unrealized?-- Pompilia is consigned to these for help. They do help: they are prompt to testify To her pure life and saintly dying days. She dies, and lo, who seemed so poor, proves rich! What does the body that lives through helpfulness To women for Christ's sake? The kiss turns bite, The dove's note changes to the crow's cry: judge! "Seeing that this our Convent claims of right What goods belong to those we succor, be The same proved women of dishonest life,-- And seeing that this Trial made appear Pompilia was in such predicament,-- The Convent hereupon pretends to said Succession of Pompilia, issues writ, And takes possession by the Fisc's advice." Such is their attestation to the cause Of Christ, who had one saint at least, they hoped: But, is a title-deed to filch, a corpse To slander, and an infant-heir to cheat? Christ must give up his gains then! They unsay All the fine speeches,--who was saint is whore. Why, scripture yields no parallel for this! The soldiers only threw dice for Christ's coat; We want another legend of the Twelve Disputing if it was Christ's coat at all, Claiming as prize the woof of price--for why? The Master was a thief, purloined the same, Or paid for it out of the common bag! Can it be this is end and outcome, all I take with me to show as stewardship's fruit, The best yield of the latest time, this year The seventeen-hundredth since God died for man? Is such, effect proportionate to cause? And still the terror keeps on the increase When I perceive ... how can I blink the fact? That the fault, the obduracy to good, Lies not with the impracticable stuff Whence man is made, his very nature's fault, As if it were of ice the moon may gild Not melt, or stone 't was meant the sun should warm Not make bear flowers,--nor ice nor stone to blame: But it can melt, that ice, can bloom, that stone, Impassible to rule of day and night! This terrifies me, thus compelled perceive, Whatever love and faith we looked should spring At advent of the authoritative star, Which yet lie sluggish, curdled at the source,-- These have leapt forth profusely in old time, These still respond with promptitude to-day, At challenge of--what unacknowledged powers O' the air, what uncommissioned meteors, warmth By law, and light by rule should supersede? For see this priest, this Caponsacchi, stung At the first summons,--"Help for honor's sake, Play the man, pity the oppressed!"--no pause, How does he lay about him in the midst, Strike any foe, right wrong at any risk, All blindness, bravery and obedience!--blind? Ay, as a man would be inside the sun, Delirious with the plenitude of light Should interfuse him to the finger-ends-- Let him rush straight, and how shall he go wrong? Where are the Christians in their panoply? The loins we girt about with truth, the breasts Righteousness plated round, the shield of faith, The helmet of salvation, and that sword O' the Spirit, even the word of God,--where these? Slunk into corners! Oh, I hear at once Hubbub of protestation! "What, we monks, We friars, of such an order, such a rule, Have not we fought, bled, left our martyr-mark At every point along the boundary-line 'Twixt true and false, religion and the world, Where this or the other dogma of our Church Called for defence?" And I, despite myself, How can I but speak loud what truth speaks low, "Or better than the best, or nothing serves! What boots deed, I can cap and cover straight With such another doughtiness to match, Done at an instinct of the natural man?" Immolate body, sacrifice soul too,-- Do not these publicans the same? Outstrip! Or else stop race you boast runs neck and neck, You with the wings, they with the feet,--for shame! Oh, I remark your diligence and zeal! Five years long, now, rounds faith into my ears, "Help thou, or Christendom is done to death!" Five years since, in the Province of To-kien, Which is in China as some people know, Maigrot, my Vicar Apostolic there, Having a great qualm, issues a decree. Alack, the converts use as God's name, not _Tien-chu_ but plain _Tien_ or else mere _Shang-ti_, As Jesuits please to fancy politic, While, say Dominicans, it calls down fire,-- For _Tien_ means heaven, and _Shang-ti_, supreme prince, While _Tien-chu_ means the lord of heaven: all cry, "There is no business urgent for dispatch As that thou send a legate, specially Cardinal Tournon, straight to Pekin, there To settle and compose the difference!" So have I seen a potentate all fume For some infringement of his realm's just right. Some menace to a mud-built straw-thatched farm O' the frontier; while inside the mainland lie, Quite undisputed-for in solitude, Whole cities plague may waste or famine sap: What if the sun crumble, the sands encroach, While he looks on sublimely at his ease? How does their ruin touch the empire's bound?

And is this little all that was to be? Where is the gloriously-decisive change, Metamorphosis the immeasurable Of human clay to divine gold, we looked Should, in some poor sort, justify its price? Had an adept of the mere Rosy Cross Spent his life to consummate the Great Work, Would not we start to see the stuff it touched Yield not a grain more than the vulgar got By the old smelting-process years ago? If this were sad to see in just the sage Who should profess so much, perform no more, What is it when suspected in that Power Who undertook to make and made the world, Devised and did effect man, body and soul, Ordained salvation for them both, and yet ... Well, is the thing we see, salvation? I Put no such dreadful question to myself, Within whose circle of experience burns The central truth, Power, Wisdom, Goodness,--God: I must outlive a thing ere know it dead: When I outlive the faith there is a sun, When I lie, ashes to the very soul,-- Some one, not I, must wail above the heap, "He died in dark whence never morn arose." While I see day succeed the deepest night-- How can I speak but as I know?--my speech Must be, throughout the darkness, "It will end: The light that did burn, will burn!" Clouds obscure-- But for which obscuration all were bright? Too hastily concluded! Sun-suffused, A cloud may soothe the eye made blind by blaze,-- Better the very clarity of heaven: The soft streaks are the beautiful and dear. What but the weakness in a faith supplies The incentive to humanity, no strength Absolute, irresistible, comports? How can man love but what he yearns to help? And that which men think weakness within strength, But angels know for strength and stronger yet-- What were it else but the first things made new, But repetition of the miracle, The divine instance of self-sacrifice That never ends and aye begins for man? So, never I miss footing in the maze, No,--I have light nor fear the dark at all.

But are mankind not real, who pace outside My petty circle, world that 's measured me? And when they stumble even as I stand, Have I a right to stop ear when they cry, As they were phantoms who took clouds for crags, Tripped and fell, where man's march might safely move? Beside, the cry is other than a ghost's, When out of the old time there pleads some bard, Philosopher, or both, and--whispers not. But words it boldly. "The inward work and worth Of any mind, what other mind may judge Save God who only knows the thing he made, The veritable service he exacts? It is the outward product men appraise. Behold, an engine hoists a tower aloft: 'I looked that it should move the mountain too!' Or else 'Had just a turret toppled down, Success enough!'--may say the Machinist Who knows what less or more result might be: But we, who see that done we cannot do, 'A feat beyond man's force,' we men must say. Regard me and that shake I gave the world! I was born, not so long before Christ's birth As Christ's birth haply did precede thy day,-- But many a watch before the star of dawn: Therefore I lived,--it is thy creed affirms, Pope Innocent, who art to answer me!-- Under conditions, nowise to escape, Whereby salvation was impossible. Each impulse to achieve the good and fair, Each aspiration to the pure and true, Being without a warrant or an aim, Was just as sterile a felicity As if the insect, born to spend his life Soaring his circles, stopped them to describe (Painfully motionless in the mid-air) Some word of weighty counsel for man's sake, Some 'Know thyself' or 'Take the golden mean!' --Forwent his happy dance and the glad ray, Died half an hour the sooner and was dust. I, born to perish like the brutes, or worse, Why not live brutishly, obey brutes' law? But I, of body as of soul complete, A gymnast at the games, philosopher I' the schools, who painted, and made music,--all Glories that met upon the tragic stage When the Third Poet's tread surprised the Two,-- Whose lot fell in a land where life was great And sense went free and beauty lay profuse, I, untouched by one adverse circumstance, Adopted virtue as my rule of life, Waived all reward, loved but for loving's sake, And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world, And have been teaching now two thousand years. Witness my work,--plays that should please, forsooth! 'They might please, they may displease, they shall teach, For truth's sake,' so I said, and did, and do. Five hundred years ere Paul spoke, Felix heard,-- How much of temperance and righteousness, Judgment to come, did I find reason for, Corroborate with my strong style that spared No sin, nor swerved the more from branding brow Because the sinner was called Zeus and God? How nearly did I guess at that Paul knew? How closely come, in what I represent As duty, to his doctrine yet a blank? And as that limner not untruly limns Who draws an object round or square, which square Or round seems to the unassisted eye, Though Galileo's tube display the same Oval or oblong,--so, who controverts I rendered rightly what proves wrongly wrought Beside Paul's picture? Mine was true for me. I saw that there are, first and above all, The hidden forces, blind necessities, Named Nature, but the thing's self unconceived: Then follow--how dependent upon these, We know not, how imposed above ourselves, We well know--what I name the gods, a power Various or one: for great and strong and good Is there, and little, weak and bad there too, Wisdom and folly: say, these make no God,-- What is it else that rules outside man's self? A fact then,--always, to the naked eye,-- And so, the one revealment possible Of what were unimagined else by man. Therefore, what gods do, man may criticise, Applaud, condemn,--how should he fear the truth?-- But likewise have in awe because of power, Venerate for the main munificence, And give the doubtful deed its due excuse From the acknowledged creature of a day To the Eternal and Divine. Thus, bold Yet self-mistrusting, should man bear himself, Most assured on what now concerns him most-- The law of his own life, the path he prints,-- Which law is virtue and not vice, I say,-- And least inquisitive where search least skills, I' the nature we best give the clouds to keep. What could I paint beyond a scheme like this Out of the fragmentary truths where light Lay fitful in a tenebrific time? You have the sunrise now, joins truth to truth, Shoots life and substance into death and void; Themselves compose the whole we made before: The forces and necessity grow God,-- The beings so contrarious that seemed gods, Prove just his operation manifold And multiform, translated, as must be, Into intelligible shape so far As suits our sense and sets us free to feel. What if I let a child think, childhood-long, That lightning, I would have him spare his eye, Is a real arrow shot at naked orb? The man knows more, but shuts his lids the same: Lightning's cause comprehends nor man nor child. Why then, my scheme, your better knowledge broke, Presently readjusts itself, the small Proportioned largelier, parts and whole named new: So much, no more two thousand years have done! Pope, dost thou dare pretend to punish me, For not descrying sunshine at midnight, Me who crept all-fours, found my way so far-- While thou rewardest teachers of the truth, Who miss the plain way in the blaze of noon,-- Though just a word from that strong style of mine, Grasped honestly in hand as guiding-staff, Had pricked them a sure path across the bog, That mire of cowardice and slush of lies Wherein I find them wallow in wide day!"

How should I answer this Euripides? Paul--'t is a legend--answered Seneca, But that was in the day-spring; noon is now, We have got too familiar with the light. Shall I wish back once more that thrill of dawn? When the whole truth-touched man burned up, one fire? --Assured the trial, fiery, fierce, but fleet, Would, from his little heap of ashes, lend Wings to that conflagration of the world Which Christ awaits ere he makes all things new: So should the frail become the perfect, rapt From glory of pain to glory of joy; and so, Even in the end,--the act renouncing earth, Lands, houses, husbands, wives and children here,-- Begin that other act which finds all, lost, Regained, in this time even, a hundredfold, And, in the next time, feels the finite love Blent and embalmed with the eternal life. So does the sun ghastlily seem to sink In those north parts, lean all but out of life, Desist a dread mere breathing-stop, then slow Re-assert day, begin the endless rise. Was this too easy for our after-stage? Was such a lighting-up of faith, in life, Only allowed initiate, set man's step In the true way by help of the great glow? A way wherein it is ordained he walk, Bearing to see the light from heaven still more And more encroached on by the light of earth, Tentatives earth puts forth to rival heaven, Earthly incitements that mankind serve God For man's sole sake, not God's and therefore man's. Till at last, who distinguishes the sun From a mere Druid fire on a far mount? More praise to him who with his subtle prism Shall decompose both beams and name the true. In such sense, who is last proves first indeed; For how could saints and martyrs fail see truth Streak the night's blackness? Who is faithful now, Who untwists heaven's white from the yellow flare O' the world's gross torch, without night's foil that helped Produce the Christian act so possible When in the way stood Nero's cross and stake-- So hard now when the world smiles "Right and wise! Faith points the politic, the thrifty way. Will make who plods it in the end returns Beyond mere fool's-sport and improvidence. We fools dance through the cornfield of this life, Pluck ears to left and right and swallow raw, --Nay, tread, at pleasure, a sheaf underfoot, To get the better at some poppy-flower,-- Well aware we shall have so much less wheat In the eventual harvest: you meantime Waste not a spike,--the richlier will you reap! What then? There will be always garnered meal Sufficient for our comfortable loaf, While you enjoy the undiminished sack!" Is it not this ignoble confidence, Cowardly hardihood, that dulls and damps, Makes the old heroism impossible?

Unless ... what whispers me of times to come? What if it be the mission of that age My death will usher into life, to shake This torpor of assurance from our creed, Reintroduce the doubt discarded, bring That formidable danger back, we drove Long ago to the distance and the dark? No wild beast now prowls round the infant camp: We have built wall and sleep in city safe: But if some earthquake try the towers that laugh, To think they once saw lions rule outside, And man stand out again, pale, resolute, Prepared to die,--which means, alive at last? As we broke up that old faith of the world, Have we, next age, to break up this the new-- Faith, in the thing, grown faith in the report-- Whence need to bravely disbelieve report Through increased faith i' the thing reports belie? Must we deny,--do they, these Molinists, At peril of their body and their soul,-- Recognized truths, obedient to some truth Unrecognized yet, but perceptible?-- Correct the portrait by the living face, Man's God, by God's God in the mind of man? Then, for the few that rise to the new height, The many that must sink to the old depth, The multitude found fall away! A few, E'en ere new law speak clear, may keep the old, Preserve the Christian level, call good good And evil evil, (even though razed and blank The old titles,) helped by custom, habitude, And all else they mistake for finer sense O' the fact that reason warrants,--as before. They hope perhaps, fear not impossibly, At least some one Pompilia left the world Will say "I know the right place by foot's feel, I took it and tread firm there; wherefore change?" But what a multitude will surely fall Quite through the crumbling truth, late subjacent, Sink to the next discoverable base, Rest upon human nature, settle there On what is firm, the lust and pride of life! A mass of men, whose very souls even now Seem to need re-creating,--so they slink Worm-like into the mud, light now lays bare,-- Whose future we dispose of with shut eyes And whisper--"They are grafted, barren twigs, Into the living stock of Christ: may bear One day, till when they lie death-like, not dead,"-- Those who with all the aid of Christ succumb, How, without Christ, shall they, unaided, sink? Whither but to this gulf before my eyes? Do not we end, the century and I? The impatient antimasque treads close on kibe O' the very masque's self it will mock,--on me, Last lingering personage, the impatient mime Pushes already,--will I block the way? Will my slow trail of garments ne'er leave space For pantaloon, sock, plume and castanet? Here comes the first experimentalist In the new order of things,--he plays a priest; Does he take inspiration from the Church, Directly make her rule his law of life? Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man-- Happily sometimes, since ourselves allow He has danced, in gayety of heart, i' the main The right step through the maze we bade him foot. But if his heart had prompted him break loose And mar the measure? Why, we must submit, And thank the chance that brought him safe so far. Will he repeat the prodigy? Perhaps. Can he teach others how to quit themselves, Show why this step was right while that were wrong? How should he? "Ask your hearts as I asked mine, And get discreetly through the morrice too; If your hearts misdirect you,--quit the stage, And make amends,--be there amends to make!" Such is, for the Augustin that was once, This Canon Caponsacchi we see now. "But my heart answers to another tune," Puts in the Abate, second in the suite; "I have my taste too, and tread no such step! You choose the glorious life, and may, for me! I like the lowest of life's appetites,-- So you judge,--but the very truth of joy To my own apprehension which decides. Call me knave and you get yourself called fool! I live for greed, ambition, lust, revenge; Attain these ends by force, guile: hypocrite, To-day perchance to-morrow recognized The rational man, the type of common sense." There 's Loyola adapted to our time! Under such guidance Guido plays his part, He also influencing in the due turn These last clods where I track intelligence By any glimmer, these four at his beck Ready to murder any, and, at their own, As ready to murder him;--such make the world! And, first effect of the new cause of things, There they lie also duly,--the old pair Of the weak head and not so wicked heart, With the one Christian mother, wife and girl, --Which three gifts seem to make an angel up,-- The world's first foot o' the dance is on their heads! Still, I stand here, not off the stage though close On the exit: and my last act, as my first, I owe the scene, and Him who armed me thus With Paul's sword as with Peter's key. I smite With my whole strength once more, ere end my part, Ending, so far as man may, this offence. And when I raise my arm, who plucks my sleeve? Who stops me in the righteous function,--foe Or friend? Oh, still as ever, friends are they Who, in the interest of outraged truth Deprecate such rough handling of a lie! The facts being proved and incontestable, What is the last word I must listen to? Perchance--"Spare yet a term this barren stock, We pray thee dig about and dung and dress Till he repent and bring forth fruit even yet!" Perchance--"So poor and swift a punishment Shall throw him out of life with all that sin: Let mercy rather pile up pain on pain Till the flesh expiate what the soul pays else!" Nowise! Remonstrants on each side commence Instructing, there 's a new tribunal now Higher than God's--the educated man's! Nice sense of honor in the human breast Supersedes here the old coarse oracle-- Confirming none the less a point or so Wherein blind predecessors worked aright By rule of thumb: as when Christ said,--when, where? Enough, I find it pleaded in a place,-- "All other wrongs done, patiently I take: But touch my honor and the case is changed! I feel the due resentment,--_nemini_ _Honorem trado_ is my quick retort." Right of Him, just as if pronounced to-day! Still, should the old authority be mute Or doubtful, or in speaking clash with new, The younger takes permission to decide. At last we have the instinct of the world Ruling its household without tutelage: And while the two laws, human and divine, Have busied finger with this tangled case, In pushes the brisk junior, cuts the knot, Pronounces for acquittal. How it trips Silverly o'er the tongue! "Remit the death! Forgive, ... well, in the old way, if thou please, Decency and the relies of routine Respected,--let the Count go free as air! Since he may plead a priest's immunity,-- The minor orders help enough for that, With Farinacci's license,--who decides That the mere implication of such man, So privileged, in any cause, before Whatever Court except the Spiritual, Straight quashes law-procedure,--quash it, then! Remains a pretty loophole of escape Moreover, that, beside the patent fact O' the law's allowance, there 's involved the weal O' the Popedom: a son's privilege at stake, Thou wilt pretend the Church's interest, Ignore all finer reasons to forgive! But herein lies the crowning cogency-- (Let thy friends teach thee while thou tellest beads) That in this case the spirit of culture speaks, Civilization is imperative. To her shall we remand all delicate points Henceforth, nor take irregular advice O' the sly, as heretofore: she used to hint Remonstrances, when law was out of sorts Because a saucy tongue was put to rest, An eye that roved was cured of arrogance: But why be forced to mumble under breath What soon shall be acknowledged as plain fact, Outspoken, say, in thy successor's time? Methinks we see the golden age return! Civilization and the Emperor Succeed to Christianity and Pope. One Emperor then, as one Pope now: meanwhile, Anticipate a little! We tell thee 'Take Guido's life, sapped society shall crash, Whereof the main prop was, is, and shall be --Supremacy of husband over wife!' Does the man rule i' the house, and may his mate Because of any plea dispute the same? Oh, pleas of all sorts shall abound, be sure, One but allowed validity,--for, harsh And savage, for, inept and silly-sooth, For, this and that, will the ingenious sex Demonstrate the best master e'er graced slave: And there 's but one short way to end the coil,-- Acknowledge right and reason steadily I' the man and master: then the wife submits To plain truth broadly stated. Does the time Advise we shift--a pillar? nay, a stake Out of its place i' the social tenement? One touch may send a shudder through the heap And bring it toppling on our children's heads! Moreover, if ours breed a qualm in thee, Give thine own better feeling play for once! Thou, whose own life winks o'er the socket-edge, Wouldst thou it went out in such ugly snuff As dooming sons dead, e'en though justice prompt? Why, on a certain feast, Barabbas' self Was set free, not to cloud the general cheer: Neither shalt thou pollute thy Sabbath close! Mercy is safe and graceful. How one hears The howl begin, scarce the three little taps O' the silver mallet silent on thy brow,-- 'His last act was to sacrifice a Count And thereby screen a scandal of the Church! Guido condemned, the Canon justified Of course,--delinquents of his cloth go free!' And so the Luthers chuckle, Calvins scowl, So thy hand helps Molinos to the chair Whence he may hold forth till doom's day on just These _petit-maître_ priestlings,--in the choir, _Sanctus et Benedictus_, with a brush Of soft guitar-strings that obey the thumb, Touched by the bedside, for accompaniment! Does this give umbrage to a husband? Death To the fool, and to the priest impunity! But no impunity to any friend So simply over-loyal as these four Who made religion of their patron's cause, Believed in him and did his bidding straight, Asked not one question but laid down the lives This Pope took,--all four lives together make Just his own length of days,--so, dead they lie, As these were times when loyalty 's a drug, And zeal in a subordinate too cheap And common to be saved when we spend life! Come, 't is too much good breath we waste in words: The pardon, Holy Father! Spare grimace, Shrugs and reluctance! Are not we the world, Art not thou Priam? let soft culture plead Hecuba-like, '_non tali_' (Virgil serves) '_Auxilio_,' and the rest! Enough, it works! The Pope relaxes, and the Prince is loth, The father's bowels yearn, the man's will bends, Reply is apt. Our tears on tremble, hearts Big with a benediction, wait the word Shall circulate through the city in a trice, Set every window flaring, give each man O' the mob his torch to wave for gratitude. Pronounce then, for our breath and patience fail!"

I will, Sirs: but a voice other than yours Quickens my spirit. "_Quis pro Domino?_ Who is upon the Lord's side?" asked the Count. I, who write-- "On receipt of this command, Acquaint Count Guido and his fellows four They die to-morrow: could it be to-night, The better, but the work to do, takes time. Set with all diligence a scaffold up, Not in the customary place, by Bridge Saint Angelo, where die the common sort; But since the man is noble, and his peers By predilection haunt the People's Square, There let him be beheaded in the midst, And his companions hanged on either side: So shall the quality see, fear, and learn. All which work takes time: till to-morrow, then, Let there be prayer incessant for the five!"

For the main criminal I have no hope Except in such a suddenness of fate. I stood at Naples once, a night so dark I could have scarce conjectured there was earth Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all: But the night's black was burst through by a blaze-- Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, Through her whole length of mountain visible: There lay the city thick and plain with spires, And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea. So may the truth be flashed out by one blow, And Guido see, one instant, and be saved. Else I avert my face, nor follow him Into that sad obscure sequestered state Where God unmakes but to remake the soul He else made first in vain; which must not be. Enough, for I may die this very night: And how should I dare die, this man let live?

Carry this forthwith to the Governor!

XI

GUIDO

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you, Abate Panciatichi--two good Tuscan names: Acciaiuoli--ah, your ancestor it was Built the huge battlemented convent-block Over the little forky flashing Greve That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days! 'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet, The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,--yes, Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain The Roman Gate from where the Ema 's bridged: Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend O'erturreted by Certosa which he built, That Senescal (we styled him) of your House! I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood Comes from as far a source: ought it to end This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs? Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy, If there be any vile experiment In the air,--if this your visit simply prove, When all 's done, just a well-intentioned trick, That tries for truth truer than truth itself, By startling up a man, ere break of day, To tell him he must die at sunset,--pshaw! That man 's a Franceschini; feel his pulse, Laugh at your folly, and let 's all go sleep! You have my last word,--innocent am I As Innocent my Pope and murderer, Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own, As Mary's self,--I said, say and repeat,-- And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I-- Whom, not twelve hours ago, the jailer bade Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside, As gallants use who go at large again! For why? All honest Rome approved my part; Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,--nay, Mistress,--had any shadow of any right That looks like right, and, all the more resolved, Held it with tooth and nail,--these manly men Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me. Then, there 's the point reserved, the subterfuge My lawyers held by, kept for last resource, Firm should all else--the impossible fancy!--fail, And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day. The knaves! One plea at least would hold,--they laughed,-- One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock Even should the middle mud let anchor go! I hooked my cause on to the Clergy's,--plea Which, even if law tipped off my hat and plume, Revealed my priestly tonsure, saved me so. The Pope moreover, this old Innocent, Being so meek and mild and merciful, So fond o' the poor and so fatigued of earth, So ... fifty thousand devils in deepest hell! Why must he cure us of our strange conceit Of the angel in man's likeness, that we loved And looked should help us at a pinch? He help? He pardon? Here 's his mind and message--death! Thank the good Pope! Now, is he good in this, Never mind, Christian,--no such stuff 's extant,-- But will my death do credit to his reign, Show he both lived and let live, so was good? Cannot I live if he but like? "The Law!" Why, just the law gives him the very chance, The precise leave to let my life alone, Which the archangelic soul of him (he says) Yearns after! Here they drop it in his palm, My lawyers, capital o' the cursed kind,-- Drop life to take and hold and keep: but no! He sighs, shakes head, refuses to shut hand, Motions away the gift they bid him grasp, And of the coyness comes--that off I run And down I go, he best knows whither! mind, He knows, who sets me rolling all the same! Disinterested Vicar of our Lord, This way he abrogates and disallows, Nullifies and ignores,--reverts in fine To the good and right, in detriment of me! Talk away! Will you have the naked truth? He 's sick of his life's supper,--swallowed lies: So, hobbling bedward, needs must ease his maw Just where I sit o' the doorsill. Sir Abate, Can you do nothing? Friends, we used to frisk: What of this sudden slash in a friend's face, This cut across our good companionship That showed its front so gay when both were young? Were not we put into a beaten path, Bid pace the world, we nobles born and bred, We body of friends with each his 'scutcheon full Of old achievement and impunity,-- Taking the laugh of morn and Sol's salute As forth we fared, pricked on to breathe our steeds And take equestrian sport over the green Under the blue, across the crop,--what care? If we went prancing up hill and down dale, In and out of the level and the straight, By the bit of pleasant byway, where was harm? Still Sol salutes me and the morning laughs: I see my grandsire's hoofprints,--point the spot Where he drew rein, slipped saddle, and stabbed knave For daring throw gibe--much less, stone--from pale: Then back, and on, and up with the cavalcade. Just so wend we, now canter, now converse, Till, 'mid the jauncing pride and jaunty port, Something of a sudden jerks at somebody-- A dagger is out, a flashing cut and thrust, Because I play some prank my grandsire played, And here I sprawl: where is the company? Gone! A trot and a trample! Only I lie trapped, Writhe in a certain novel springe just set By the good old Pope: I 'm first prize. Warn me? Why? Apprise me that the law o' the game is changed? Enough that I 'm a warning, as I writhe, To all and each my fellows of the file, And make law plain henceforward past mistake, "For such a prank, death is the penalty!" Pope the Five Hundredth (what do I know or care?) Deputes your Eminency and Abateship To announce that, twelve hours from this time, he needs I just essay upon my body and soul The virtue of his brand-new engine, prove Represser of the pranksome! I 'm the first! Thanks. Do you know what teeth you mean to try The sharpness of, on this soft neck and throat? I know it,--I have seen and hate it,--ay, As you shall, while I tell you! Let me talk, Or leave me, at your pleasure! talk I must: What is your visit but my lure to talk? Nay, you have something to disclose?--a smile, At end of the forced sternness, means to mock The heart-beats here? I call your two hearts stone! Is your charge to stay with me till I die? Be tacit as your bench, then! Use your ears, I use my tongue: how glibly yours will run At pleasant supper-time ... God's curse! ... to-night When all the guests jump up, begin so brisk, "Welcome, his Eminence who shrived the wretch! Now we shall have the Abate's story!"

Life! How I could spill this overplus of mine Among those hoar-haired, shrunk-shanked odds and ends Of body and soul old age is chewing dry! Those windle-straws that stare while purblind death Mows here, mows there, makes hay of juicy me, And misses just the bunch of withered weed Would brighten hell and streak its smoke with flame! How the life I could shed yet never shrink, Would drench their stalks with sap like grass in May! Is it not terrible, I entreat you, Sirs? With manifold and plenitudinous life, Prompt at death's menace to give blow for threat, Answer his "Be thou not!" by "Thus I am!"-- Terrible so to be alive yet die?

How I live, how I see! so,--how I speak! Lucidity of soul unlocks the lips: I never had the words at will before. How I see all my folly at a glance! "A man requires a woman and a wife:" There was my folly; I believed the saw. I knew that just myself concerned myself, Yet needs must look for what I seemed to lack, In a woman,--why, the woman 's in the man! Fools we are, how we learn things when too late! Overmuch life turns round my woman-side; The male and female in me, mixed before, Settle of a sudden: I 'm my wife outright In this unmanly appetite for truth, This careless courage as to consequence, This instantaneous sight through things and through, This voluble rhetoric, if you please,--'t is she! Here you have that Pompilia whom I slew, Also the folly for which I slew her! Fool! And, fool-like, what is it I wander from? What did I say of your sharp iron tooth? All,--that I know the hateful thing! this way. I chanced to stroll forth, many a good year gone, One warm Spring eve in Rome, and unaware Looking, mayhap, to count what stars were out, Came on your fine axe in a frame, that falls And so cuts off a man's head underneath, Mannaia,--thus we made acquaintance first: Out of the way, in a by-part o' the town, At the Mouth-of-Truth o' the river-side, you know: One goes by the Capitol: and wherefore coy, Retiring out of crowded noisy Rome? Because a very little time ago It had done service, chopped off head from trunk, Belonging to a fellow whose poor house The thing must make a point to stand before. Felice Whatsoever-was-the-name Who stabled buffaloes and so gained bread, (Our clowns unyoke them in the ground hard by,) And, after use of much improper speech, Had struck at Duke Some-title-or-other's face, Because he kidnapped, carried away and kept Felice's sister who would sit and sing I' the filthy doorway while she plaited fringe To deck the brutes with,--on their gear it goes,-- The good girl with the velvet in her voice. So did the Duke, so did Felice, so Did Justice, intervening with her axe. There the man-mutilating engine stood At ease, both gay and grim, like a Swiss guard Off duty,--purified itself as well, Getting dry, sweet and proper for next week,-- And doing incidental good, 't was hoped To the rough lesson-lacking populace Who now and then, forsooth, must right their wrongs! There stood the twelve-foot-square of scaffold, railed Considerately round to elbow-height, For fear an officer should tumble thence And sprain his ankle and be lame a month, Through starting when the axe fell and head too! Railed likewise were the steps whereby 't was reached. All of it painted red: red, in the midst, Ran up two narrow tall beams barred across, Since from the summit, some twelve feet to reach, The iron plate with the sharp shearing edge Had slammed, jerked, shot, slid,--I shall soon find which! And so lay quiet, fast in its fit place, The wooden half-moon collar, now eclipsed By the blade which blocked its curvature: apart, The other half,--the under half-moon board Which, helped by this, completes a neck's embrace,-- Joined to a sort of desk that wheels aside Out of the way when done with,--down you kneel, In you 're pushed, over you the other drops, Tight you 're clipped, whiz, there 's the blade cleaves its best, Out trundles body, down flops head on floor, And where 's your soul gone? That, too, I shall find! This kneeling-place was red, red, never fear! But only slimy-like with paint, not blood, For why? a decent pitcher stood at hand, A broad dish to hold sawdust, and a broom By some unnamed utensil,--scraper-rake,-- Each with a conscious air of duty done. Underneath, loungers,--boys and some few men,-- Discoursed this platter, named the other tool, Just as, when grooms tie up and dress a steed, Boys lounge and look on, and elucubrate What the round brush is used for, what the square,-- So was explained--to me the skill-less then-- The manner of the grooming for next world Undergone by Felice What's-his-name. There 's no such lovely month in Rome as May-- May's crescent is no half-moon of red plank, And came now tilting o'er the wave i' the west, One greenish-golden sea, right 'twixt those bars Of the engine--I began acquaintance with, Understood, hated, hurried from before, To have it out of sight and cleanse my soul! Here it is all again, conserved for use: Twelve hours hence, I may know more, not hate worse. That young May-moon-month! Devils of the deep! Was not a Pope then Pope as much as now? Used not he chirrup o'er the Merry Tales, Chuckle,--his nephew so exact the wag To play a jealous cullion such a trick As wins the wife i' the pleasant story! Well? Why do things change? Wherefore is Rome un-Romed? I tell you, ere Felice's corpse was cold, The Duke, that night, threw wide his palace-doors, Received the compliments o' the quality For justice done him,--bowed and smirked his best, And in return passed round a pretty thing, A portrait of Felice's sister's self, Florid old rogue Albano's masterpiece, As--better than virginity in rags-- Bouncing Europa on the back o' the bull: They laughed and took their road the safelier home. Ah, but times change, there's quite another Pope, I do the Duke's deed, take Felice's place, And, being no Felice, lout and clout, Stomach but ill the phrase, "I lose my head!" How euphemistic! Lose what? Lose your ring, Your snuff-box, tablets, kerchief!--but, your head? I learnt the process at an early age; 'Twas useful knowledge, in those same old days, To know the way a head is set on neck. My fencing-master urged, "Would you excel? Rest not content with mere bold give-and-guard, Nor pink the antagonist somehow-anyhow! See me dissect a little, and know your game! Only anatomy makes a thrust the thing." Oh, Cardinal, those lithe live necks of ours! Here go the vertebræ, here's _Atlas_, here _Axis_, and here the symphyses stop short, So wisely and well,--as, o'er a corpse, we cant,-- And here's the silver cord which ... what's our word? Depends from the gold bowl, which loosed (not "lost") Lets us from heaven to hell,--one chop, we're loose! "And not much pain i' the process," quoth a sage: Who told him? Not Felice's ghost, I think! Such "losing" is scarce Mother Nature's mode. She fain would have cord ease itself away, Worn to a thread by threescore years and ten, Snap while we slumber: that seems bearable. I'm told one clot of blood extravasate Ends one as certainly as Roland's sword,-- One drop of lymph suffused proves Oliver's mace,-- Intruding, either of the pleasant pair, On the arachnoid tunic of my brain. That's Nature's way of loosing cord!--but Art, How of Art's process with the engine here, When bowl and cord alike are crushed across, Bored between, bruised through? Why, if Fagon's self, The French Court's pride, that famed practitioner, Would pass his cold pale lightning of a knife, Pistoja-ware, adroit 'twixt joint and joint, With just a "See how facile, gentlefolk!"-- The thing were not so bad to bear! Brute force Cuts as he comes, breaks in, breaks on, breaks out O' the hard and soft of you: is that the same? A lithe snake thrids the hedge, makes throb no leaf: A heavy ox sets chest to brier and branch, Bursts somehow through, and leaves one hideous hole Behind him!

And why, why must this needs be? Oh, if men were but good! They are not good, Nowise like Peter: people called him rough, But if, as I left Rome, I spoke the Saint, --"_Petrus, quo vadis?_"--doubtless, I should hear, "To free the prisoner and forgive his fault! I plucked the absolute dead from God's own bar, And raised up Dorcas,--why not rescue thee?" What would cost one such nullifying word? If Innocent succeeds to Peter's place, Let him think Peter's thought, speak Peter's speech! I say, he is bound to it: friends, how say you? Concede I be all one bloodguiltiness And mystery of murder in the flesh, Why should that fact keep the Pope's mouth shut fast? He execrates my crime,--good!--sees hell yawn One inch from the red plank's end which I press,-- Nothing is better! What's the consequence? How should a Pope proceed that knows his cue? Why, leave me linger out my minute here, Since close on death comes judgment and comes doom, Not crib at dawn its pittance from a sheep Destined ere dewfall to be butcher's-meat! Think, Sirs, if I have done you any harm, And you require the natural revenge, Suppose, and so intend to poison me, --Just as you take and slip into my draught The paperful of powder that clears scores, You notice on my brow a certain blue: How you both overset the wine at once! How you both smile, "Our enemy has the plague! Twelve hours hence he'll be scraping his bones bare Of that intolerable flesh, and die, Frenzied with pain: no need for poison here! Step aside and enjoy the spectacle!" Tender for souls are you, Pope Innocent! Christ's maxim is--one soul outweighs the world: Respite me, save a soul, then, curse the world! "No," venerable sire, I hear you smirk, "No: for Christ's gospel changes names, not things, Renews the obsolete, does nothing more! Our fire-new gospel is re-tinkered law, Our mercy, justice,--Jove's rechristened God,-- Nay, whereas, in the popular conceit, 'T is pity that old harsh Law somehow limps, Lingers on earth, although Law's day be done, Else would benignant Gospel interpose, Not furtively as now, but bold and frank O'erflutter us with healing in her wings, Law being harshness, Gospel only love-- We tell the people, on the contrary, Gospel takes up the rod which Law lets fall; Mercy is vigilant when justice sleeps! Does Law permit a taste of Gospel-grace? The secular arm allow the spiritual power To act for once?--no compliment so fine As that our Gospel handsomely turn harsh, Thrust victim hack on Law the nice and coy!" Yes, you do say so,--else you would forgive Me, whom Law does not touch but tosses you! Don't think to put on the professional face! You know what I know,--casuists as you are, Each nerve must creep, each hair start, sting and stand, At such illogical inconsequence! Dear my friends, do but see! A murder's tried, There are two parties to the cause: I'm one, --Defend myself, as somebody must do: I have the best o' the battle: that's a fact, Simple fact,--fancies find no place just now. What though half Rome condemned me? Half approved And, none disputes, the luck is mine at last, All Rome, i' the main, acquitting me: whereon, What has the Pope to ask but "How finds Law?" "I find," replies Law, "I have erred this while: Guilty or guiltless, Guido proves a priest, No layman: he is therefore yours, not mine: I bound him: loose him, you whose will is Christ's!" And now what does this Vicar of our Lord, Shepherd o' the flock,--one of whose charge bleats sore For crook's help from the quag wherein it drowns? Law suffers him employ the crumpled end: His pleasure is to turn staff, use the point, And thrust the shuddering sheep, he calls a wolf, Back and back, down and down to where hell gapes! "Guiltless," cries Law--"Guilty," corrects the Pope! "Guilty," for the whim's sake! "Guilty," he somehow thinks, And anyhow says: 't is truth; he dares not lie!

Others should do the lying. That's the cause Brings you both here: I ought in decency Confess to you that I deserve my fate, Am guilty, as the Pope thinks,--ay, to the end, Keep up the jest, lie on, lie ever, lie I' the latest gasp of me! What reason, Sirs? Because to-morrow will succeed to-day For you, though not for me: and if I stick Still to the truth, declare with my last breath, I die an innocent and murdered man,-- Why, there's the tongue of Rome will wag apace This time to-morrow,--don't I hear the talk! "So, to the last he proved impenitent? Pagans have said as much of martyred saints! Law demurred, washed her hands of the whole case. Prince Somebody said this, Duke Something, that. Doubtless the man's dead, dead enough, don't fear! But, hang it, what if there have been a spice, A touch of ... eh? You see, the Pope's so old, Some of us add, obtuse,--age never slips The chance of shoving youth to face death first!" And so on. Therefore to suppress such talk You two come here, entreat I tell you lies, And end, the edifying way. I end, Telling the truth! Your self-styled shepherd thieves! A thief--and how thieves hate the wolves we know: Damage to theft, damage to thrift, all's one! The red hand is sworn foe of the black jaw. That's only natural, that's right enough: But why the wolf should compliment the thief With shepherd's title, bark out life in thanks, And, spiteless, lick the prong that spits him,--eh, Cardinal? My Abate, scarcely thus! There, let my sheepskin-garb, a curse on 't, go-- Leave my teeth free if I must show my shag! Repent? What good shall follow? If I pass Twelve hours repenting, will that fact hold fast The thirteenth at the horrid dozen's end? If I fall forthwith at your feet, gnash, tear, Foam, rave, to give your story the due grace, Will that assist the engine half-way back Into its hiding-house?--boards, shaking now, Bone against bone, like some old skeleton bat That wants, at winter's end, to wake and prey! Will howling put the spectre back to sleep? Ah, but I misconceive your object, Sirs! Since I want new life like the creature,--life, Being done with here, begins i' the world away: I shall next have "Come, mortals, and be judged!" There's but a minute betwixt this and then: So, quick, be sorry since it saves my soul! Sirs, truth shall save it, since no lies assist! Hear the truth, you, whatever you style yourselves, Civilization and society! Come, one good grapple, I with all the world! Dying in cold blood is the desperate thing; The angry heart explodes, bears off in blaze The indignant soul, and I'm combustion-ripe. Why, you intend to do your worst with me! That's in your eyes! You dare no more than death, And mean no less. I must make up my mind! So Pietro--when I chased him here and there, Morsel by morsel cut away the life I loathed--cried for just respite to confess And save his soul: much respite did I grant! Why grant me respite who deserve my doom? Me--who engaged to play a prize, fight you, Knowing your arms, and foil you, trick for trick, At rapier-fence, your match and, maybe, more. I knew that if I chose sin certain sins, Solace my lusts out of the regular way Prescribed me, I should find you in the path, Have to try skill with a redoubted foe; You would lunge, I would parry, and make end. At last, occasion of a murder comes: We cross Hades, I, for all my brag, break guard, And in goes the cold iron at my breast, Out at my back, and end is made of me. You stand confessed the adroiter swordsman,--ay, But on your triumph you increase, it seems, Want more of me than lying flat on face: I ought to raise my ruined head, allege Not simply I pushed worse blade o' the pair, But my antagonist dispensed with steel! There was no passage of arms, you looked me low, With brow and eye abolished cut and thrust, Nor used the vulgar weapon! This chance scratch, This incidental hurt, this sort of hole I' the heart of me? I stumbled, got it so! Fell on my own sword as a bungler may! Yourself proscribe such heathen tools, and trust To the naked virtue: it was virtue stood Unarmed and awed me,--on my brow there burned Crime out so plainly, intolerably red, That I was fain to cry--"Down to the dust With me, and bury there brow, brand and all!" Law had essayed the adventure,--but what's Law? Morality exposed the Gorgon shield! Morality and Religion conquer me. If Law sufficed would you come here, entreat I supplement law, and confess forsooth? Did not the Trial show things plain enough? "Ah, but a word of the man's very self Would somehow put the keystone in its place And crown the arch!" Then take the word you want!

I say that, long ago, when things began, All the world made agreement, such and such Were pleasure-giving profit-bearing acts, But henceforth extra-legal, nor to be: You must not kill the man whose death would please And profit you, unless his life stop yours Plainly, and need so be put aside: Get the thing by a public course, by law, Only no private bloodshed as of old! All of us, for the good of every one Renounced such license and conformed to law: Who breaks law, breaks pact therefore, helps himself To pleasure and profit over and above the due, And must pay forfeit,--pain beyond his share: For, pleasure being the sole good in the world, Any one's pleasure turns to some one's pain, So, law must watch for every one,--say we, Who call things wicked that give too much joy, And nickname mere reprisal, envy makes, Punishment: quite right! thus the world goes round. I, being well aware such pact there was, I, in my time who found advantage come Of law's observance and crime's penalty,-- Who, but for wholesome fear law bred in friends, Had doubtless given example long ago, Furnished forth some friend's pleasure with my pain, And, by my death, pieced out his scanty rife,-- I could not, for that foolish life of me, Help risking law's infringement,--I broke bond, And needs must pay price,--wherefore, here's my head, Flung with a flourish! But, repentance too? But pure and simple sorrow for law's breach Rather than blunderer's-ineptitude? Cardinal, no! Abate, scarcely thus! 'Tis the fault, not that I dared try a fall With Law and straightway am found undermost, But that I failed to see, above man's law, God's precept you, the Christians, recognize? Colly my cow! Don't fidget, Cardinal! Abate, cross your breast and count your beads And exorcise the devil, for here he stands And stiffens in the bristly nape of neck, Daring you drive him hence! You, Christians both? I say, if ever was such faith at all Born in the world, by your community Suffered to live its little tick of time, 'Tis dead of age, now, ludicrously dead; Honor its ashes, if you be discreet, In epitaph only! For, concede its death, Allow extinction, you may boast unchecked What feats the thing did in a crazy land At a fabulous epoch,--treat your faith, that way, Just as you treat your relics: "Here's a shred Of saintly flesh, a scrap of blessed bone, Raised King Cophetua, who was dead, to life In Mesopotamy twelve centuries since, Such was its virtue!"--twangs the Sacristan, Holding the shrine-box up, with hands like feet Because of gout in every finger-joint: Does he bethink him to reduce one knob, Allay one twinge by touching what he vaunts? I think he half uncrooks fist to catch fee, But, for the grace, the quality of cure,-- Cophetua was the man put that to proof! Not otherwise, your faith is shrined and shown And shamed at once: you banter while you bow! Do you dispute this? Come, a monster-laugh, A madman's laugh, allowed his Carnival Later ten days than when all Rome, but he, Laughed at the candle-contest: mine's alight, 'T is just it sputter till the puff o' the Pope End it to-morrow and the world turn Ash. Come, thus I wave a wand and bring to pass In a moment, in the twinkle of an eye, What but that--feigning everywhere grows fact, Professors turn possessors, realize The faith they play with as a fancy now, And bid it operate, have full effect On every circumstance of life, to-day, In Rome,--faith's flow set free at fountain-head! Now, you'll own, at this present, when I speak, Before I work the wonder, there's no man, Woman or child in Rome, faith's fountain-head, But might, if each were minded, realize Conversely unbelief, faith's opposite-- Set it to work on life unflinchingly, Yet give no symptom of an outward change: Why should things change because men disbelieve? What's incompatible, in the whited tomb, With bones and rottenness one inch below? What saintly act is done in Rome to-day But might be prompted by the devil,--"is" I say not,--"has been, and again may be,"-- I do say, full i' the face o' the crucifix You try to stop my mouth with! Off with it! Look in your own heart, if your soul have eyes! You shall see reason why, though faith were fled, Unbelief still might work the wires and move Man, the machine, to play a faithful part. Preside your college, Cardinal, in your cape, Or,--having got above his head, grown Pope,-- Abate, gird your loins and wash my feet! Do you suppose I am at loss at all Why you crook, why you cringe, why fast or feast? Praise, blame, sit, stand, lie or go!--all of it, In each of you, purest unbelief may prompt, And wit explain to who has eyes to see. But, lo, I wave wand, make the false the true! Here's Rome believes in Christianity! What an explosion, how the fragments fly Of what was surface, mask and make-believe! Begin now,--look at this Pope's-halberdier In wasp-like black and yellow foolery! He, doing duty at the corridor, Wakes from a muse and stands convinced of sin! Down he flings halbert, leaps the passage-length, Pushes into the presence, pantingly Submits the extreme peril of the case To the Pope's self,--whom in the world beside?-- And the Pope breaks talk with ambassador, Bids aside bishop, wills the whole world wait Till he secure that prize, outweighs the world, A soul, relieve the sentry of his qualm! His Altitude the Referendary-- Robed right, and ready for the usher's word To pay devoir--is, of all times, just then 'Ware of a master-stroke of argument Will cut the spinal cord ... ugh, ugh!... I mean, Paralyze Molinism forevermore! Straight he leaves lobby, trundles, two and two, Down steps to reach home, write, if but a word Shall end the impudence: he leaves who likes Go pacify the Pope: there's Christ to serve! How otherwise would men display their zeal? If the same sentry had the least surmise A powder-barrel 'neath the pavement lay In neighborhood with what might prove a match, Meant to blow sky-high Pope and presence both-- Would he not break through courtiers, rank and file, Bundle up, bear off, and save body so, The Pope, no matter for his priceless soul? There's no fool's-freak here, naught to soundly swinge, Only a man in earnest, you'll so praise And pay and prate about, that earth shall ring! Had thought possessed the Referendary His jewel-ease at home was left ajar, What would be wrong in running, robes awry, To be beforehand with the pilferer? What talk then of indecent haste? Which means, That both these, each in his degree, would do Just that--for a comparative nothing's sake, And thereby gain approval and reward-- Which, done for what Christ says is worth the world, Procures the doer curses, cuffs and kicks. I call such difference 'twixt act and act, Sheer lunacy unless your truth on lip Be recognized a lie in heart of you! How do you all act, promptly or in doubt, When there's a guest poisoned at supper-time And he sits chatting on with spot on cheek? "Pluck him by the skirt, and round him in the ears, Have at him by the beard, warn anyhow!" Good; and this other friend that's cheat and thief And dissolute,--go stop the devil's feast, Withdraw him from the imminent hell-fire! Why, for your life, you dare not tell your friend, "You lie, and I admonish you for Christ!" Who yet dare seek that same man at the Mass To warn him--on his knees, and tinkle near,-- He left a cask a-tilt, a tap unturned, The Trebbian running: what a grateful jump Out of the Church rewards your vigilance! Perform that selfsame service just a thought More maladroitly,--since a bishop sits At function!--and he budges not, bites lip,-- "You see my case: how can I quit my post? He has an eye to any such default. See to it, neighbor, I beseech your love!" He and you know the relative worth of things, What is permissible or inopportune. Contort your brows! You know I speak the truth: Gold is called gold, and dross called dross, i' the Book: Gold you let lie and dross pick up and prize! --Despite your muster of some fifty monks And nuns a-maundering here and mumping there, Who could, and on occasion would, spurn dross, Clutch gold, and prove their faith a fact so far,-- I grant you! Fifty times the number squeak And gibber in the madhouse--firm of faith, This fellow, that his nose supports the moon; The other, that his straw hat crowns him Pope: Does that prove all the world outside insane? Do fifty miracle-mongers match the mob That acts on the frank faithless principle, Born-baptized-and-bred Christian-atheists, each With just as much a right to judge as you,-- As many senses in his soul, and nerves I' neck of him as I,--whom, soul and sense, Neck and nerve, you abolish presently,-- I being the unit in creation now Who pay the Maker, in this speech of mine, A creature's duty, spend my last of breath In bearing witness, even by my worst fault, To the creature's obligation, absolute, Perpetual: my worst fault protests, "The faith Claims all of me: I would give all she claims, But for a spice of doubt: the risk's too rash: Double or quits, I play, but, all or naught, Exceeds my courage: therefore, I descend To the next faith with no dubiety-- Faith in the present life, made last as long And prove as full of pleasure as may hap, Whatever pain it cause the world." I 'm wrong? I've had my life, whate'er I lose: I'm right? I've got the single good there was to gain. Entire faith, or else complete unbelief! Aught between has my loathing and contempt, Mine and God's also, doubtless: ask yourself, Cardinal, where and how you like a man! Why, either with your feet upon his head, Confessed your caudatory, or, at large, The stranger in the crowd who caps to you But keeps his distance,--why should he presume? You want no hanger-on and dropper-off, Now yours, and now not yours but quite his own, According as the sky looks black or bright. Just so I capped to and kept off from faith-- You promised trudge behind through fair and foul, Yet leave i' the lurch at the first spit of rain. Who holds to faith whenever rain begins? What does the father when his son lies dead, The merchant when his money-bags take wing, The politican whom a rival ousts? No case but has its conduct, faith prescribes: Where's the obedience that shall edify? Why, they laugh frankly in the face of faith And take the natural course,--this rends his hair Because his child is taken to God's breast, That gnashes teeth and raves at loss of trash Which rust corrupts and thieves break through and steal, And this, enabled to inherit earth Through meekness, curses till your blood runs cold! Down they all drop to my low level, rest Heart upon dungy earth that's warm and soft, And let who please attempt the altitudes: Each playing prodigal son of heavenly sire, Turning his nose up at the fatted calf, Fain to fill belly with the husks, we swine Did eat by born depravity of taste!

Enough of the hypocrites. But you, Sirs, you-- Who never budged from litter where I lay, And buried snout i' the draff-box while I fed, Cried amen to my creed's one article-- "Get pleasure, 'scape pain,--give your preference To the immediate good, for time is brief, And death ends good and ill and everything! What's got is gained, what's gained soon is gained twice, And--inasmuch as faith gains most--feign faith!" So did we brother-like pass word about: --You, now,--like bloody drunkards but half-drunk, Who fool men yet perceive men find them fools,-- Vexed that a titter gains the gravest mouth,-- O' the sudden you must needs reintroduce Solemnity, straight sober undue mirth By a blow dealt me your boon companion here, Who, using the old license, dreamed of harm No more than snow in harvest: yet it falls! You check the merriment effectually By pushing your abrupt machine i' the midst, Making me Rome's example: blood for wine! The general good needs that you chop and change! I may dislike the hocus-pocus,--Rome, The laughter-loving people, won't they stare Chapfallen!--while serious natures sermonize, "The magistrate, he beareth not the sword In vain; who sins may taste its edge, we see!" Why my sin, drunkards? Where have I abused Liberty, scandalized you all so much? Who called me, who crooked finger till I came, Fool that I was, to join companionship? I knew my own mind, meant to live my life, Elude your envy, or else make a stand, Take my own part and sell you my life dear. But it was "Fie! No prejudice in the world To the proper manly instinct! Cast your lot Into our lap, one genius ruled our births, We'll compass joy by concert; take with us The regular irregular way i' the wood; You'll miss no game through riding breast by breast, In this preserve, the Church's park and pale, Rather than outside where the world lies waste!" Come, if you said not that, did you say this? Give plain and terrible warning, "Live, enjoy! Such life begins in death and ends in hell! Dare you bid us assist your sins, us priests Who hurry sin and sinners from the earth? No such delight for us, why then for you? Leave earth, seek heaven or find its opposite!" Had you so warned me, not in lying words But veritable deeds with tongues of flame, That had been fair, that might have struck a man, Silenced the squabble between soul and sense, Compelled him to make mind up, take one course Or the other, peradventure!--wrong or right, Foolish or wise, you would have been at least Sincere, no question,--forced me choose, indulge Or else renounce my instincts, still play wolf Or find my way submissive to your fold, Be red-crossed on my fleece, one sheep the more. But you as good as bade me wear sheep's-wool Over wolf's-skin, suck blood and hide the noise By mimicry of something like a bleat,-- Whence it comes that because, despite my care, Because I smack my tongue too loud for once, Drop baaing, here 's the village up in arms! Have at the wolf's throat, you who hate the breed! Oh, were it only open yet to choose-- One little time more--whether I 'd be free Your foe, or subsidized your friend forsooth! Should not you get a growl through the white fangs In answer to your beckoning! Cardinal, Abate, managers o' the multitude, I 'd turn your gloved hands to account, be sure! You should manipulate the coarse rough mob: 'T is you I 'd deal directly with, not them,-- Using your fears: why touch the thing myself When I could see you hunt, and then cry "Shares! Quarter the carcass or we quarrel; come, Here 's the world ready to see justice done!" Oh, it had been a desperate game, but game Wherein the winner's chance were worth the pains! We 'd try conclusions!--at the worst, what worse Than this Mannaia-machine, each minute's talk Helps push an inch the nearer me? Fool, fool!

You understand me and forgive, sweet Sirs? I blame you, tear my hair and tell my woe-- All 's but a flourish, figure of rhetoric! One must try each expedient to save life. One makes fools look foolisher fifty-fold By putting in their place men wise like you, To take the full force of an argument Would buffet their stolidity in vain. If you should feel aggrieved by the mere wind O' the blow that means to miss you and maul them, That 's my success! Is it not folly, now, To say with folk, "A plausible defence-- We see through notwithstanding, and reject"? Reject the plausible they do, these fools, Who never even make pretence to show One point beyond its plausibility In favor of the best belief they hold! "Saint Somebody-or-other raised the dead:" Did he? How do you come to know as much? "Know it, what need? The story 's plausible, Avouched for by a martyrologist, And why should good men sup on cheese and leeks On such a saint's day, if there were no saint?" I praise the wisdom of these fools, and straight Tell them my story--"plausible, but false!" False, to be sure! What else can story be That runs--a young wife tired of an old spouse, Found a priest whom she fled away with,--both Took their full pleasure in the two-days' flight, Which a gray-headed grayer-hearted pair (Whose best boast was, their life had been a lie) Helped for the love they bore all liars. Oh, Here incredulity begins! Indeed? Allow then, were no one point strictly true, There 's that i' the tale might seem like truth at least To the unlucky husband,--jaundiced patch,-- Jealousy maddens people, why not him? Say, he was maddened, so forgivable! Humanity pleads that though the wife were true, The priest true, and the pair of liars true, They might seem false to one man in the world! A thousand gnats make up a serpent's sting, And many sly soft stimulants to wrath Compose a formidable wrong at last, That gets called easily by some one name Not applicable to the single parts, And so draws down a general revenge, Excessive if you take crime, fault by fault. Jealousy! I have known a score of plays, Were listened to and laughed at in my time As like the every-day life on all sides, Wherein the husband, mad as a March hare, Suspected all the world contrived his shame. What did the wife? The wife kissed both eyes blind, Explained away ambiguous circumstance, And while she held him captive by the hand, Crowned his head--you know what 's the mockery-- By half her body behind the curtain. That 's Nature now! That 's the subject of a piece I saw in Vallombrosa Convent, made Expressly to teach men what marriage was! But say, "Just so did I misapprehend, Imagine she deceived me to my face," And that 's pretence too easily seen through! All those eyes of all husbands in all plays, At stare like one expanded peacock-tail, Are laughed at for pretending to be keen While horn-blind: but the moment I step forth-- Oh, I must needs o' the sudden prove a lynx And look the heart, that stone-wall, through and through! Such an eye, God's may be,--not yours nor mine.

Yes, presently ... what hour is fleeting now? When you cut earth away from under me, I shall be left alone with, pushed beneath Some such an apparitional dread orb As the eye of God, since such an eye there glares: I fancy it go filling up the void Above my mote-self it devours, or what Proves wrath, immensity wreaks on nothingness Just how I felt once, couching through the dark. Hard by Vittiano; young I was, and gay, And wanting to trap fieldfares: first a spark Tipped a bent, as a mere dew-globule might Any stiff grass-stalk on the meadow,--this Grew fiercer, flamed out full, and proved the sun. What do I want with proverbs, precepts here? Away with man! What shall I say to God? This, if I find the tongue and keep the mind-- "Do Thou wipe out the being of me, and smear This soul from off Thy white of things, I blot! I am one huge and sheer mistake,--whose fault? Not mine at least, who did not make myself!" Some one declares my wife excused me so! Perhaps she knew what argument to use. Grind your teeth, Cardinal, Abate, writhe! What else am I to cry out in my rage, Unable to repent one particle O' the past? Oh, how I wish some cold wise man Would dig beneath the surface which you scrape, Deal with the depths, pronounce on my desert Groundedly! I want simple sober sense, That asks, before it finishes with a dog, Who taught the dog that trick you hang him for? You both persist to call that act a crime, Which sense would call ... yes, I maintain it, Sirs, ... A blunder! At the worst, I stood in doubt On cross-road, took one path of many paths: It leads to the red thing, we all see now, But nobody saw at first: one primrose-patch In bank, one singing-bird in bush, the less, Had warned me from such wayfare: let me prove! Put me back to the cross-road, start afresh! Advise me when I take the first false step! Give me my wife: how should I use my wife, Love her or hate her? Prompt my action now! There she is, there she stands alive and pale, The thirteen-years'-old child, with milk for blood, Pompilia Comparini, as at first, Which first is only four brief years ago! I stand too in the little ground-floor room O' the father's house at Via Vittoria: see! Her so-called mother--one arm round the waist O' the child to keep her from the toys, let fall At wonder I can live yet look so grim-- Ushers her in, with deprecating wave Of the other,--and she fronts me loose at last, Held only by the mother's finger-tip. Struck dumb, for she was white enough before! She eyes me with those frightened balls of black, As heifer--the old simile comes pat-- Eyes tremblingly the altar and the priest. The amazed look, all one insuppressive prayer,-- Might she but breathe, set free as heretofore, Have this cup leave her lips unblistered, bear Any cross anywhither anyhow, So but alone, so but apart from me! You are touched? So am I, quite otherwise, If 't is with pity. I resent my wrong, Being a man: I only show man's soul Through man's flesh: she sees mine, it strikes her thus! Is that attractive? To a youth perhaps-- Calf-creature, one-part boy to three-parts girl, To whom it is a flattering novelty That he, men use to motion from their path, Can thus impose, thus terrify in turn A chit whose terror shall be changed apace To bliss unbearable when grace and glow, Prowess and pride descend the throne and touch Esther in all that pretty tremble, cured By the dove o' the sceptre! But myself am old, O' the wane at least, in all things: what do you say To her who frankly thus confirms my doubt? I am past the prime, I scare the woman-world, Done-with that way: you like this piece of news? A little saucy rose-bud minx can strike Death-damp into the breast of doughty king Though 't were French Louis,--soul I understand,-- Saying, by gesture of repugnance, just "Sire, you are regal, puissant, and so forth, But--young you have been, are not, nor will be!" In vain the mother nods, winks, bustles up, "Count, girls incline to mature worth like you! As for Pompilia, what 's flesh, fish or fowl To one who apprehends no difference, And would accept you even were you old As you are ... youngish by her father's side? Trim but your beard a little, thin your bush Of eyebrow; and for presence, portliness, And decent gravity, you beat a boy!" Deceive yourself one minute, if you may, In presence of the child that so loves age, Whose neck writhes, cords itself against your kiss, Whose hand you wring stark, rigid with despair! Well, I resent this; I am young in soul, Nor old in body,--thews and sinews here,-- Though the vile surface be not smooth as once,-- Far beyond that first wheelwork-which went wrong Through the untempered iron ere 't was proof: I am the rock man worth ten times the crude,-- Would woman see what this declines to see, Declines to say "I see,"--the officious word That makes the thing, pricks on the soul to shoot New fire into the half-used cinder, flesh! Therefore 't is she begins with wronging me, Who cannot but begin with hating her. Our marriage follows: there she stands again! Why do I laugh? Why, in the very gripe O' the jaws of death's gigantic skull, do I Grin back his grin, make sport of my own pangs? Why from each clashing of his molars, ground To make the devil bread from out my grist, Leaps out a spark of mirth, a hellish toy? Take notice we are lovers in a church, Waiting the sacrament to make us one And happy! Just as bid, she bears herself, Comes and kneels, rises, speaks, is silent,--goes: So have I brought my horse, by word and blow, To stand stock-still and front the fire he dreads. How can I other than remember this, Resent the very obedience? Gain thereby? Yes, I do gain my end and have my will,-- Thanks to whom? When the mother speaks the word, She obeys it--even to enduring me! There had been compensation in revolt-- Revolt 's to quell: but martyrdom rehearsed, But predetermined saintship for the sake O' the mother?--"Go!" thought I, "we meet again!" Pass the next weeks of dumb contented death, She lives,--wakes up, installed in house and home, Is mine, mine all day-long, all night-long mine. Good folk begin at me with open mouth: "Now, at least, reconcile the child to life! Study and make her love ... that is, endure The ... hem! the ... all of you though somewhat old, Till it amount to something, in her eye, As good as love, better a thousand times,-- Since nature helps the woman in such strait, Makes passiveness her pleasure: failing which, What if you give up boy-and-girl-fools'-play And go on to wise friendship all at once? Those boys and girls kiss themselves cold, you know, Toy themselves tired and slink aside full soon To friendship, as they name satiety: Thither go you and wait their coming!" Thanks, Considerate advisers,--but, fair play! Had you and I, friends, started fair at first, We, keeping fair, might reach it, neck by neck, This blessed goal, whenever fate so please: But why am I to miss the daisied mile The course begins with, why obtain the dust Of the end precisely at the starting-point? Why quaff life's cup blown free of all the beads, The bright red froth wherein our beard should steep Before our mouth essay the black o' the wine? Foolish, the love-fit? Let me prove it such Like you, before like you I puff things clear! "The best 's to come, no rapture but content! Not love's first glory but a sober glow, Not a spontaneous outburst in pure boon, So much as, gained by patience, care and toil, Proper appreciation and esteem!" Go preach that to your nephews, not to me Who, tired i' the midway of my life, would stop And take my first refreshment, pluck a rose: What 's this coarse woolly hip, worn smooth of leaf, You counsel I go plant in garden-plot, Water with tears, manure with sweat and blood, In confidence the seed shall germinate And, for its very best, some far-off day, Grow big, and blow me out a dog-rose bell? Why must your nephews begin breathing spice O' the hundred-petalled Provence prodigy? Nay, more and worse,--would such my root bear rose-- Prove really flower and favorite, not the kind That 's queen, but those three leaves that make one cup And hold the hedge-bird's breakfast,--then indeed The prize though poor would pay the care and toil! Respect we Nature that makes least as most, Marvelous in the minim! But this bud, Bit through and burned black by the tempter's tooth, This bloom whose best grace was the slug outside And the wasp inside its bosom,--call you "rose"? Claim no immunity from a weed's fate For the horrible present! What you call my wife I call a nullity in female shape, Vapid disgust, soon to be pungent plague, When mixed with, made confusion and a curse By two abominable nondescripts, That father and that mother: think you see The dreadful bronze our boast, we Aretines, The Etruscan monster, the three-headed thing, Bellerophon's foe! How name you the whole beast? You choose to name the body from one head, That of the simple kid which droops the eye, Hangs the neck and dies tenderly enough: I rather see the griesly lion belch Flame out i' the midst, the serpent writhe her rings, Grafted into the common stock for tail, And name the brute, Chimæra, which I slew! How was there ever more to be--(concede My wife's insipid harmless nullity)-- Dissociation from that pair of plagues-- That mother with her cunning and her cant-- The eyes with first their twinkle of conceit, Then, dropped to earth in mock-demureness,--now, The smile self-satisfied from ear to ear, Now, the prim pursed-up mouth's protruded lips, With deferential duck, slow swing of head, Tempting the sudden fist of man too much,-- That owl-like screw of lid and rock of ruff! As for the father,--Cardinal, you know The kind of idiot!--such are rife in Rome, But they wear velvet commonly; good fools, At the end of life, to furnish forth young folk Who grin and bear with imbecility: Since the stalled ass, the joker, sheds from jaw Corn, in the joke, for those who laugh or starve. But what say we to the same solemn beast Wagging his ears and wishful of our pat, When turned, with holes in hide and bones laid bare, To forage for himself i' the waste o' the world, Sir Dignity i' the dumps? Pat him? We drub Self-knowledge, rather, into frowzy pate, Teach Pietro to get trappings or go hang! Fancy this quondam oracle in vogue At Via Vittoria, this personified Authority when time was,--Pantaloon Flaunting his tom-fool tawdry just the same As if Ash-Wednesday were mid-Carnival! That 's the extreme and unforgivable Of sins, as I account such. Have you stooped For your own ends to bestialize yourself By flattery of a fellow of this stamp? The ends obtained or else shown out of reach, He goes on, takes the flattery for pure truth,-- "You love, and honor me, of course: what next?" What, but the trifle of the stabbing, friend?-- Which taught you how one worships when the shrine Has lost the relic that we bent before. Angry! And how could I be otherwise? 'T is plain: this pair of old pretentious fools Meant to fool me: it happens, I fooled them. Why could not these who sought to buy and sell Me,--when they found themselves were bought and sold, Make up their mind to the proved rule of right, Be chattel and not chapman any more? Miscalculation has its consequence; But when the shepherd crooks a sheep-like thing And meaning to get wool, dislodges fleece And finds the veritable wolf beneath, (How that stanch image serves at every turn!) Does he, by way of being politic, Pluck the first whisker grimly visible? Or rather grow in a trice all gratitude, Protest this sort-of-what-one-might-name sheep Beats the old other curly-coated kind, And shall share board and bed, if so it deign, With its discoverer, like a royal ram? Ay, thus, with chattering teeth and knocking knees, Would wisdom treat the adventure! these, forsooth, Tried whisker-plucking, and so found what trap The whisker kept perdue, two rows of teeth-- Sharp, as too late the prying fingers felt. What would you have? The fools transgress, the fools Forthwith receive appropriate punishment: They first insult me, I return the blow, There follows noise enough: four hubbub months, Now hue and cry, now whimpering and wail-- A perfect goose-yard cackle of complaint Because I do not gild the geese their oats,-- I have enough of noise, ope wicket wide, Sweep out the couple to go whine elsewhere, Frightened a little, hurt in no respect, And am just taking thought to breathe again, Taste the sweet sudden silence all about, When, there they raise it, the old noise I know, At Rome i' the distance! "What, begun once more? Whine on, wail ever, 't is the loser's right!" But eh, what sort of voice grows on the wind? Triumph it sounds and no complaint at all! And triumph it is. My boast was premature: The creatures, I turned forth, clapped wing and crew Fighting-cock-fashion,--they had filched a pearl From dung-heap, and might boast with cause enough! I was defrauded of all bargained for: You know, the Pope knows, not a soul but knows My dowry was derision, my gain--muck, My wife (the Church declared my flesh and blood) The nameless bastard of a common whore: My old name turned henceforth to ... shall I say "He that received the ordure in his face"? And they who planned this wrong, performed this wrong, And then revealed this wrong to the wide world, Rounded myself in the ears with my own wrong,-- Why, these were (note hell's lucky malice, now!) These were just they who, they alone, could act And publish and proclaim their infamy, Secure that men would in a breath believe, Compassionate and pardon them,--for why? They plainly were too stupid to invent, Too simple to distinguish wrong from right,-- Inconscious agents they, the silly-sooth, Of heaven's retributive justice on the strong Proud cunning violent oppressor--me! Follow them to their fate and help your best, You Rome, Arezzo, foes called friends of me, They gave the good long laugh to, at my cost! Defray your share o' the cost, since you partook The entertainment! Do!--assured the while, That not one stab, I dealt to right and left, But went the deeper for a fancy--this-- That each might do me twofold service, find A friend's face at the bottom of each wound, And scratch its smirk a little! Panciatichi! There 's a report at Florence,--is it true?-- That when your relative the Cardinal Built, only the other day, that barrack-bulk, The palace in Via Larga, some one picked From out the street a saucy quip enough That fell there from its day's flight through the town, About the flat front and the windows wide And bulging heap of cornice,--hitched the joke Into a sonnet, signed his name thereto, And forthwith pinned on post the pleasantry: For which he 's at the galleys, rowing now Up to his waist in water,--just because _Panciatic_ and _lymphatic_ rhymed so pat! I hope, Sir, those who passed this joke on me Were not unduly punished? What say you, Prince of the Church, my patron? Nay, indeed, I shall not dare insult your wits so much As think this problem difficult to solve. This Pietro and Violante then, I say, These two ambiguous insects, changing name And nature with the season's warmth or chill,-- Now, grovelled, grubbing toiling moiling ants, A very synonym of thrift and peace,-- Anon, with lusty June to prick their heart, Soared i' the air, winged flies for more offence, Circled me, buzzed me deaf and stung me blind, And stunk me dead with fetor in the face Until I stopped the nuisance: there 's my crime! Pity I did not suffer them subside Into some further shape and final form Of execrable life? My masters, no! I, by one blow, wisely cut short at once Them and their transformations of disgust, In the snug little Villa out of hand. "Grant me confession, give bare time for that!"-- Shouted the sinner till his mouth was stopped. His life confessed!--that was enough for me, Who came to see that he did penance. 'S death! Here 's a coil raised, a pother and for what? Because strength, being provoked by weakness, fought And conquered,--the world never heard the like! Pah, how I spend my breath on them, as if 'T was their fate troubled me, too hard to range Among the right and fit and proper things!

Ay, but Pompilia,--I await your word,-- She unimpeached of crime, unimplicate In folly, one of alien blood to these I punish, why extend my claim, exact Her portion of the penalty? Yes, friends, I go too fast: the orator 's at fault: Yes, ere I lay her, with your leave, by them As she was laid at San Lorenzo late, I ought to step back, lead you by degrees, Recounting at each step some fresh offence, Up to the red bed,--never fear, I will! Gaze at her, where I place her, to begin, Confound me with her gentleness and worth! The horrible pair have fled and left her now, She has her husband for her sole concern: His wife, the woman fashioned for his help, Flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, the bride To groom as is the Church and Spouse to Christ: There she stands in his presence: "Thy desire Shall be to the husband, o'er thee shall he rule!" --"Pompilia, who declare that you love God, You know who said that: then, desire my love, Yield me contentment and be ruled aright!" She sits up, she lies down, she comes and goes, Kneels at the couch-side, overleans the sill O' the window, cold and pale and mute as stone, Strong as stone also. "Well, are they not fled? Am I not left, am I not one for all? Speak a word, drop a tear, detach a glance, Bless me or curse me of your own accord! Is it the ceiling only wants your soul, Is worth your eyes?" And then the eyes descend, And do look at me. Is it at the meal? "Speak!" she obeys. "Be silent!" she obeys, Counting the minutes till I cry "Depart," As brood-bird when you saunter past her eggs. Departs she, just the same through door and wall I see the same stone strength of white despair, And all this will be never otherwise! Before, the parents' presence lent her life: She could play off her sex's armory, Entreat, reproach, be female to my male, Try all the shrieking doubles of the hare, Go clamor to the Commissary, bid The Archbishop hold my hands and stop my tongue, And yield fair sport so: but the tactics change, The hare stands stock-still to enrage the hound! Since that day when she learned she was no child Of those she thought her parents,--that their trick Had tricked me whom she thought solo trickster late,-- Why, I suppose she said within herself, "Then, no more struggle for my parents' sake! And, for my own sake, why needs struggle be?" But is there no third party to the pact? What of her husband's relish or dislike For this new game of giving up the game, This worst offence of not offending more? I'll not believe but instinct wrought in this, Set her on to conceive and execute The preferable plague: how sure they probe,-- These jades, the sensitivest soft of man! The long black hair was wound now in a wisp, Crowned sorrow better than the wild web late: No more soiled dress, 't is trimness triumphs now, For how should malice go with negligence? The frayed silk looked the fresher for her spite! There was an end to springing out of bed, Praying me, with face buried on my feet, Be hindered of my pastime,--so an end To my rejoinder, "What, on the ground at last? Vanquished in fight, a supplicant for life? What if I raise you? 'Ware the casting down When next you fight me!" Then, she lay there, mine: Now, mine she is if I please wring her neck,-- A moment of disquiet, working eyes, Protruding tongue, a long sigh, then no more,-- As if one killed the horse one could not ride! Had I enjoined "Cut off the hair!"--why, snap The scissors, and at once a yard or so Had fluttered in black serpents to the floor: But till I did enjoin it, how she combs, Uncurls and draws out to the complete length, Plaits, places the insulting rope on head To be an eyesore past dishevelment! Is all done? Then sit still again and stare! I advise--no one think to bear that look Of steady wrong, endured as steadily --Through what sustainment of deluding hope? Who is the friend i' the background that notes all? Who may come presently and close accounts? This self-possession to the uttermost, How does it differ in aught, save degree, From the terrible patience of God? "All which just means, She did not love you!" Again the word is launched And the fact fronts me! What, you try the wards With the true key and the dead lock flies ope? No, it sticks fast and leaves you fumbling still! You have some fifty servants, Cardinal,-- Which of them loves you? Which subordinate But makes parade of such officiousness That--if there 's no love prompts it--love, the sham, Does twice the service done by love, the true. God bless us liars, where 's one touch of truth? In what we tell the world, or world tells us, Of how we love each other? All the same, We calculate on word and deed, nor err,-- Bid such a man do such a loving act, Sure of effect and negligent of cause, Just as we bid a horse, with cluck of tongue, Stretch his legs arch-wise, crouch his saddled back To foot-reach of the stirrup--all for love, And some for memory of the smart of switch On the inside of the foreleg--what care we? Yet where 's the bond obliges horse to man Like that which binds fast wife to husband? God Laid down the law: gave man the brawny arm And ball of fist--woman the beardless cheek And proper place to suffer in the side: Since it is he can strike, let her obey! Can she feel no love? Let her show the more, Sham the worse, damn herself praiseworthily! Who 's that soprano, Rome went mad about Last week while I lay rotting in my straw? The very jailer gossiped in his praise-- How,--dressed up like Armida, though a man; And painted to look pretty, though a fright,-- He still made love so that the ladies swooned, Being an eunuch. "Ah, Rinaldo mine! But to breathe by thee while Jove slays us both!" All the poor bloodless creature never felt, _Si, do, re, mi, fa_, squeak and squall--for what? Two gold zecchines the evening. Here 's my slave, Whose body and soul depend upon my nod, Can't falter out the first note in the scale For her life! Why blame me if I take the life? All women cannot give men love, forsooth! No, nor all pullets lay the henwife eggs-- Whereat she bids them remedy the fault, Brood on a chalk-ball: soon the nest is stocked-- Otherwise, to the plucking and the spit! This wife of mine was of another mood-- Would not begin the lie that ends with truth, Nor feign the love that brings real love about: Wherefore I judged, sentenced, and punished her. But why particularize, defend the deed? Say that I hated her for no one cause Beyond my pleasure so to do,--what then? Just on as much incitement acts the world, All of you! Look and like! You favor one, Browbeat another, leave alone a third,-- Why should you master natural caprice? Pure nature! Try: plant elm by ash in file; Both unexceptionable trees enough, They ought to overlean each other, pair At top, and arch across the avenue The whole path to the pleasaunce: do they so-- Or loathe, lie off abhorrent each from each? Lay the fault elsewhere: since we must have faults, Mine shall have been--seeing there 's ill in the end Come of my course--that I fare somehow worse For the way I took: my fault ... as God 's my judge, I see not where my fault lies, that 's the truth! I ought ... oh, ought in my own interest Have let the whole adventure go untried, This chance by marriage,--or else, trying it, Ought to have turned it to account, some one O' the hundred otherwises? Ay, my friend, Easy to say, easy to do: step right Now you 've stepped left and stumbled on the thing, --The red thing! Doubt I any more than you That practice makes man perfect? Give again The chance,--same marriage and no other wife, Be sure I 'll edify you! That 's because I 'm practised, grown fit guide for Guido's self. You proffered guidance,--I know, none so well,-- You laid down law and rolled decorum out, From pulpit-corner on the gospel-side,-- Wanted to make your great experience mine, Save me the personal search and pains so: thanks! Take your word on life's use? When I take his-- The muzzled ox that treadeth out the corn, Gone blind in padding round and round one path,-- As to the taste of green grass in the field! What do you know o' the world that 's trodden flat And salted sterile with your daily dung, Leavened into a lump of loathsomeness? Take your opinion of the modes of life, The aims of life, life's triumph or defeat, How to feel, how to scheme, and how to do Or else leave undone? You preached long and loud On high-days, "Take our doctrine upon trust! Into the mill-house with you! Grind our corn, Relish our chaff, and let the green grass grow!" I tried chaff, found I famished on such fare, So made this mad rush at the mill-house-door, Buried my head up to the ears in dew, Browsed on the best: for which you brain me, Sirs! Be it so. I conceived of life that way, And still declare--life, without absolute use Of the actual sweet therein, is death, not life. Give me,--pay down,--not promise, which is air,-- Something that 's out of life and better still, Make sure reward, make certain punishment, Entice me, scare me,--I 'll forego this life; Otherwise, no!--the less that words, mere wind, Would cheat me of some minutes while they plague, Balk fulness of revenge here,--blame yourselves For this eruption of the pent-up soul You prisoned first and played with afterward! "Deny myself" meant simply pleasure you, The sacred and superior, save the mark! You,--whose stupidity and insolence I must defer to, soothe at every turn,-- Whose swine-like snuffling greed and grunting lust I had to wink at or help gratify,-- While the same passions,--dared they perk in me, Me, the immeasurably marked, by God, Master of the whole world of such as you,-- I, boast such passions? 'T was, "Suppress them straight! Or stay, we 'll pick and choose before destroy. Here 's wrath in you, a serviceable sword,-- Beat it into a ploughshare! What 's this long Lance-like ambition? Forge a pruning-hook, May be of service when our vines grow tall! But--sword used swordwise, spear thrust out as spear? Anathema! Suppression is the word!" My nature, when the outrage was too gross, Widened itself an outlet over-wide By way of answer, sought its own relief With more of fire and brimstone than you wished. All your own doing: preachers, blame yourselves!

'T is I preach while the hour-glass runs and runs! God keep me patient! All I say just means-- My wife proved, whether by her fault or mine,-- That 's immaterial,--a true stumbling-block I' the way of me her husband. I but plied The hatchet yourselves use to clear a path, Was politic, played the game you warrant wins, Plucked at law's robe a-rustle through the courts, Bowed down to kiss divinity's buckled shoe Cushioned i' the church: efforts all wide the aim! Procedures to no purpose! Then flashed truth. The letter kills, the spirit keeps alive In law and gospel: there be nods and winks Instruct a wise man to assist himself In certain matters, nor seek aid at all. "Ask money of me,"--quoth the clownish saw,-- "And take my purse! But,--speaking with respect,-- Need you a solace for the troubled nose? Let everybody wipe his own himself!" Sirs, tell me free and fair! Had things gone well At the wayside inn: had I surprised asleep The runaways, as was so probable, And pinned them each to other partridge-wise, Through back and breast to breast and back, then bade Bystanders witness if the spit, my sword, Were loaded with unlawful game for once-- Would you have interposed to damp the glow Applauding me on every husband's cheek? Would you have checked the cry, "A judgment, see! A warning, note! Be henceforth chaste, ye wives, Nor stray beyond your proper precinct, priests!" If you had, then your house against itself Divides, nor stands your kingdom any more. Oh why, why was it not ordained just so? Why fell not things out so nor otherwise? Ask that particular devil whose task it is To trip the all-but-at perfection,--slur The line o' the painter just where paint leaves off And life begins,--put ice into the ode O' the poet while he cries "Next stanza--fire!" Inscribe all human effort with one word, Artistry's haunting curse, the Incomplete! Being incomplete, my act escaped success. Easy to blame now! Every fool can swear To hole in net that held and slipped the fish. But, treat my act with fair unjaundiced eye, What was there wanting to a masterpiece Except the luck that lies beyond a man? My way with the woman, now proved grossly wrong, Just missed of being gravely grandly right And making mouths laugh on the other side. Do, for the poor obstructed artist's sake, Go with him over that spoiled work once more! Take only its first flower, the ended act Now in the dusty pod, dry and defunct! I march to the Villa, and my men with me, That evening, and we reach the door and stand. I say ... no, it shoots through me lightning-like While I pause, breathe, my hand upon the latch, "Let me forebode! Thus far, too much success: I want the natural failure--find it where? Which thread will have to break and leave a loop I' the meshy combination, my brain's loom Wove this long while, and now next minute tests? Of three that are to catch, two should go free, One must: all three surprised,--impossible! Beside, I seek three and may chance on six,-- This neighbor, t' other gossip,--the babe's birth Brings such to fireside, and folks give them wine,-- 'T is late: but when I break in presently One will be found outlingering the rest For promise of a posset,--one whose shout Would raise the dead down in the catacombs, Much more the city-watch that goes its round. When did I ever turn adroitly up To sun some brick embedded in the soil, And with one blow crush all three scorpions there? Or Pietro or Violante shambles off-- It cannot be but I surprise my wife-- If only she is stopped and stamped on, good! That shall suffice: more is improbable. Now I may knock!" And this once for my sake The impossible was effected: I called king, Queen and knave in a sequence, and cards came, All three, three only! So, I had my way, Did my deed: so, unbrokenly lay bare Each tænia that had sucked me dry of juice, At last outside me, not an inch of ring Left now to writhe about and root itself I' the heart all powerless for revenge! Henceforth I might thrive: these were drawn and dead and damned. Oh, Cardinal, the deep long sigh you heave When the load 's off you, ringing as it runs All the way down the serpent-stair to hell! No doubt the fine delirium flustered me, Turned my brain with the influx of success As if the sole need now were to wave wand And find doors fly wide,--wish and have my will,-- The rest o' the scheme would care for itself: escape? Easy enough were that, and poor beside! It all but proved so.--ought to quite have proved, Since, half the chances had sufficed, set free Any one, with his senses at command, From thrice the danger of my flight. But, drunk, Redundantly triumphant,--some reverse Was sure to follow! There 's no other way Accounts for such prompt perfect failure then And there on the instant. Any day o' the week, A ducat slid discreetly into palm O' the mute post-master, while you whisper him-- How you the Count and certain four your knaves, Have just been mauling who was malapert, Suspect the kindred may prove troublesome, Therefore, want horses in a hurry,--that And nothing more secures you any day The pick o' the stable! Yet I try the trick, Double the bribe, call myself Duke for Count, And say the dead man only was a Jew, And for my pains find I am dealing just With the one scrupulous fellow in all Rome-- Just this immaculate official stares, Sees I want hat on head and sword in sheath, Am splashed with other sort of wet than wine, Shrugs shoulder, puts my hand by, gold and all, Stands on the strictness of the rule o' the road! "Where 's the Permission?" Where 's the wretched rag With the due seal and sign of Rome's Police, To be had for asking, half an hour ago? "Gone? Get another, or no horses hence!" He dares not stop me, we five glare too grim, But hinders,--hacks and hamstrings sure enough, Gives me some twenty miles of miry road More to march in the middle of that night Whereof the rough beginning taxed the strength O' the youngsters, much more mine, both soul and flesh, Who had to think as well as act: dead-beat, We gave in ere we reached the boundary And safe spot out of this irrational Rome,-- Where, on dismounting from our steeds next day, We had snapped our fingers at you, safe and sound, Tuscans once more in blessed Tuscany, Where laws make wise allowance, understand Civilized life and do its champions right! Witness the sentence of the Rota there, Arezzo uttered, the Granduke confirmed, One week before I acted on its hint,-- Giving friend Guillichini, for his love, The galleys, and my wife your saint, Rome's saint,-- Rome manufactures saints enough to know,-- Seclusion at the Stinche for her life. All this, that all but was, might all have been, Yet was not! balked by just a scrupulous knave Whose palm was horn through handling horses' hoofs And could not close upon my proffered gold! What say you to the spite of fortune? Well, The worst 's in store: thus hindered, haled this way To Rome again by hangdogs, whom find I Here, still to fight with, but my pale frail wife? --Riddled with wounds by one not like to waste The blows he dealt,--knowing anatomy,-- (I think I told you) bound to pick and choose The vital parts! 'T was learning all in vain! She too must shimmer through the gloom o' the grave, Come and confront me--not at judgment-seat Where I could twist her soul, as erst her flesh, And turn her truth into a lie,--but there, O' the death-bed, with God's hand between us both, Striking me dumb, and helping her to speak, Tell her own story her own way, and turn My plausibility to nothingness! Four whole days did Pompilia keep alive, With the best surgery of Rome agape At the miracle,--this cut, the other slash, And yet the life refusing to dislodge, Four whole extravagant impossible days, Till she had time to finish and persuade Every man, every woman, every child In Rome, of what she would: the selfsame she Who, but a year ago, had wrung her hands, Reddened her eyes and beat her breasts, rehearsed The whole game at Arezzo, nor availed Thereby to, move one heart or raise one hand! When destiny intends you cards like these, What good of skill and preconcerted play? Had she been found dead, as I left her dead, I should have told a tale brooked no reply: You scarcely will suppose me found at fault With that advantage! "What brings me to Rome? Necessity to claim and take my wife: Better, to claim and take my new-born babe,-- Strong in paternity a fortnight old, When 't is at strongest: warily I work, Knowing the machinations of my foe; I have companionship and use the night: I seek my wife and child,--I find--no child But wife, in the embraces of that priest Who caused her to elope from me. These two, Backed by the pander-pair who watch the while, Spring on me like so many tiger-cats, Glad of the chance to end the intruder. I-- What should I do but stand on my defence, Strike right, strike left, strike thick and threefold, slay, Not all--because the coward priest escapes. Last, I escape, in fear of evil tongues, And having had my taste of Roman law." What 's disputable, refutable here?-- Save by just this one ghost-thing half on earth, Half out of it,--as if she held God's hand While she leant back and looked her last at me, Forgiving me (here monks begin to weep) Oh, from her very soul, commending mine To heavenly mercies which are infinite,-- While fixing fast my head beneath your knife! 'T is fate, not fortune. All is of a piece! When was it chance informed me of my youths? My rustic four o' the family, soft swains, What sweet surprise had they in store for me, Those of my very household,--what did Law Twist with her rack-and-cord-contrivance late From out their bones and marrow? What but this-- Had no one of these several stumbling-blocks Stopped me, they yet were cherishing a scheme, All of their honest country homespun wit, To quietly next day at crow of cock Cut my own throat too, for their own behoof, Seeing I had forgot to clear accounts O' the instant, nowise slackened speed for that,-- And somehow never might find memory, Once safe back in Arezzo, where things change, And a court-lord needs mind no country lout. Well, being the arch-offender, I die last,-- May, ere my head falls, have my eyesight free, Nor miss them dangling high on either hand, Like scarecrows in a hemp-field, for their pains!

And then my Trial,--'t is my Trial that bites Like a corrosive, so the cards are packed, Dice loaded, and my life-stake tricked away! Look at my lawyers, lacked they grace of law, Latin or logic? Were not they fools to the height, Fools to the depth, fools to the level between, O' the foolishness set to decide the case? They feign, they flatter; nowise does it skill, Everything goes against me: deal each judge His dole of flattery and feigning,--why, He turns and tries and snuffs and savors it, As some old fly the sugar-grain, your gift; Then eyes your thumb and finger, brushes clean The absurd old head of him, and whisks away, Leaving your thumb and finger dirty. Faugh!

And finally, after this long-drawn range Of affront and failure, failure and affront,-- This path, 'twixt crosses leading to a skull, Paced by me barefoot, bloodied by my palms From the entry to the end,--there 's light at length, A cranny of escape: appeal may be To the old man, to the father, to the Pope, For a little life--from one whose life is spent, A little pity--from pity's source and seat, A little indulgence to rank, privilege, From one who is the thing personified, Rank, privilege, indulgence, grown beyond Earth's bearing, even, ask Jansenius else! Still the same answer, still no other tune From the cicala perched at the tree-top Than crickets noisy round the root,--'t is "Die!" Bids Law--"Be damned!" adds Gospel,--nay, No word so frank,--'t is rather, "Save yourself!" The Pope subjoins--"Confess and be absolved! So shall my credit countervail your shame, And the world see I have not lost the knack Of trying all the spirits: yours, my son, Wants but a fiery washing to emerge In clarity! Come, cleanse you, ease the ache Of these old hones, refresh our bowels, boy!" Do I mistake your mission from the Pope? Then, bear his Holiness the mind of me! I do get strength from being thrust to wall, Successively wrenched from pillar and from post By this tenacious hate of fortune, hate Of all things in, under, and above earth. Warfare, begun this mean unmanly mode, Does best to end so,--gives earth spectacle Of a brave fighter who succumbs to odds That turn defeat to victory. Stab, I fold My mantle round me! Rome approves my act: Applauds the blow which costs me life but keeps My honor spotless: Rome would praise no more Had I fallen, say, some fifteen years ago, Helping Vienna when our Aretines Flocked to Duke Charles and fought Turk Mustafa; Nor would you two be trembling o'er my corpse With all this exquisite solicitude. Why is it that I make such suit to live? The popular sympathy that 's round me now Would break like bubble that o'er-domes a fly-- Solid enough while he lies quiet there, But let him want the air and ply the wing, Why, it breaks and bespatters him, what else? Cardinal, if the Pope had pardoned me, And I walked out of prison through the crowd, It would not be your arm I should dare press! Then, if I got safe to my place again, How sad and sapless were the years to come! I go my old ways and find things grown gray; You priests leer at me, old friends look askance; The mob 's in love, I 'll wager, to a man, With my poor young good beauteous murdered wife: For hearts require instruction how to beat, And eyes, on warrant of the story, wax Wanton at portraiture in white and black Of dead Pompilia gracing ballad-sheet, Which eyes, lived she unmurdered and unsung, Would never turn though she paced street as bare As the mad penitent ladies do in France. My brothers quietly would edge me out Of use and management of things called mine; Do I command? "You stretched command before!" Show anger? "Anger little helped you once!" Advise? "How managed you affairs of old?" My very mother, all the while they gird, Turns eye up, gives confirmatory groan; For unsuccess, explain it how you will, Disqualifies you, makes you doubt yourself, --Much more, is found decisive by your friends. Beside, am I not fifty years of age? What new leap would a life take, checked like mine I' the spring at outset? Where 's my second chance? Ay, but the babe ... I had forgot my son, My heir! Now for a burst of gratitude! There 's some appropriate service to intone, Some _gaudeamus_ and thanksgiving-psalm! Old, I renew my youth in him, and poor Possess a treasure,--is not that the phrase? Only I must wait patient twenty years-- Nourishing all the while, as father ought, The excrescence with my daily blood of life. Does it respond to hope, such sacrifice,-- Grows the wen plump while I myself grow lean? Why, here 's my son and heir in evidence, Who stronger, wiser, handsomer than I By fifty years, relieves me of each load,-- Tames my hot horse, carries my heavy gun, Courts my coy mistress,--has his apt advice On house-economy, expenditure, And what not? All which good gifts and great growth, Because of my decline, he brings to bear On Guido, but half apprehensive how He cumbers earth, crosses the brisk young Count, Who civilly would thrust him from the scene. Contrariwise, does the blood-offering fail? There 's an ineptitude, one blank the more Added to earth in semblance of my child? Then, this has been a costly piece of work, My life exchanged for his!--why he, not I, Enjoy the world, if no more grace accrue? Dwarf me, what giant have you made of him? I do not dread the disobedient son-- I know how to suppress rebellion there, Being not quite the fool my father was. But grant the medium measure of a man, The usual compromise 'twixt fool and sage, --You know--the tolerably-obstinate, The not-so-much-perverse but you may train, The true son-servant that, when parent bids "Go work, son, in my vineyard!" makes reply "I go, Sir!"--Why, what profit in your son Beyond the drudges you might subsidize, Have the same work from, at a paul the head? Look at those four young precious olive-plants Reared at Vittiano,--not on flesh and blood, These twenty years, but black bread and sour wine! I bade them put forth tender branch, hook, hold, And hurt three enemies I had in Rome: They did my best as unreluctantly, At promise of a dollar, as a son Adjured by mumping memories of the past. No, nothing repays youth expended so-- Youth, I say, who am young still: grant but leave To live my life out, to the last I 'd live And die conceding age no right of youth! It is the will runs the renewing nerve Through flaccid flesh that faints before the time. Therefore no sort of use for son have I-- Sick, not of life's feast but of steps to climb To the house where life prepares her feast,--of means To the end: for make the end attainable Without the means,--my relish were like yours. A man may have an appetite enough For a whole dish of robins ready cooked, And yet lack courage to face sleet, pad snow, And snare sufficiently for supper.

Thus The time 's arrived when, ancient Roman-like, I am bound to fall on my own sword: why not Say--Tuscan-like, more ancient, better still? Will you hear truth can do no harm nor good? I think I never was at any time A Christian, as you nickname all the world, Me among others: truce to nonsense now! Name me, a primitive religionist-- As should the aboriginary be I boast myself, Etruscan, Aretine, One sprung--your frigid Virgil's fieriest word-- From fauns and nymphs, trunks and the heart of oak, With--for a visible divinity-- The portent of a Jove Ægiochus Descried 'mid clouds, lightning and thunder, couched On topmost crag of your Capitoline: 'T is in the Seventh Æneid,--what, the Eighth? Right,--thanks, Abate,--though the Christian 's dumb, The Latinist 's vivacious in you yet! I know my grandsire had our tapestry Marked with the motto, 'neath a certain shield, Whereto his grandson presently will give gules To vary azure. First we fight for faiths, But get to shake hands at the last of all: Mine 's your faith too,--in Jove Ægiochus! Nor do Greek gods, that serve as supplement, Jar with the simpler scheme, if understood. We want such intermediary race To make communication possible; The real thing were too lofty, we too low, Midway hang these: we feel their use so plain In linking height to depth, that we doff hat And put no question nor pry narrowly Into the nature hid behind the names. We grudge no rite the fancy may demand; But never, more than needs, invent, refine, Improve upon requirement, idly wise Beyond the letter, teaching gods their trade, Which is to teach us: we 'll obey when taught. Why should we do our duty past the need? When the sky darkens, Jove is wroth,--say prayer! When the sun shines and Jove is glad,--sing psalm! But wherefore pass prescription and devise Blood-offering for sweat-service, lend the rod A pungency through pickle of our own? Learned Abate,--no one teaches you What Venus means and who 's Apollo here! I spare you, Cardinal,--but, though you wince, You know me, I know you, and both know that! So, if Apollo bids us fast, we fast: But where does Venus order we stop sense When Master Pietro rhymes a pleasantry? Give alms prescribed on Friday,--but, hold hand Because your foe lies prostrate,--where 's the word Explicit in the book debars revenge? The rationale of your scheme is just "Pay toll here, there pursue your pleasure free!" So do you turn to use the medium-powers, Mars and Minerva, Bacchus and the rest, And so are saved propitiating--whom? What all-good, all-wise, and all-potent Jove Vexed by the very sins in man, himself Made life's necessity when man he made? Irrational bunglers! So, the living truth Revealed to strike Pan dead, ducks low at last, Prays leave to hold its own and live good days Provided it go masque grotesquely, called Christian not Pagan. Oh, you purged the sky Of all gods save the One, the great and good, Clapped hands and triumphed! But the change came fast: The inexorable need in man for life (Life, you may mulct and minish to a grain Out of the lump, so that the grain but live) Laughed at your substituting death for life,-- And bade you do your worst: which worst was done In just that age styled primitive and pure When Saint this, Saint that, dutifully starved, Froze, fought with beasts, was beaten and abused And finally ridded of his flesh by fire: He kept life-long unspotted from the world!-- Next age, how goes the game, what mortal gives His life and emulates Saint that, Saint this? Men mutter, make excuse, or mutiny, In fine are minded all to leave the new, Stick to the old,--enjoy old liberty, No prejudice in enjoyment, if you please, To the new profession: sin o' the sly, henceforth! The law stands though the letter kills: what then? The spirit saves as unmistakably. Omniscience sees, Omnipotence could stop, Omnibenevolence pardons: it must be, Frown law its fiercest, there 's a wink somewhere!

Such was the logic in this head of mine: I, like the rest, wrote "poison" on my bread, But broke and ate:--said "Those that use the sword Shall perish by the same;" then stabbed my foe. I stand on solid earth, not empty air: Dislodge me, let your Pope's crook hale me hence! Not he, nor you! And I so pity both, I 'll make the true charge you want wit to make: "Count Guido, who reveal our mystery, And trace all issues to the love of life: We having life to love and guard, like you, Why did you put us upon self-defence? You well knew what prompt pass-word would appease The sentry's ire when folk infringed his bounds, And yet kept mouth shut: do you wonder then If, in mere decency, he shot you dead? He can't have people play such pranks as yours Beneath his nose at noonday: you disdained To give him an excuse before the world By crying 'I break rule to save our camp!' Under the old rule, such offence were death; And you had heard the Pontifex pronounce, 'Since you slay foe and violate the form, Slaying turns murder, which were sacrifice Had you, while, say, lawsuiting foe to death, But raised an altar to the Unknown God, Or else the Genius of the Vatican.' Why then this pother?--all because the Pope, Doing his duty, cried 'A foreigner, You scandalize the natives: here at Rome _Romano vivitur more:_ wise men, here, Put the Church forward and efface themselves. The fit defence had been,--you stamped on wheat, Intending all the time to trample tares,-- Were fain extirpate, then, the heretic, You now find, in your haste was slain a fool: Nor Pietro, nor Violante, nor your wife Meant to breed up your babe a Molinist! Whence you are duly contrite. Not one word Of all this wisdom did you urge: which slip Death must atone for.'" So, let death atone! So ends mistake, so end mistakers!--end Perhaps to recommence,--how should I know? Only, be sure, no punishment, no pain Childish, preposterous, impossible, But some such fate as Ovid could foresee,-- _Byblis in fluvium_, let the weak soul end In water, _sed Lycaon in lupum_, but The strong become a wolf forevermore! Change that Pompilia to a puny stream Fit to reflect the daisies on its bank! Let me turn wolf, be whole, and sate, for once,-- Wallow in what is now a wolfishness Coerced too much by the humanity That 's half of me as well! Grow out of man, Glut the wolf-nature,--what remains but grow Into the man again, be man indeed And all man? Do I ring the changes right? Deformed, transformed, reformed, informed, conformed! The honest instinct, pent and crossed through life, Let surge by death into a visible flow Of rapture: as the strangled thread of flame Painfully winds, annoying and annoyed, Malignant and maligned, through stone and ore, Till earth exclude the stranger: vented once, It finds full play, is recognized atop Some mountain as no such abnormal birth, Fire for the mount, not streamlet for the vale! Ay, of the water was that wife of mine-- Be it for good, be it for ill, no run O' the red thread through that insignificance! Again, how she is at me with those eyes! Away with the empty stare! Be holy still, And stupid ever! Occupy your patch Of private snow that 's somewhere in what world May now be growing icy round your head, And aguish at your footprint,--freeze not me, Dare follow not another step I take, Not with so much as those detested eyes, No, though they follow but to pray me pause On the incline, earth's edge that 's next to hell! None of your abnegation of revenge! Fly at me frank, tug while I tear again! There 's God, go tell him, testify your worst! Not she! There was no touch in her of hate: And it would prove her hell, if I reached mine! To know I suffered, would still sadden her, Do what the angels might to make amends! Therefore there 's either no such place as hell, Or thence shall I be thrust forth, for her sake, And thereby undergo three hells, not one-- I who, with outlet for escape to heaven, Would tarry if such flight allowed my foe To raise his head, relieved of that firm foot Had pinned him to the fiery pavement else! So am I made, "who did not make myself:" (How dared she rob my own lip of the word?) Beware me in what other world may be!-- Pompilia, who have brought me to this pass! All I know here, will I say there, and go Beyond the saying with the deed. Some use There cannot but be for a mood like mine, Implacable, persistent in revenge. She maundered, "All is over and at end: I go my own road, go you where God will! Forgive you? I forget you!" There 's the saint That takes your taste, you other kind of men! How you had loved her! Guido wanted skill To value such a woman at her worth! Properly the instructed criticise, "What 's here, you simpleton have tossed to take Its chance i' the gutter? This a daub, indeed? Why, 't is a Rafael that you kicked to rags!" Perhaps so: some prefer the pure design: Give me my gorge of color, glut of gold In a glory round the Virgin made for me! Titian 's the man, not Monk Angelico Who traces you some timid chalky ghost That turns the church into a charnel: ay, Just such a pencil might depict my wife! She,--since she, also, would not change herself,-- Why could not she come in some heart-shaped cloud, Rainbowed about with riches, royalty Rimming her round, as round the tintless lawn Guardingly runs the selvage cloth of gold? I would have left the faint fine gauze untouched, Needle-worked over with its lily and rose, Let her bleach unmolested in the midst, Chill that selected solitary spot Of quietude she pleased to think was life. Purity, pallor grace the lawn no doubt When there 's the costly bordure to unthread And make again an ingot: but what 's grace When you want meat and drink and clothes and fire?

A tale comes to my mind that 's apposite-- Possibly true, probably false, a truth Such as all truths we live by, Cardinal! 'T is said, a certain ancestor of mine Followed--whoever was the potentate, To Paynimrie, and in some battle, broke Through more than due allowance of the foe, And, risking much his own life, saved the lord's. Battered and bruised, the Emperor scrambles up, Rubs his eyes and looks round and sees my sire, Picks a furze-sprig from out his hauberk-joint, (Token how near the ground went majesty,) And says, "Take this, and if thou get safe home, Plant the same in thy garden-ground to grow: Run thence an hour in a straight line, and stop: Describe a circle round (for central point) The furze aforesaid, reaching every way The length of that hour's run: I give it thee,-- The central point, to build a castle there, The space circumjacent, for fit demesne, The whole to be thy children's heritage,-- Whom, for the sake, bid thou wear furze on cap!" Those are my arms: we turned the furze a tree To show more, and the greyhound tied thereto, Straining to start, means swift and greedy both; He stands upon a triple mount of gold-- By Jove, then, he 's escaping from true gold And trying to arrive at empty air! Aha! the fancy never crossed my mind! My father used to tell me, and subjoin, "As for the castle, that took wings and flew: The broad lands,--why, to traverse them to-day Scarce tasks my gouty feet, and in my prime I doubt not I could stand and spit so far: But for the furze, boy, fear no lack of that, So long as fortune leaves one field to grub! Wherefore, hurrah for furze and loyalty!" What may I mean, where may the lesson lurk? "Do not bestow on man, by way of gift, Furze without land for framework,--vaunt no grace Of purity, no furze-sprig of a wife, To me, i' the thick of battle for my bread, Without some better dowry,--gold will do!" No better gift than sordid muck? Yes, Sirs! Many more gifts much better. Give them me! O those Olimpias bold, those Biancas brave, That brought a husband power worth Ormuz' wealth! Cried, "Thou being mine, why, what but thine am I? Be thou to me law, right, wrong, heaven and hell! Let us blend souls, blent, thou in me, to bid Two bodies work one pleasure! What are these Called king, priest, father, mother, stranger, friend? They fret thee or they frustrate? Give the word-- Be certain they shall frustrate nothing more! And who is this young florid foolishness That holds thy fortune in his pygmy clutch, --Being a prince and potency, forsooth!-- He hesitates to let the trifle go? Let me but seal up eye, sing ear to sleep Sounder than Samson,--pounce thou on the prize Shall slip from off my breast, and down couch-side, And on to floor, and far as my lord's feet-- Where he stands in the shadow with the knife, Waiting to see what Delilah dares do! Is the youth fair? What is a man to me Who am thy call-bird? Twist his neck--my dupe's,-- Then take the breast shall turn a breast indeed!" Such women are there; and they marry whom? Why, when a man has gone and hanged himself Because of what he calls a wicked wife,-- See, if the very turpitude bemoaned Prove not mere excellence the fool ignores! His monster is perfection,--Circe, sent Straight from the sun, with wand the idiot blames As not an honest distaff to spin wool! O thou Lucrezia, is it long to wait Yonder where all the gloom is in a glow With thy suspected presence?--virgin yet, Virtuous again, in face of what's to teach-- Sin unimagined, unimaginable,-- I come to claim my bride,--thy Borgia's self Not half the burning bridegroom I shall be! Cardinal, take away your crucifix! Abate, leave my lips alone,--they bite! Vainly you try to change what should not change, And shall not. I have bared, you bathe my heart-- It grows the stonier for your saving dew! You steep the substance, you would lubricate, In waters that but touch to petrify! You too are petrifactions of a kind: Move not a muscle that shows mercy; rave Another twelve hours, every word were waste! I thought you would not slay impenitence, But teased, from men you slew, contrition first,-- I thought you had a conscience. Cardinal, You know I am wronged!--wronged, say, and wronged, maintain. Was this strict inquisition made for blood When first you showed us scarlet on your back, Called to the College? Your straightforward way To your legitimate end,--I think it passed Over a scantling of heads brained, hearts broke, Lives trodden into dust!--how otherwise? Such was the way o' the world, and so you walked. Does memory haunt your pillow? Not a whit. God wills you never pace your garden-path, One appetizing hour ere dinner-time, But your intrusion there treads out of life A universe of happy innocent things: Feel you remorse about that damsel-fly Which buzzed so near your mouth and flapped your face? You blotted it from being at a blow: It was a fly, you were a man, and more, Lord of created things, so took your course. Manliness, mind,--these are things fit to save, Fit to brush fly from: why, because I take My course, must needs the Pope kill me?--kill you! You! for this instrument, he throws away, Is strong to serve a master, and were yours To have and hold and get much good from out! The Pope who dooms me needs must die next year; I 'll tell you how the chances are supposed For his successor: first the Chamberlain, Old San Cesario,--Colloredo, next,-- Then, one, two, three, four, I refuse to name; After these, comes Altieri; then come you-- Seventh on the list yon come, unless ... ha, ha, How can a dead hand give a friend a lift? Are you the person to despise the help O' the head shall drop in pannier presently? So a child seesaws on or kicks away The fulcrum-stone that 's all the sage requires To fit his lever to and move the world. Cardinal, I adjure you in God's name, Save my life, fall at the Pope's feet, set forth Things your own fashion, not in words like these Made for a sense like yours who apprehend! Translate into the Court-conventional "Count Guido must not die, is innocent! Fair, be assured! But what an he were foul, Blood-drenched and murder-crusted head to foot? Spare one whose death insults the Emperor, Nay, outrages the Louis you so love! He has friends who will avenge him; enemies Who will hate God now with impunity, Missing the old coercive: would you send A soul straight to perdition, dying frank An atheist?" Go and say this, for God's sake! --Why, you don't think I hope you 'll say one word? Neither shall I persuade you from your stand Nor you persuade me from my station: take Your crucifix away, I tell you twice!

Come, I am tired of silence! Pause enough! You have prayed: I have gone inside my soul And shut its door behind me: 't is your torch Makes the place dark: the darkness let alone Grows tolerable twilight: one may grope And get to guess at length and breadth and depth. What is this fact I feel persuaded of-- This something like a foothold in the sea, Although Saint Peter's bark scuds, billow-borne, Leaves me to founder where it flung me first? Spite of your splashing, I am high and dry! God takes his own part in each thing he made; Made for a reason, he conserves his work, Gives each its proper instinct of defence. My lamblike wife could neither bark nor bite, She bleated, bleated, till for pity pure The village roused up, ran with pole and prong To the rescue, and behold the wolf 's at bay! Shall he try bleating?--or take turn or two, Since the wolf owns some kinship with the fox, And, failing to escape the foe by craft, Give up attempt, die fighting quietly? The last bad blow that strikes fire in at eye And on to brain, and so out, life and all, How can it but be cheated of a pang If, fighting quietly, the jaws enjoy One re-embrace in mid backbone they break, After their weary work through the foe's flesh? That 's the wolf-nature. Don't mistake my trope! A Cardinal so qualmish? Eminence, My fight is figurative, blows i' the air, Brain-war with powers and principalities, Spirit-bravado, no real fisticuffs! I shall not presently, when the knock comes, Cling to this bench nor claw the hangman's face, No, trust me! I conceive worse lots than mine. Whether it be, the old contagious fit And plague o' the prison have surprised me too, The appropriate drunkenness of the death-hour Crept on my sense, kind work o' the wine and myrrh,-- I know not,--I begin to taste my strength, Careless, gay even. What's the worth of life? The Pope 's dead now, my murderous old man, For Tozzi told me so: and you, forsooth-- Why, you don't think, Abate, do your best, You 'll live a year more with that hacking cough And blotch of crimson where the cheek 's a pit? Tozzi has got you also down in book! Cardinal, only seventh of seventy near, Is not one called Albano in the lot? Go eat your heart, you 'll never be a Pope! Inform me, is it true you left your love, A Pucci, for promotion in the church? She 's more than in the church--in the churchyard! Plautilla Pucci, your affianced bride, Has dust now in the eyes that held the love,-- And Martinez, suppose they make you Pope, Stops that with _veto_,--so, enjoy yourself! I see you all reel to the rock, you waves-- Some forthright, some describe a sinuous track, Some, crested brilliantly, with heads above, Some in a strangled swirl sunk who knows how, But all bound whither the main-current sets, Rockward, an end in foam for all of you! What if I be o'ertaken, pushed to the front By all you crowding smoother souls behind, And reach, a minute sooner than was meant, The boundary whereon I break to mist? Go to! the smoothest safest of you all, Most perfect and compact wave in my train, Spite of the blue tranquillity above, Spite of the breadth before of lapsing peace, Where broods the halcyon and the fish leaps free, Will presently begin to feel the prick At lazy heart, the push at torpid brain, Will rock vertiginously in turn, and reel, And, emulative, rush to death like me. Later or sooner by a minute then, So much for the untimeliness of death! And, as regards the manner that offends, The rude and rough, I count the same for gain. Be the act harsh and quick! Undoubtedly The soul 's condensed and, twice itself, expands To burst through life, by alternation due, Into the other state whate'er it prove. You never know what life means till you die: Even throughout life, 't is death that makes life live, Gives it whatever the significance. For see, on your own ground and argument, Suppose life had no death to fear, how find A possibility of nobleness In man, prevented daring any more? What 's love, what 's faith without a worst to dread? Lack-lustre jewelry! but faith and love With death behind them bidding do or die-- Put such a foil at back, the sparkle 's born! From out myself how the strange colors come! Is there a new rule in another world? Be sure I shall resign myself: as here I recognized no law I could not see, There, what I see, I shall acknowledge too: On earth I never took the Pope for God, In heaven I shall scarce take God for the Pope, Unmanned, remanned: I hold it probable-- With something changeless at the heart of me To know me by, some nucleus that 's myself: Accretions did it wrong? Away with them-- You soon shall see the use of fire!

Till when, All that was, is; and must forever be. Nor is it in me to unhate my hates,-- I use up my last strength to strike once more Old Pietro in the wine-house-gossip-face, To trample underfoot the whine and wile Of beast Violante,--and I grow one gorge To loathingly reject Pompilia's pale Poison my hasty hunger took for food. A strong tree wants no wreaths about its trunk, No cloying-cups, no sickly sweet of scent, But sustenance at root, a bucketful. How else lived that Athenian who died so, Drinking hot bull's blood, fit for men like me? I lived and died a man, and take man's chance, Honest and bold: right will be done to such.

Who are these you have let descend my stair? Ha, their accursed psalm! Lights at the sill! Is it "Open" they dare bid you? Treachery! Sirs, have I spoken one word all this while Out of the world of words I had to say? Not one word! All was folly--I laughed and mocked! Sirs, my first true word, all truth and no lie, Is--save me notwithstanding! Life is all! I was just stark mad,--let the madman live Pressed by as many chains as you please pile! Don't open! Hold me from them! I am yours, I am the Granduke's--no, I am the Pope's! Abate,--Cardinal,--Christ,--Maria,--God, ... Pompilia, will you let them murder me?

XII

THE BOOK AND THE RING

Here were the end, had anything an end: Thus, lit and launched, up and up roared and soared A rocket, till the key o' the vault was reached, And wide heaven held, a breathless minute-space, In brilliant usurpature: thus caught spark, Rushed to the height, and hung at full of fame Over men's upturned faces, ghastly thence, Our glaring Guido: now decline must be. In its explosion, you have seen his act, By my power--maybe, judged it by your own,-- Or composite as good orbs prove, or crammed With worse ingredients than the Wormwood Star. The act, over and ended, falls and fades: What was once seen, grows what is now described, Then talked of, told about, a tinge the less In every fresh transmission; till it melts, Trickles in silent orange or wan gray Across our memory, dies and leaves all dark, And presently we find the stars again. Follow the main streaks, meditate the mode Of brightness, how it hastes to blend with black!

After that February Twenty Two, Since our salvation, Sixteen Ninety Eight, Of all reports that were, or may have been, Concerning those the day killed or let live, Four I count only. Take the first that comes. A letter from a stranger, man of rank, Venetian visitor at Rome,--who knows, On what pretence of busy idleness? Thus he begins on evening of that day.

* * * * *

"Here are we at our end of Carnival; Prodigious gayety and monstrous mirth, And constant shift of entertaining show: With influx, from each quarter of the globe, Of strangers nowise wishful to be last I' the struggle for a good place presently When that befalls fate cannot long defer. The old Pope totters on the verge o' the grave: You see, Malpichi understood far more Than Tozzi how to treat the ailments: age, No question, renders these inveterate. Cardinal Spada, actual Minister, Is possible Pope; I wager on his head, Since those four entertainments of his niece Which set all Rome a-stare: Pope probably-- Though Colloredo has his backers too, And San Cesario makes one doubt at times: Altieri will be Chamberlain at most.

"A week ago the sun was warm like May, And the old man took daily exercise Along the river-side; he loves to see That Custom-house he built upon the bank, For, Naples-born, his tastes are maritime: But yesterday he had to keep in-doors Because of the outrageous rain that fell. On such days the good soul has fainting-fits, Or lies in stupor, scarcely makes believe Of minding business, fumbles at his beads. They say, the trust that keeps his heart alive Is that, by lasting till December next, He may hold Jubilee a second time, And, twice in one reign, ope the Holy Doors. By the way, somebody responsible Assures me that the King of France has writ Fresh orders: Fénelon will be condemned: The Cardinal makes a wry face enough, Having a love for the delinquent: still, He 's the ambassador, must press the point. Have you a wager too, dependent here?

"Now, from such matters to divert awhile, Hear of to-day's event which crowns the week, Casts all the other wagers into shade. Tell Dandolo I owe him fifty drops Of heart's blood in the shape of gold zecchines! The Pope has done his worst: I have to pay For the execution of the Count, by Jove! Two days since, I reported him as safe, Re-echoing the conviction of all Rome: Who could suspect its one deaf ear--the Pope's? But prejudices grow insuperable, And that old enmity to Austria, that Passion for France and France's pageant-king (Of which, why pause to multiply the proofs Now scandalously rife in Europe's mouth?) These fairly got the better in our man Of justice, prudence, and _esprit de corps_, And he persisted in the butchery. Also, 't is said that in his latest walk To that Dogana-by-the-Bank he built, The crowd,--he suffers question, unrebuked,-- Asked, 'Whether murder was a privilege Only reserved for nobles like the Count?' And he was ever mindful of the mob. Martinez, the Cæsarean Minister, --Who used his best endeavors to spare blood, And strongly pleaded for the life 'of one,' Urged he, 'I may have dined at table with!'-- He will not soon forget the Pope's rebuff, --Feels the slight sensibly, I promise you! And but for the dissuasion of two eyes That make with him foul weather or fine day, He had abstained, nor graced the spectacle: As it was, barely would he condescend Look forth from the _palchetto_ where he sat Under the Pincian: we shall hear of this! The substituting, too, the People's Square For the out-o'-the-way old quarter by the Bridge, Was meant as a conciliatory sop To the mob; it gave one holiday the more. But the French Embassy might unfurl flag,-- Still the good luck of France to fling a foe! Cardinal Bouillon triumphs properly! _Palchetti_ were erected in the Place, And houses, at the edge of the Three Streets, Let their front windows at six dollars each: Anguisciola, that patron of the arts, Hired one; our Envoy Contarini too.

"Now for the thing; no sooner the decree Gone forth,--'t is four-and-twenty hours ago,-- Than Acciaiuoli and Panciatichi, Old friends, indeed compatriots of the man, Being pitched on as the couple properest To intimate the sentence yesternight, Were closeted ere cock-crow with the Count. They both report their efforts to dispose The unhappy nobleman for ending well, Despite the natural sense of injury, Were crowned at last with a complete success. And when the Company of Death arrived At twenty-hours,--the way they reckon here,-- We say, at sunset, after dinner-time,-- The Count was led down, hoisted up on car, Last of the five, as heinousest, you know: Yet they allowed one whole car to each man. His intrepidity, nay, nonchalance, As up he stood and down he sat himself, Struck admiration into those who saw. Then the procession started, took the way From the New Prisons by the Pilgrim's Street, The street of the Governo, Pasquin's Street, (Where was stuck up, 'mid other epigrams, A quatrain ... but of all that, presently!) The Place Navona, the Pantheon's Place, Place of the Column, last the Corso's length, And so debouched thence at Mannaia's foot I' the Place o' the People. As is evident, (Despite the malice,--plainly meant, I fear, By this abrupt change of locality,-- The Square 's no such bad place to head and hang), We had the titillation as we sat Assembled, (quality in conclave, ha?) Of, minute after minute, some report How the slow show was winding on its way. Now did a car run over, kill a man, Just opposite a pork-shop numbered Twelve: And bitter were the outcries of the mob Against the Pope: for, but that he forbids The Lottery, why, Twelve were Tern Quatern! Now did a beggar by Saint Agnes, lame From his youth up, recover use of leg, Through prayer of Guido as he glanced that way: So that the crowd near crammed his hat with coin. Thus was kept up excitement to the last, --Not an abrupt out-bolting, as of yore, From Castle, over Bridge and on to block, And so all ended ere you well could wink!

"To mount the scaffold-steps, Guido was last Here also, as atrociousest in crime. We hardly noticed how the peasants died, They dangled somehow soon to right and left, And we remained all ears and eyes, could give Ourselves to Guido undividedly, As he harangued the multitude beneath. He begged forgiveness on the part of God, And fair construction of his act from men, Whose suffrage he entreated for his soul, Suggesting that we should forthwith repeat A _Pater_ and an _Ave_, with the hymn _Salve Regina Cœli_, for his sake. Which said, he turned to the confessor, crossed And reconciled himself, with decency, Oft glancing at Saint Mary's opposite, Where they possess, and showed in shrine to-day, The blessed _Umbilicus_ of our Lord, (A relic 't is believed no other church In Rome can boast of)--then rose up, as brisk Knelt down again, bent head, adapted neck, And, with the name of Jesus on his lips, Received the fatal blow.

"The headsman showed The head to the populace. Must I avouch We strangers own to disappointment here? Report pronounced him fully six feet high, Youngish, considering his fifty years, And, if not handsome, dignified at least. Indeed, it was no face to please a wife! His friends say, this was caused by the costume: He wore the dress he did the murder in, That is, a _just-a-corps_ of russet serge, Black camisole, coarse cloak of baracan (So they style here the garb of goat's-hair cloth), White hat and cotton cap beneath, poor Count, Preservative against the evening dews During the journey from Arezzo. Well, So died the man, and so his end was peace; Whence many a moral were to meditate. Spada--you may bet Dandolo--is Pope! Now for the quatrain!"

* * * * *

No, friend, this will do! You 've sputtered into sparks. What streak comes next? A letter: Don Giacinto Arcangeli, Doctor and Proctor, him I made you mark Buckle to business in his study late, The virtuous sire, the valiant for the truth, Acquaints his correspondent,--Florentine, By name Cencini, advocate as well, _Socius_ and brother-in-the-devil to match,-- A friend of Franceschini, anyhow, And knit up with the bowels of the case,-- Acquaints him (in this paper that I touch) How their joint effort to obtain reprieve For Guido had so nearly nicked the nine And ninety and one over,--folk would say, At Tarocs,--or succeeded,--in our phrase. To this Cencini's care I owe the Book, The yellow thing I take and toss once more,-- How will it be, my four-years'-intimate, When thou and I part company anon?-- 'T was he, the "whole position of the case," Pleading and summary, were put before; Discreetly in my Book he bound them all, Adding some three epistles to the point. Here is the first of these, part fresh as penned, The sand, that dried the ink, not rubbed away, Though penned the day whereof it tells the deed: Part--extant just as plainly, you know where, Whence came the other stuff, went, you know how, To make the Ring that 's all but round and done.

* * * * *

"Late they arrived, too late, egregious Sir, Those same justificative points you urge Might benefit His Blessed Memory Count Guido Franceschini now with God: Since the Court,--to state things succinctly,--styled The Congregation of the Governor, Having resolved on Tuesday last our cause I' the guilty sense, with death for punishment, Spite of all pleas by me deducible In favor of said Blessed Memory,-- I, with expenditure of pains enough, Obtained a respite, leave to claim and prove Exemption from the law's award,--alleged The power and privilege o' the Clericate: To which effect a courier was dispatched. But ere an answer from Arezzo came, The Holiness of our Lord the Pope (prepare!) Judging it inexpedient to postpone The execution of such sentence passed, Saw fit, by his particular chirograph, To derogate, dispense with privilege, And wink at any hurt accruing thence To Mother Church through damage of her son: Also, to overpass and set aside That other plea on score of tender age, Put forth by me to do Pasquini good, One of the four in trouble with our friend. So that all five, to-day, have suffered death With no distinction save in dying,--he, Decollate by mere due of privilege, The rest hanged decently and in order. Thus Came the Count to his end of gallant man, Defunct in faith and exemplarity: Nor shall the shield of his great House lose shine Thereby, nor its blue banner blush to red. This, too, should yield sustainment to our hearts-- He had commiseration and respect In his decease from universal Rome, _Quantum est hominum venustiorum_, The nice and cultivated everywhere: Though, in respect of me his advocate, Needs must I groan o'er my debility, Attribute the untoward event o' the strife To nothing but my own crass ignorance Which failed to set the valid reasons forth, Find fit excuse: such is the fate of war! May God compensate us the direful blow By future blessings on his family, Whereof I lowly beg the next commands; --Whereto, as humbly, I confirm myself" ...

And so forth,--follow name and place and date. On next leaf-- "_Hactenus senioribus!_ There, old fox, show the clients t' other side And keep this corner sacred, I beseech! You and your pleas and proofs were what folk call Pisan assistance, aid that comes too late, Saves a man dead as nail in post of door. Had I but time and space for narrative! What was the good of twenty Clericates When Somebody's thick headpiece once was bent On seeing Guido's drop into the bag? How these old men like giving youth a push! So much the better: next push goes to him, And a new Pope begins the century. Much good I get by my superb defence! But argument is solid and subsists, While obstinacy and ineptitude Accompany the owner to his tomb; What do I care how soon? Beside, folks see! Rome will have relished heartily the show, Yet understood the motives, never fear, Which caused the indecent change o' the People's Place To the People's Playground,--stigmatize the spite Which in a trice precipitated things! As oft the moribund will give a kick To show they are not absolutely dead, So feebleness i' the socket shoots its last, A spirt of violence for energy!

"But thou, Cencini, brother of my breast, O fox, whose home is 'mid the tender grape, Whose couch in Tuscany by Themis' throne, Subject to no such ... best I shut my mouth Or only open it again to say, This pother and confusion fairly laid, My hands are empty and my satchel lank. Now then for both the Matrimonial Cause And the case of Gomez! Serve them hot and hot!

"_Reliqua differamus in crastinum!_ The impatient estafette cracks whip outside: Still, though the earth should swallow him who swears And me who make the mischief, in must slip-- My boy, your godson, fat-chaps Hyacinth, Enjoyed the sight while Papa plodded here. I promised him, the rogue, a month ago, The day his birthday was, of all the days, That if I failed to save Count Guido's head, Cinuccio should at least go see it chopped From trunk--'So, latinize your thanks!' quoth I, 'That I prefer, _hoc malim_,' raps me out The rogue: you notice the subjunctive? Ah! Accordingly he sat there, bold in box, Proud as the Pope behind the peacock-fans: Whereon a certain lady-patroness For whom I manage things (my boy in front, Her Marquis sat the third in evidence; Boys have no eyes nor ears save for the show) 'This time, Cintino,' was her sportive word, When whiz and thump went axe and mowed lay man, And folk could fall to the suspended chat, 'This time, you see, Bottini rules the roast, Nor can Papa with all his eloquence Be reckoned on to help as heretofore!' Whereat Cinone pouts; then, sparkishly-- 'Papa knew better than aggrieve his Pope, And balk him of his grudge against our Count, Else he 'd have argued-off Bottini's' ... what? 'His nose,'--the rogue! well parried of the boy! He's long since out of Cæsar (eight years old) And as for tripping in Eutropius ... well, Reason the more that we strain every nerve To do him justice, mould a model-mouth, A Bartolus-cum-Baldo for next age: For that I purse the pieces, work the brain, And want both Gomez and the marriage-case, Success with which shall plaster aught of pate That 's broken in me by Bottini's flail, And bruise his own, belike, that wags and brags. _Adverti supplico humiliter_ _Quod_, don't the fungus see, the fop divine That one hand drives two horses, left and right? With this reign did I rescue from the ditch The fortune of our Franceschini, keep Unsplashed the credit of a noble House, And set the fashionable cause at Rome A-prancing till bystanders shouted ''ware!' The other rein's judicious management Suffered old Somebody to keep the pace, Hobblingly play the roadster: who but he Had his opinion, was not led by the nose In leash of quibbles strung to look like law! You 'll soon see,--when I go to pay devoir And compliment him on confuting me,-- If, by a back-swing of the pendulum, Grace be not, thick and threefold, consequent. 'I must decide as I see proper, Don! I 'm Pope, I have my inward lights for guide. Had learning been the matter in dispute, Could eloquence avail to gainsay fact, Yours were the victory, he comforted!' Cinuzzo will be gainer by it all. Quick then with Gomez, hot and hot next case!"

* * * * *

Follows, a letter, takes the other side. Tall blue-eyed Fisc whose head is capped with cloud, Doctor Bottini,--to no matter who, Writes on the Monday two days afterward. Now shall the honest championship of right, Crowned with success, enjoy at last, unblamed, Moderate triumph! Now shall eloquence Poured forth in fancied floods for virtue's sake, (The print is sorrowfully dyked and dammed, But shows where fain the unbridled force would flow, Finding a channel)--now shall this refresh The thirsty donor with a drop or two! Here has been truth at issue with a lie: Let who gained truth the day have handsome pride In his own prowess! Eh? What ails the man?

* * * * *

"Well, it is over, ends as I foresaw: Easily proved, Pompilia's innocence! Catch them entrusting Guido's guilt to me Who had, as usual, the plain truth to plead. I always knew the clearness of the stream Would show the fish so thoroughly, child might prong The clumsy monster: with no mud to splash, Small credit to lynx-eye and lightning-spear! This Guido--(much sport he contrived to make, Who at first twist, preamble of the cord, Turned white, told all, like the poltroon he was!)-- Finished, as you expect, a penitent, Fully confessed his crime, and made amends, And, edifying Rome last Saturday, Died like a saint, poor devil! That 's the man The gods still give to my antagonist: Imagine how Arcangeli claps wing And crows! 'Such formidable facts to face, So naked to attack, my client here, And yet I kept a month the Fisc at bay, And in the end had foiled him of the prize By this arch-stroke, this plea of privilege, But that the Pope must gratify his whim, Put in his word, poor old man,--let it pass!' --Such is the cue to which all Rome responds. What with the plain truth given me to uphold, And, should I let truth slip, the Pope at hand To pick up, steady her on legs again, My office turns a pleasantry indeed! Not that the burly boaster did one jot O' the little was to do--young Spreti's work! But for him,--manikin and dandiprat, Mere candle-end and inch of cleverness Stuck on Arcangeli's save-all,--but for him The spruce young Spreti, what is bad were worse!

"I looked that Rome should have the natural gird At advocate with case that proves itself; I knew Arcangeli would grin and brag: But what say you to one impertinence Might move a stone? That monk, you are to know, That barefoot Augustinian whose report O' the dying woman's words did detriment To my best points it took the freshness from, --That meddler preached to purpose yesterday At San Lorenzo as a winding-up O' the show which proved a treasure to the church. Out comes his sermon smoking from the press: Its text--'Let God be true, and every man A liar'--and its application, this, The longest-winded of the paragraphs, I straight unstitch, tear out and treat you with: 'T is piping hot and posts through Rome to-day. Remember it, as I engage to do!

* * * * *

"But if you rather be disposed to see In the result of the long trial here,-- This dealing doom to guilt and doling praise To innocency,--any proof that truth May look for vindication from the world, Much will you have misread the signs, I say. God, who seems acquiescent in the main With those who add 'So will he ever sleep'-- Flutters their foolishness from time to time, Puts forth his right-hand recognizably; Even as, to fools who deem he needs must right Wrong on the instant, as if earth were heaven, He wakes remonstrance--'Passive, Lord, how long?' Because Pompilia's purity prevails, Conclude you, all truth triumphs in the end? So might those old inhabitants of the ark, Witnessing haply their dove's safe return, Pronounce there was no danger, all the while O' the deluge, to the creature's counterparts, Aught that beat wing i' the world, was white or soft,-- And that the lark, the thrush, the culver too, Might equally have traversed air, found earth, And brought back olive-branch in unharmed bill. Methinks I hear the Patriarch's warning voice-- 'Though this one breast, by miracle, return, No wave rolls by, in all the waste, but bears Within it some dead dove-like thing as dear, Beauty made blank and harmlessness destroyed!' How many chaste and noble sister-fames Wanted the extricating hand, so lie Strangled, for one Pompilia proud above The welter, plucked from the world's calumny, Stupidity, simplicity,--who cares?

"Romans! An elder race possessed your land Long ago, and a false faith lingered still, As shades do, though the morning-star be out. Doubtless some pagan of the twilight-day Has often pointed to a cavern-mouth, Obnoxious to beholders, hard by Rome, And said,--nor he a bad man, no, nor fool,-- Only a man born blind like all his mates,-- Here skulk in safety, lurk, defying law, The devotees to execrable creed, Adoring--with what culture ... Jove, avert Thy vengeance from us worshippers of thee! ... What rites obscene--their idol-god an Ass!' So went the word forth, so acceptance found, So century re-echoed century, Cursed the accursed,--and so, from sire to son, You Romans cried, 'The offscourings of our race, Corrupt within the depths there: fitly fiends Perform a temple-service o'er the dead: Child, gather garment round thee, pass nor pry!' Thus groaned your generations: till the time Grew ripe, and lightning had revealed, belike,-- Through crevice peeped into by curious fear,-- Some object even fear could recognize I' the place of spectres; on the illumined wall, To wit, some nook, tradition talks about, Narrow and short, a corpse's length, no more: And by it, in the due receptacle, The little rude brown lamp of earthenware, The cruse, was meant for flowers, but now held blood, The rough-scratched palm-branch, and the legend left _Pro Christo_. Then the mystery lay clear: The abhorred one was a martyr all the time, Heaven's saint whereof earth was not worthy. What? Do you continue in the old belief? Where blackness bides unbroke, must devils brood? Is it so certain not another cell O' the myriad that make up the catacomb, Contains some saint a second flash would show? Will you ascend into the light of day And, having recognized a martyr's shrine, Go join the votaries that gape around Each vulgar god that awes the market-place? Are these the objects of your praising? See! In the outstretched right hand of Apollo, there, Lies screened a scorpion: housed amid the folds Of Juno's mantle lurks a centipede! Each statue of a god were fitlier styled Demon and devil. Glorify no brass That shines like burnished gold in noonday glare, For fools! Be otherwise instructed, you! And preferably ponder, ere ye judge, Each incident of this strange human play Privily acted on a theatre That seemed secure from every gaze but God's,-- Till, of a sudden, earthquake laid wall low And let the world perceive wild work inside, And how, in petrifaction of surprise, The actors stood,--raised arm and planted foot,-- Mouth as it made, eye as it evidenced, Despairing shriek, triumphant hate,--transfixed, Both he who takes and she who yields the life.

"As ye become spectators of this scene-- Watch obscuration of a pearl-pure fame By vapory films, enwoven circumstance, --A soul made weak by its pathetic want Of just the first apprenticeship to sin, Which thenceforth makes the sinning soul secure From all foes save itself, soul's truliest foe,-- Since egg turned snake needs fear no serpentry,-- As ye behold this web of circumstance Deepen the more for every thrill and throe, Convulsive effort to disperse the films And disenmesh the fame o' the martyr,--mark How all those means, the unfriended one pursues, To keep the treasure trusted to her breast, Each struggle in the flight from death to life, How all, by procuration of the powers Of darkness, are transformed,--no single ray, Shot forth to show and save the inmost star, But, passed as through hell's prism, proceeding black To the world that hates white: as ye watch, I say, Till dusk and such defacement grow eclipse By--marvellous perversity of man!-- The inadequacy and inaptitude Of that selfsame machine, that very law Man vaunts, devised to dissipate the gloom, Rescue the drowning orb from calumny, --Hear law, appointed to defend the just, Submit, for best defence, that wickedness Was bred of flesh and innate with the bone Borne by Pompilia's spirit for a space, And no mere chance fault, passionate and brief: Finally, when ye find,--after this touch Of man's protection which intends to mar The last pin-point of light and damn the disc,-- One wave of the hand of God amid the worlds Bid vapor vanish, darkness flee away, And let the vexed star culminate in peace Approachable no more by earthly mist-- What I call God's hand,--you, perhaps,--mere chance Of the true instinct of an old good man Who happens to hate darkness and love light,-- In whom too was the eye that saw, not dim, The natural force to do the thing he saw, Nowise abated,--both by miracle,-- All this well pondered,--I demand assent To the enunciation of my text In face of one proof more that 'God is true And every man a liar'--that who trusts To human testimony for a fact Gets this sole fact--himself is proved a fool; Man's speech being false, if but by consequence That only strength is true! while man is weak, And, since truth seem reserved for heaven not earth, Plagued here by earth's prerogative of lies, Should learn to love and long for what, one day, Approved by life's probation, he may speak.

"For me, the weary and worn, who haply prompt To mirth or pity, as I move the mood,-- A friar who glides unnoticed to the grave, With these bare feet, coarse robe and rope-girt waist,-- I have long since renounced your world, ye know: Yet what forbids I weigh the prize foregone. The worldly worth? I dare, as I were dead, Disinterestedly judge this and that Good ye account good: but God tries the heart. Still, if you question me of my content At having put each human pleasure by, I answer, at the urgency of truth: As this world seems, I dare not say I know --Apart from Christ's assurance which decides-- Whether I have not failed to taste much joy. For many a doubt will fain perturb my choice-- Many a dream of life spent otherwise-- How human love, in varied shapes, might work As glory, or as rapture, or as grace: How conversancy with the books that teach, The arts that help,--how, to grow good and great, Rather than simply good, and bring thereby Goodness to breathe and live, nor born, i' the brain, Die there,--how these and many another gift Of life are precious though abjured by me. But, for one prize, best meed of mightiest man, Arch-object of ambition,--earthly praise, Repute o' the world, the flourish of loud trump, The softer social fluting,--Oh, for these, --No, my friends! Fame,--that bubble which, world-wide Each blows and bids his neighbor lend a breath, That so he haply may behold thereon One more enlarged distorted false fool's-face, Until some glassy nothing grown as big Send by a touch the imperishable to suds,-- No, in renouncing fame, my loss was light, Choosing obscurity, my chance was well!"

* * * * *

Didst ever touch such ampollosity As the monk's own bubble, let alone its spite? What's his speech for, but just the fame he flouts? How he dares reprehend both high and low, Nor stoops to turn the sentence "God is true And every man a liar--save the Pope Happily reigning--my respects to him!" And so round off the period. Molinism Simple and pure! To what pitch get we next? I find that, for first pleasant consequence, Gomez, who had intended to appeal From the absurd decision of the Court, Declines, though plain enough his privilege, To call on help from lawyers any more-- Resolves earth's liars may possess the world, Till God have had sufficiency of both: So may I whistle for my job and fee!

But, for this virulent and rabid monk,-- If law be an inadequate machine, And advocacy, froth and impotence. We shall soon see, my blatant brother! That 's Exactly what I hope to show your sort! For, by a veritable piece of luck, The providence, you monks round period with, All may be gloriously retrieved. Perpend! That Monastery of the Convertites Whereto the Court consigned Pompilia first, --Observe, if convertite, why, sinner then, Or what 's the pertinency of award?-- And whither she was late returned to die, --Still in their jurisdiction, mark again!-- That thrifty Sisterhood, for perquisite, Claims every piece whereof may die possessed Each sinner in the circuit of its walls. Now, this Pompilia seeing that, by death O' the couple, all their wealth devolved on her, Straight utilized the respite ere decease, By regular conveyance of the goods She thought her own, to will and to devise,-- Gave all to friends, Tighetti and the like, In trust for him she held her son and heir, Gaetano,--trust which ends with infancy: So willing and devising, since assured The justice of the court would presently Confirm her in her rights and exculpate, Re-integrate and rehabilitate-- Place her as, through my pleading, now she stands. But here 's the capital mistake: the Court Found Guido guilty,--but pronounced no word About the innocency of his wife: I grounded charge on broader base, I hope! No matter whether wife be true or false, The husband must not push aside the law, And punish of a sudden: that 's the point: Gather from out my speech the contrary! It follows that Pompilia, unrelieved By formal sentence from imputed fault, Remains unfit to have and to dispose Of property which law provides shall lapse: Wherefore the Monastery claims its due. And whose, pray, whose the office, but the Fisc's? Who but I institute procedure next Against the person of dishonest life, Pompilia, whom last week I sainted so? I it is teach the monk what scripture means, And that the tongue should prove a two-edged sword, No axe sharp one side, blunt the other way, Like what amused the town at Guido's cost! _Astræ redux!_ I 've a second chance Before the selfsame Court o' the Governor Who soon shall see volte-face and chop, change sides. Accordingly, I charge you on your life, Send me with all dispatch the judgment late O' the Florence Rota Court, confirmative O' the prior judgment at Arezzo, clenched Again by the Granducal signature, Wherein Pompilia is convicted, doomed, And only destined to escape through flight The proper punishment. Send me the piece,-- I 'll work it! And this foul-mouthed friar shall find His Noah's-dove that brought the olive back Turn into quite the other sooty scout, The raven, Noah first put forth the ark, Which never came back, but ate carcasses! No adequate machinery in law? No power of life and death i' the learned tongue? Methinks I am already at my speech, Startle the world with "Thou, Pompilia, thus? How is the fine gold of the Temple dim!" And so forth. But the courier bids me close, And clip away one joke that runs through Rome, Side by side with the sermon which I send. How like the heartlessness of the old hunks Arcangeli! His Count is hardly cold, The client whom his blunders sacrificed, When somebody musts needs describe the scene-- How the procession ended at the church That boasts the famous relic: quoth our brute, "Why, that 's just Martial's phrase for 'make an end'-- _Ad umbilicum sic perventum est!_" The callous dog,--let who will cut off head, He cuts a joke, and cares no more than so! I think my speech shall modify his mirth: "How is the fine gold dim!"--but send the piece!

* * * * *

Alack, Bottini, what is my next word But death to all that hope? The Instrument Is plain before me, print that ends my Book With the definitive verdict of the Court, Dated September, six months afterward, (Such trouble and so long the old Pope gave!) "In restitution of the perfect fame Of dead Pompilia, _quondam_ Guido's wife, And warrant to her representative Domenico Tighetti, barred hereby, While doing duty in his guardianship, From all molesting, all disquietude, Each perturbation and vexation brought Or threatened to be brought against the heir By the Most Venerable Convent called Saint Mary Magdalen o' the Convertites I' the Corso." Justice done a second time! Well judged, Marc Antony, _Locum-tenens_ O' the Governor, a Venturini too! For which I save thy name,--last of the list!

Next year but one, completing his nine years Of rule in Rome, died Innocent my Pope --By some account, on his accession-day. If he thought doubt would do the next age good, 'T is pity he died unapprised what birth His reign may boast of, be remembered by-- Terrible Pope, too, of a kind,--Voltaire.

And so an end of all i' the story. Strain Never so much my eyes, I miss the mark If lived or died that Gaetano, child Of Guido and Pompilia: only find, Immediately upon his father's death, A record, in the annals of the town-- That Porzia, sister of our Guido, moved The Priors of Arezzo and their head Its Gonfalonier to give loyally A public attestation of the right O' the Franceschini to all reverence-- Apparently because of the incident O' the murder,--there 's no mention made o' the crime, But what else could have caused such urgency To cure the mob, just then, of greediness For scandal, love of lying vanity, And appetite to swallow crude reports That bring annoyance to their betters?--bane Which, here, was promptly met by antidote. I like and shall translate the eloquence Of nearly the worst Latin ever writ: "Since antique time whereof the memory Holds the beginning, to this present hour, The Franceschini ever shone, and shine Still i' the primary rank, supreme amid The lustres of Arezzo, proud to own In this great family, the flag-bearer, Guide of her steps and guardian against foe,-- As in the first beginning, so to-day!" There, would you disbelieve the annalist, Go rather by the babble of a bard? I thought, Arezzo, thou hadst fitter souls, Petrarch,--nay, Buonarroti at a pinch, To do thee credit as _vexillifer!_ Was it mere mirth the Patavinian meant, Making thee out, in his veracious page, Founded by Janus of the Double Face?

Well, proving of such perfect parentage, Our Gaetano, born of love and hate, Did the babe live or die? I fain would find! What were his fancies if he grew a man? Was he proud,--a true scion of the stock Which bore the blazon, shall make bright my page-- Shield, Azure, on a Triple Mountain, Or, A Palm-tree, Proper, whereunto is tied A Greyhound, Rampant, striving in the slips? Or did he love his mother, the base-born, And fight i' the ranks, unnoticed by the world?

Such, then, the final state o' the story. So Did the Star Wormwood in a blazing fall Frighten awhile the waters and lie lost. So did this old woe fade from memory: Till after, in the fulness of the days, I needs must find an ember yet unquenched, And, breathing, blow the spark to flame. It lives, If precious be the soul of man to man.

So, British Public, who may like me yet, (Marry and amen!) learn one lesson hence Of many which whatever lives should teach: This lesson, that our human speech is naught, Our human testimony false, our fame And human estimation words and wind. Why take the artistic way to prove so much? Because, it is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least. How look a brother in the face and say, "Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou yet art blind; Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length: And, oh, the foolishness thou countest faith!" Say this as silverly as tongue can troll-- The anger of the man may be endured, The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him Are not so bad to bear--but here 's the plague That all this trouble comes of telling truth, Which truth, by when it reaches him, looks false, Seems to be just the thing it would supplant, Nor recognizable by whom it left: While falsehood would have done the work of truth. But Art,--wherein man nowise speaks to men, Only to mankind,--Art may tell a truth Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought, Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word, So may you paint your picture, twice show truth, Beyond mere imagery on the wall,-- So, note by note, bring music from your mind, Deeper than ever e'en Beethoven dived,-- So write a book shall mean beyond the facts, Suffice the eye and save the soul beside.

And save the soul! If this intent save mine,-- If the rough ore be rounded to a ring, Render all duty which good ring should do, And, failing grace, succeed in guardianship,-- Might mine but lie outside thine, Lyric Love, Thy rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised) Linking our England to his Italy!

HELEN'S TOWER

Written at the request of the Earl of Dufferin and Clandeboye, who had built a tower to the memory of his mother, Helen, Countess of Giffard, on a rock on his estate at Clandeboye, Ireland, and printed in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ of December 28, 1883.

Who hears of Helen's Tower, may dream perchance How the Greek Beauty from the Scæan Gate Gazed on old friends unanimous in hate, Death-doom'd because of her fair countenance.

Hearts would leap otherwise, at thy advance, Lady, to whom this Tower is consecrate! Like hers, thy face once made all eyes elate, Yet, unlike hers, was bless'd by every glance.

The Tower of Hate is outworn, far and strange: A transitory shame of long ago, It dies into the sand from which it sprang; But thine, Love's rock-built Tower, shall fear no change: God's self laid stable earth's foundation so, When all the morning-stars together sang.

_April 26, 1870._

BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE

INCLUDING

A TRANSCRIPT FROM EURIPIDES

"Our Euripides, the Human, With his droppings of warm tears, And his touches of things common Till they rose to touch the spheres."

TO THE COUNTESS COWPER

If I mention the simple truth, that this poem absolutely owes its existence to you,--who not only suggested, but imposed on me as a task, what has proved the most delightful of May-month amusements,--I shall seem honest, indeed, but hardly prudent; for, how good and beautiful ought such a poem to be!

Euripides might fear little; but I, also, have an interest in the performance; and what wonder if I beg you to suffer that it make, in another and far easier sense, its nearest possible approach to those Greek qualities of goodness and beauty, by laying itself gratefully at your feet?

R. B.

LONDON, _July 23, 1871_.

After the publication of the fourth volume of _The Ring and the Book_ in February, 1869, Browning published nothing until March, 1871, when he printed _Hervé Riel_ in the _Cornhill Magazine_, afterward including it in his first new volume of collected poems. In August of the same year appeared the first of his larger ventures in the field of Greek life. This poem was followed four years later by _Aristophanes' Apology_, and it is so intimately connected with _Balaustion's Adventure_ that in this edition it is made to follow it, though the chronological sequence was broken, as will be seen, by the composition and publication of other considerable works. The motto at the head of the poem is from Mrs. Browning, and in the last lines of the poem Browning couples her with his friend Sir Frederick Leighton.

About that strangest, saddest, sweetest song I, when a girl, heard in Kameiros once, And, after, saved my life by? Oh, so glad To tell you the adventure! Petalé, Phullis, Charopé, Chrusion! You must know, This "after" fell in that unhappy time When poor reluctant Nikias, pushed by fate, Went falteringly against Syracuse; And there shamed Athens, lost her ships and men, And gained a grave, or death without a grave. I was at Rhodes--the isle, not Rhodes the town, Mine was Kameiros--when the news arrived: Our people rose in tumult, cried, "No more Duty to Athens, let us join the League And side-with Sparta, share the spoil,--at worst, Abjure a headship that will ruin Greece!" And so, they sent to Knidos for a fleet To come and help revolters. Ere help came,-- Girl as I was, and never out of Rhodes The whole of my first fourteen years of life, But nourished with Ilissian mother's-milk,-- I passionately cried to who would hear And those who loved me at Kameiros--"No! Never throw Athens off for Sparta's sake-- Never disloyal to the life and light Of the whole world worth calling world at all! Rather go die at Athens, lie outstretched For feet to trample on, before the gate Of Diomedes or the Hippadai, Before the temples and among the tombs, Than tolerate the grim felicity Of harsh Lakonia! Ours the fasts and feasts, Choës and Chutroi; ours the sacred grove, Agora, Dikasteria, Poikilé, Pnux, Keramikos; Salamis in sight, Psuttalia, Marathon itself, not far! Ours the great Dionusiac theatre, And tragic triad of immortal fames, Aischulos, Sophokles, Euripides! To Athens, all of us that have a soul, Follow me!" And I wrought so with my prayer, That certain of my kinsfolk crossed the strait And found a ship at Kaunos; well-disposed Because the Captain--where did he draw breath First but within Psuttalia? Thither fled A few like-minded as ourselves. We turned The glad prow westward, soon were out at sea, Pushing, brave ship with the vermilion cheek, Proud for our heart's true harbor. But a wind Lay ambushed by Point Malea of bad fame, And leapt out, bent us from our course. Next day Broke stormless, so broke next blue day and next. "But whither bound in this white waste?" we plagued The pilot's old experience: "Cos or Crete?" Because he promised us the land ahead. While we strained eyes to share in what he saw, The Captain's shout startled us; round we rushed: What hung behind us but a pirate-ship Panting for the good prize! "Row! harder row! Row for dear life!" the Captain cried: "'t is Crete, Friendly Crete looming large there! Beat this craft That 's but a keles, one-benched pirate-bark, Lokrian, or that bad breed off Thessaly! Only, so cruel are such water-thieves, No man of you, no woman, child, or slave, But falls their prey, once let them board our boat!" So, furiously our oarsmen rowed and rowed: And when the oars nagged somewhat, dash and dip, As we approached the coast and safety, so That we could hear behind us plain the threats And curses of the pirate panting up In one more throe and passion of pursuit,-- Seeing our oars flag in the rise and fall, I sprang upon the altar by the mast And sang aloft--some genius prompting me-- That song of ours which saved at Salamis: "O sons of Greeks, go, set your country free, Free your wives, free your children, free the fanes O' the Gods, your fathers founded,--sepulchres They sleep in! Or save all, or all be lost!" Then, in a frenzy, so the noble oars Churned the black water white, that well away We drew, soon saw land rise, saw hills grow up, Saw spread itself a sea-wide town with towers, Not fifty stadia distant; and, betwixt A large bay and a small, the islet-bar, Even Ortugia's self--oh, luckless we! For here was Sicily and Syracuse: We ran upon the lion from the wolf. Ere we drew breath, took counsel, out there came A galley, hailed us. "Who asks entry here In war-time? Are you Sparta's friend or foe?" "Kaunians,"--our Captain judged his best reply, "The mainland-seaport that belongs to Rhodes; Rhodes that casts in her lot now with the League, Forsaking Athens,--you have heard belike!" "Ay, but we heard all Athens in one ode Just now! we heard her in that Aischulos! You bring a boatful of Athenians here, Kaunians although you be: and prudence bids, For Kaunos' sake, why, carry them unhurt To Kaunos, if you will: for Athens' sake, Back must you, though ten pirates blocked the bay! We want no colony from Athens here, With memories of Salamis, forsooth, To spirit up our captives, that pale crowd I' the quarry, whom the daily pint of corn Keeps in good order and submissiveness." Then the gray Captain prayed them by the Gods, And by their own knees, and their fathers' beards, They should not wickedly thrust suppliants back, But save the innocent on traffic bound-- Or, maybe, some Athenian family Perishing of desire to die at home,-- From that vile foe still lying on its oars, Waiting the issue in the distance. Vain! Words to the wind! And we were just about To turn and face the foe, as some tired bird Barbarians pelt at, drive with shouts away From shelter in what rocks, however rude, She makes for, to escape the kindled eye, Split beak, crook'd claw o' the creature, cormorant Or ossifrage, that, hardly baffled, hangs Afloat i' the foam, to take her if she turn. So were we at destruction's very edge, When those o' the galley, as they had discussed A point, a question raised by somebody, A matter mooted in a moment,--"Wait!" Cried they (and wait we did, you may be sure). "That song was veritable Aischulos, Familiar to the mouth of man and boy, Old glory: how about Euripides? The newer and not yet so famous bard, He that was born upon the battle-day While that song and the salpinx sounded him Into the world, first sound, at Salamis-- Might you know any of his verses too?"

Now, some one of the Gods inspired this speech: Since ourselves knew what happened but last year-- How, when Gulippos gained his victory Over poor Nikias, poor Demosthenes, And Syracuse condemned the conquered force To dig and starve i' the quarry, branded them-- Freeborn Athenians, brute-like in the front With horse-head brands,--ah, "Region of the Steed"!-- Of all these men immersed in misery, It was found none had been advantaged so By aught in the past life he used to prize And pride himself concerning,--no rich man By riches, no wise man by wisdom, no Wiser man still (as who loved more the Muse) By storing, at brain's edge and tip of tongue, Old glory, great plays that had long ago Made themselves wings to fly about the world,-- Not one such man was helped so at his need As certain few that (wisest they of all) Had, at first summons, oped heart, flung door wide At the new knocking of Euripides, Nor drawn the bolt with who cried "Decadence! And, after Sophokles, be nature dumb!" Such,--and I see in it God Bacchos' boon To souls that recognized his latest child, He who himself, born latest of the Gods, Was stoutly held impostor by mankind,-- Such were in safety: any who could speak A chorus to the end, or prologize, Roll out a rhesis, wield some golden length Stiffened by wisdom out into a line, Or thrust and parry in bright monostich, Teaching Euripides to Syracuse-- Any such happy man had prompt reward: If he lay bleeding on the battlefield They stanched his wounds and gave him drink and food; If he were slave i' the house, for reverence They rose up, bowed to who proved master now, And bade him go free, thank Euripides! Ay, and such did so: many such, he said, Returning home to Athens, sought him out, The old bard in the solitary house, And thanked him ere they went to sacrifice. I say, we knew that story of last year!

Therefore, at mention of Euripides, The Captain crowed out, "Euoi, praise the God! Oöp, boys, bring our owl-shield to the fore! Out with our Sacred Anchor! Here she stands, Balaustion! Strangers, greet the lyric girl! Euripides! Babai! what a word there 'scaped Your teeth's enclosure, quoth my grandsire's song! Why, fast as snow in Thrace, the voyage through, Has she been falling thick in flakes of him! Frequent as figs at Kaunos, Kaunians said. Balaustion, stand forth and confirm my speech! Now it was some whole passion of a play; Now, peradventure, but a honey-drop That slipt its comb i' the chorus. If there rose A star, before I could determine steer Southward or northward--if a cloud surprised Heaven, ere I fairly hollaed 'Furl the sail!'-- She had at fingers' end both cloud and star; Some thought that perched there, tame and tunable, Fitted with wings; and still, as off it flew, 'So sang Euripides,' she said, 'so sang The meteoric poet of air and sea, Planets and the pale populace of heaven, The mind of man, and all that 's made to soar!' And so, although she has some other name, We only call her Wild-pomegranate-flower, Balaustion; since, where'er the red bloom burns I' the dull dark verdure of the bounteous tree, Dethroning, in the Rosy Isle, the rose, You shall find food, drink, odor, all at once; Cool leaves to bind about an aching brow, And, never much away, the nightingale. Sing them a strophe, with the turn-again, Down to the verse that ends all, proverb-like, And save us, thou Balaustion, bless the name!"

But I cried, "Brother Greek! better than so,-- Save us, and I have courage to recite The main of a whole play from first to last; That strangest, saddest, sweetest song of his, ALKESTIS; which was taught, long years ago At Athens, in Glaukinos' archonship, But only this year reached our Isle o' the Rose. I saw it at Kameiros; played the same, They say, as for the right Lenean feast In Athens; and beside the perfect piece-- Its beauty and the way it makes you weep,-- There is much honor done your own loved God Herakles, whom you house i' the city here Nobly, the Temple wide Greece talks about! I come a suppliant to your Herakles! Take me and put me on his temple-steps, To tell you his achievement as I may, And, that told, he shall bid you set us free!"

Then, because Greeks are Greeks, and hearts are hearts, And poetry is power,--they all outbroke In a great joyous laughter with much love: "Thank Herakles for the good holiday! Make for the harbor! Row, and let voice ring, 'In we row, bringing more Euripides!'" All the crowd, as they lined the harbor now, "More of Euripides!"--took up the cry. We landed; the whole city, soon astir, Came rushing out of gates in common joy To the suburb temple; there they stationed me O' the topmost step: and plain I told the play, Just as I saw it; what the actors said, And what I saw, or thought I saw the while, At our Kameiros theatre, clean-scooped Out of a hillside, with the sky above And sea before our seats in marble row: Told it, and, two days more, repeated it, Until they sent us on our way again With good words and great wishes. Oh, for me-- A wealthy Syracusan brought a whole Talent and bade me take it for myself: I left it on the tripod in the fane, --For had not Herakles a second time Wrestled with Death and saved devoted ones?-- Thank-offering to the hero. And a band Of captives, whom their lords grew kinder to Because they called the poet countryman, Sent me a crown of wild-pomegranate-flower: So, I shall live and die Balaustion now. But one--one man--one youth,--three days, each day,-- (If, ere I lifted up my voice to speak, I gave a downward glance by accident,) Was found at foot o' the temple. When we sailed, There, in the ship too, was he found as well, Having a hunger to see Athens too. We reached Peiraieus; when I landed--lo, He was beside me. Anthesterion-month Is just commencing: when its moon rounds full, We are to marry. O Euripides! I saw the master: when we found ourselves (Because the young man needs must follow me) Firm on Peiraieus, I demanded first Whither to go and find him. Would you think? The story how he saved us made some smile: They wondered strangers were exorbitant In estimation of Euripides. He was not Aischulos nor Sophokles: --"Then, of our younger bards who boast the bay, Had I sought Agathon, or Iophon, Or, what now had it been Kephisophon? A man that never kept good company, The most unsociable of poet-kind, All beard that was not freckle in his face!"

I soon was at the tragic house, and saw The master, held the sacred hand of him And laid it to my lips. Men love him not: How should they? Nor do they much love his friend Sokrates: but those two have fellowship: Sokrates often comes to hear him read, And never misses if he teach a piece. Both, being old, will soon have company, Sit with their peers above the talk. Meantime, He lives as should a statue in its niche; Cold walls enclose him, mostly darkness there, Alone, unless some foreigner uncouth Breaks in, sits, stares an hour, and so departs, Brain-stuffed with something to sustain his life, Dry to the marrow 'mid much merchandise. How should such know and love the man? Why, mark! Even when I told the play and got the praise, There spoke up a brisk little somebody, Critic and whippersnapper, in a rage To set things right: "The girl departs from truth! Pretends she saw what was not to be seen, Making the mask of the actor move, forsooth! 'Then a fear flitted o'er the wife's white face,'-- 'Then frowned the father,'--'then the husband shook,'-- 'Then from the festal forehead slipt each spray, And the heroic mouth's gay grace was gone;'-- As she had seen each naked fleshly face, And not the merely-painted mask it wore!" Well, is the explanation difficult? What 's poetry except a power that makes? And, speaking to one sense, inspires the rest, Pressing them all into its service; so That who sees painting, seems to hear as well The speech that 's proper for the painted mouth; And who hears music, feels his solitude Peopled at once--for how count heartbeats plain Unless a company, with hearts which beat, Come close to the musician, seen or no? And who receives true verse at eye or ear, Takes in (with verse) time, place, and person too, So, links each sense on to its sister-sense, Grace-like: and what if but one sense of three Front you at once? The sidelong pair conceive Through faintest touch of finest finger-tips,-- Hear, see and feel, in faith's simplicity, Alike, what one was sole recipient of: Who hears the poem, therefore, sees the play. Enough and too much! Hear the play itself! Under the grape-vines, by the streamlet-side, Close to Baccheion; till the cool increase, And other stars steal on the evening-star, And so, we homeward flock i' the dusk, we five! You will expect, no one of all the words O' the play but is grown part now of my soul, Since the adventure. 'T is the poet speaks: But if I, too, should try and speak at times, Leading your love to where my love, perchance, Climbed earlier, found a nest before you knew-- Why, bear with the poor climber, for love's sake! Look at Baccheion's beauty opposite, The temple with the pillars at the porch! See you not something beside masonry? What if my words wind in and out the stone As yonder ivy, the God's parasite? Though they leap all the way the pillar leads, Festoon about the marble, foot to frieze, And serpentiningly enrich the roof, Toy with some few bees and a bird or two,-- What then? The column holds the cornice up!

* * * * *

There slept a silent palace in the sun, With plains adjacent and Thessalian peace-- Pherai, where King Admetos ruled the land.

Out from the portico there gleamed a God, Apollon: for the bow was in his hand, The quiver at his shoulder, all his shape One dreadful beauty. And he hailed the house, As if he knew it well and loved it much: "O Admeteian domes, where I endured, Even the God I am, to drudge awhile, Do righteous penance for a reckless deed, Accepting the slaves' table thankfully!" Then told how Zeus had been the cause of all, Raising the wrath in him which took revenge And slew those forgers of the thunderbolt Wherewith Zeus blazed the life from out the breast Of Phoibos' son Asklepios (I surmise, Because he brought the dead to life again), And so, for punishment, must needs go slave, God as he was, with a mere mortal lord: --Told how he came to King Admetos' land, And played the ministrant, was herdsman there, Warding all harm away from him and his Till now; "For, holy as I am," said he, "The lord I chanced upon was holy too: Whence I deceived the Moirai, drew from death My master, this same son of Pheres,--ay, The Goddesses conceded him escape From Hades, when the fated day should fall, Could he exchange lives, find some friendly one Ready, for his sake, to content the grave. But trying all in turn, the friendly list, Why, he found no one, none who loved so much, Nor father, nor the aged mother's self That bore him, no, not any save his wife, Willing to die instead of him and watch Never a sunrise nor a sunset more: And she is even now within the house, Upborne by pitying hands, the feeble frame Gasping its last of life out; since to-day Destiny is accomplished, and she dies, And I, lest here pollution light on me, Leave, as ye witness, all my wonted joy In this dear dwelling. Ay,--for here comes Death Close on us of a sudden! who, pale priest Of the mute people, means to bear his prey To the house of Hades. The symmetric step! How he treads true to time and place and thing, Dogging day, hour and minute, for death's-due!"

And we observed another Deity, Half in, half out the portal,--watch and ward,-- Eying his fellow: formidably fixed, Yet faltering too at who affronted him, As somehow disadvantaged, should they strive. Like some dread heapy blackness, ruffled wing, Convulsed and cowering head that is all eye, Which proves a ruined eagle who, too blind Swooping in quest o' the quarry, fawn or kid, Descried deep down the chasm 'twixt rock and rock, Has wedged and mortised, into either wall O' the mountain, the pent earthquake of his power; So lies, half hurtless yet still terrible, Just when--who stalks up, who stands front to front, But the great lion-guarder of the gorge, Lord of the ground, a stationed glory there! Yet he too pauses ere he try the worst O' the frightful unfamiliar nature, new To the chasm, indeed, but elsewhere known enough, Among the shadows and the silences Above i' the sky: so, each antagonist Silently faced his fellow and forbore. Till Death shrilled, hard and quick, in spite and fear:

"Ha, ha, and what mayst thou do at the domes, Why hauntest here, thou Phoibos? Here again At the old injustice, limiting our rights, Balking of honor due us Gods o' the grave? Was 't not enough for thee to have delayed Death from Admetos,--with thy crafty art Cheating the very Fates,--but thou must arm The bow-hand and take station, press 'twixt me And Pelias' daughter, who then saved her spouse,-- Did just that, now thou comest to undo,-- Taking his place to die, Alkestis here?"

But the God sighed, "Have courage! All my arms, This time, are simple justice and fair words."

Then each plied each with rapid interchange:

"What need of bow, were justice arms enough?"

"Ever it is my wont to bear the bow."

"Ay, and with bow, not justice, help this house!"

"I help it, since a friend's woe weighs me too."

"And now,--wilt force from me this second corpse?"

"By force I took no corpse at first from thee."

"How then is he above ground, not beneath?"

"He gave his wife instead of him, thy prey."

"And prey, this time at least, I bear below!"

"Go take her!--for I doubt persuading thee ..."

"To kill the doomed one? What my function else?"

"No! Rather, to dispatch the true mature."

"Truly I take thy meaning, see thy drift!"

"Is there a way then she may reach old age?"

"No way! I glad me in my honors too!"

"But, young or old, thou tak'st one life, no more!"

"Younger, they die, greater my praise redounds!"

"If she die old,--the sumptuous funeral!"

"Thou layest down a law the rich would like."

"How so? Did wit lurk there and 'scape thy sense?"

"Who could buy substitutes would die old men."

"It seems thou wilt not grant me, then, this grace?"

"This grace I will not grant: thou know'st my ways."

"Ways harsh to men, hateful to Gods, at least!"

"All things thou canst not have: my rights for me!"

And then Apollon prophesied,--I think, More to himself than to impatient Death, Who did not hear or would not heed the while,-- For he went on to say, "Yet even so, Cruel above the measure, thou shalt clutch No life here! Such a man do I perceive Advancing to the house of Pheres now, Sent by Eurustheus to bring out of Thrace, The winter world, a chariot with its steeds! He indeed, when Admetos proves the host, And he the guest, at the house here,--he it is Shall bring to bear such force, and from thy hands Rescue this woman! Grace no whit to me Will that prove, since thou dost thy deed the same, And earnest too my hate, and all for naught!"

But how should Death or stay or understand? Doubtless, he only felt the hour was come, And the sword free; for he but flung some taunt-- "Having talked much, thou wilt not gain the more! This woman, then, descends to Hades' hall Now that I rush on her, begin the rites O' the sword; for sacred, to us Gods below, That head whose hair this sword shall sanctify!"

And, in the fire-flash of the appalling sword, The uprush and the outburst, the onslaught Of Death's portentous passage through the door, Apollon stood a pitying moment-space: I caught one last gold gaze upon the night Nearing the world now: and the God was gone, And mortals left to deal with misery, As in came stealing slow, now this, now that Old sojourner throughout the country-side, Servants grown friends to those unhappy here: And, cloudlike in their increase, all these griefs Broke and began the over-brimming wail, Out of a common impulse, word by word.

"What now may mean the silence at the door? Why is Admetos' mansion stricken dumb? Not one friend near, to say if we should mourn Our mistress dead, or if Alkestis lives And sees the light still, Pelias' child--to me, To all, conspicuously the best of wives That ever was toward husband in this world! Hears any one or wail beneath the roof, Or hands that strike each other, or the groan Announcing all is done and naught to dread? Still not a servant stationed at the gates! O Paian, that thou wouldst dispart the wave O' the woe, be present! Yet, had woe o'erwhelmed The housemates, they were hardly silent thus: It cannot be, the dead is forth and gone. Whence comes thy gleam of hope? I dare not hope: What is the circumstance that heartens thee? How could Admetos have dismissed a wife So worthy, unescorted to the grave? Before the gates I see no hallowed vase Of fountain-water, such as suits death's door; Nor any clipt locks strew the vestibule, Though surely these drop when we grieve the dead, Nor hand sounds smitten against youthful hand, The women's way. And yet--the appointed time-- How speak the word?--this day is even the day Ordained her for departing from its light. O touch calamitous to heart and soul! Needs must one, when the good are tortured so, Sorrow,--one reckoned faithful from the first."

Then their souls rose together, and one sigh Went up in cadence from the common mouth: How "Vainly--anywhither in the world Directing or land-labor or sea-search-- To Lukia or the sand-waste, Ammon's seat-- Might you set free their hapless lady's soul From the abrupt Fate's footstep instant now. Not a sheep-sacrificer at the hearths Of Gods had they to go to: one there was Who, if his eyes saw light still,--Phoibos' son,-- Had wrought so, she might leave the shadowy place And Hades' portal: for he propped up Death's Subdued ones, till the Zeus-flung thunder-flame Struck him; and now what hope of life were hailed With open arms? For, all the king could do Is done already,--not one God whereof The altar fails to reek with sacrifice: And for assuagement of these evils--naught!"

But here they broke off, for a matron moved Forth from the house: and, as her tears flowed fast, They gathered round. "What fortune shall we hear? For mourning thus, if aught affect thy lord, We pardon thee: but lives the lady yet Or has she perished?--that we fain would know!"

"Call her dead, call her living, each style serves," The matron said: "though grave-ward bowed, she breathed; Nor knew her husband what the misery meant Before he felt it: hope of life was none: The appointed day pressed hard; the funeral pomp He had prepared too." When the friends broke out, "Let her in dying know herself at least Sole wife, of all the wives 'neath the sun wide, For glory and for goodness!"--"Ah, how else Than best? who controverts the claim?" quoth she: "What kind of creature should the woman prove That has surpassed Alkestis?--surelier shown Preference for her husband to herself Than by determining to die for him? But so much all our city knows indeed: Hear what she did indoors and wonder then! For, when she felt the crowning day was come, She washed with river-waters her white skin, And, taking from the cedar closets forth Vesture and ornament, bedecked herself Nobly, and stood before the hearth, and prayed: 'Mistress, because I now depart the world, Falling before thee the last time, I ask-- Be mother to my orphans! wed the one To a kind wife, and make the other's mate Some princely person: nor, as I who bore My children perish, suffer that they too Die all untimely, but live, happy pair, Their full glad life out in the fatherland!' And every altar through Admetos' house She visited and crowned and prayed before, Stripping the myrtle-foliage from the boughs, Without a tear, without a groan,--no change At all to that skin's nature, fair to see, Caused by the imminent evil. But this done,-- Reaching her chamber, falling on her bed, There, truly, burst she into tears and spoke: 'O bride-bed, where I loosened from my life Virginity for that same husband's sake Because of whom I die now--fare thee well! Since nowise do I hate thee: me alone Hast thou destroyed; for, shrinking to betray Thee and my spouse, I die: but thee, O bed, Some other woman shall possess as wife-- Truer, no! but of better fortune, say!' --So falls on, kisses it till all the couch Is moistened with the eyes' sad overflow. But when of many tears she had her fill, She flings from off the couch, goes headlong forth, Yet--forth the chamber--still keeps turning back And casts her on the couch again once more. Her children, clinging to their mother's robe, Wept meanwhile: but she took them in her arms, And, as a dying woman might, embraced Now one and now the other: 'neath the roof, All of the household servants wept as well, Moved to compassion for their mistress; she Extended her right hand to all and each, And there was no one of such low degree She spoke not to nor had an answer from. Such are the evils in Admetos' house. Dying,--why, he had died; but, living, gains Such grief as this he never will forget!"

And when they questioned of Admetos, "Well-- Holding his dear wife in his hands, he weeps; Entreats her not to give him up, and seeks The impossible, in fine: for there she wastes And withers by disease, abandoned now, A mere dead weight upon her husband's arm. Yet, none the less, although she breathe so faint, Her will is to behold the beams o' the sun: Since never more again, but this last once, Shall she see sun, its circlet or its ray. But I will go, announce your presence,--friends Indeed; since 't is not all so love their lords As seek them in misfortune, kind the same: But you are the old friends I recognize."

And at the word she turned again to go: The while they waited, taking up the plaint To Zeus again: "What passage from this strait? What loosing of the heavy fortune fast About the palace? Will such help appear, Or must we clip the locks and cast around Each form already the black peplos' fold? Clearly the black robe, clearly! All the same, Pray to the Gods!--like Gods' no power so great! O thou king Paian, find some way to save! Reveal it, yea, reveal it! Since of old Thou found'st a cure, why, now again become Releaser from the bonds of Death, we beg, And give the sanguinary Hades pause!" So the song dwindled into a mere moan, How dear the wife, and what her husband's woe; When suddenly-- "Behold, behold!" breaks forth: "Here is she coming from the house indeed! Her husband comes, too! Cry aloud, lament, Pheraian land, this best of women, bound-- So is she withered by disease away-- For realms below and their infernal king! Never will we affirm there's more of joy Than grief in marriage; making estimate Both from old sorrows anciently observed, And this misfortune of the king we see-- Admetos who, of bravest spouse bereaved, Will live life's remnant out, no life at all!"

So wailed they, while a sad procession wound Slow from the innermost o' the palace, stopped At the extreme verge of the platform-front: There opened, and disclosed Alkestis' self, The consecrated lady, borne to look Her last--and let the living look their last-- She at the sun, we at Alkestis. We! For would you note a memorable thing? We grew to see in that severe regard,-- Hear in that hard dry pressure to the point, Word slow pursuing word in monotone,-- What Death meant when he called her consecrate Henceforth to Hades. I believe, the sword-- Its office was to cut the soul at once From life,--from something in this world which hides Truth, and hides falsehood, and so lets us live Somehow. Suppose a rider furls a cloak About a horse's head; unfrightened, so, Between the menace of a flame, between Solicitation of the pasturage, Untempted equally, he goes his gait To journey's end: then pluck the pharos off! Show what delusions steadied him i' the straight O' the path, made grass seem fire and fire seem grass, All through a little bandage o'er the eyes! As certainly with eyes unbandaged now Alkestis looked upon the action here, Self-immolation for Admetos' sake; Saw, with a new sense, all her death would do, And which of her survivors had the right, And which the less right, to survive thereby. For, you shall note, she uttered no one word Of love more to her husband, though he wept Plenteously, waxed importunate in prayer-- Folly's old fashion when its seed bears fruit. I think she judged that she had bought the ware O' the seller at its value,--nor praised him Nor blamed herself, but, with indifferent eye, Saw him purse money up, prepare to leave The buyer with a solitary bale-- True purple--but in place of all that coin, Had made a hundred others happy too, If so willed fate or fortune! What remained To give away, should rather go to these Than one with coin to clink and contemplate. Admetos had his share and might depart, The rest was for her children and herself. (Charopé makes a face: but wait awhile!) She saw things plain as Gods do: by one stroke O' the sword that rends the life-long veil away. (Also Euripedes saw plain enough: But you and I, Charopé!--you and I Will trust his sight until our own grow clear.)

"Sun, and thou light of day, and heavenly dance O' the fleet cloud--figure!" (so her passion paused, While the awe-stricken husband made his moan, Muttered now this now that ineptitude: "Sun that sees thee and me, a suffering pair, Who did the Gods no wrong whence thou shouldst die!") Then, as if caught up, carried in their course, Fleeting and free as cloud and sunbeam are, She missed no happiness that lay beneath: "O thou wide earth, from these my palace roofs, To distant nuptial chambers once my own In that Iolkos of my ancestry!"-- There the flight failed her. "Raise thee, wretched one! Give us not up! Pray pity from the Gods!"

Vainly Admetos: for "I see it--see The two-oared boat! The ferryer of the dead, Charon, hand hard upon the boatman's-pole, Calls me--even now calls--'Why delayest thou? Quick! Thou obstructest all made ready here For prompt departure: quick, then!'" "Woe is me! A bitter voyage this to undergo, Even i' the telling! Adverse Powers above, How do ye plague us!" Then a shiver ran: "He has me--seest not?--hales me,--who is it?-- To the hall o' the Dead--ah, who but Hades' self, He, with the wings there, glares at me, one gaze All that blue brilliance, under the eyebrow! What wilt thou do? Unhand me! Such a way I have to traverse, all unhappy one!"

"Way--piteous to thy friends, but, most of all, Me and thy children: ours assuredly A common partnership in grief like this!"

Whereat they closed about her; but "Let be! Leave, let me lie now! Strength forsakes my feet. Hades is here, and shadowy on my eyes Comes the night creeping. Children--children, now Indeed, a mother is no more for you! Farewell, O children, long enjoy the light!"

"Ah me, the melancholy word I hear, Oppressive beyond every kind of death! No, by the Deities, take heart nor dare To give me up--no, by our children too Made orphans of! But rise, be resolute, Since, thou departed, I no more remain! For in thee are we bound up, to exist Or cease to be--so we adore thy love!"

--Which brought out truth to judgment. At this word And protestation, all the truth in her Claimed to assert itself: she waved away The blue-eyed black-wing'd phantom, held in check The advancing pageantry of Hades there, And, with no change in her own countenance, She fixed her eyes on the protesting man, And let her lips unlock their sentence,--so!

"Admetos,--how things go with me thou seest,-- I wish to tell thee, ere I die, what things I will should follow. I--to honor thee, Secure for thee, by my own soul's exchange, Continued looking on the daylight here-- Die for thee--yet, if so I pleased, might live, Nay, wed what man of Thessaly I would, And dwell i' the dome with pomp and queenliness. I would not,--would not live bereft of thee, With children orphaned, neither shrank at all, Though having gifts of youth wherein I joyed. Yet, who begot thee and who gave thee birth, Both of these gave thee up; no less, a term Of life was reached when death became them well, Ay, well--to save their child and glorious die: Since thou wast all they had, nor hope remained Of having other children in thy place. So, I and thou had lived out our full time, Nor thou, left lonely of thy wife, wouldst groan With children reared in orphanage: but thus Some God disposed things, willed they so should be. Be they so! Now do thou remember this, Do me in turn a favor--favor, since Certainly I shall never claim my due, For nothing is more precious than a life: But a fit favor, as thyself wilt say, Loving our children here no less than I, If head and heart be sound in thee at least. Uphold them, make them masters of my house, Nor wed and give a step-dame to the pair, Who, being a worse wife than I, through spite Will raise her hand against both thine and mine. Never do this at least, I pray to thee! For hostile the new-comer, the step-dame, To the old brood--a very viper she For gentleness! Here stand they, boy and girl; The boy has got a father, a defence Tower-like, he speaks to and has answer from: But thou, my girl, how will thy virginhood Conclude itself in marriage fittingly? Upon what sort of sire-found yoke-fellow Art thou to chance? with all to apprehend-- Lest, casting oh thee some unkind report, She blast thy nuptials in the bloom of youth. For neither shall thy mother watch thee wed, Nor hearten thee in childbirth, standing by Just when a mother's presence helps the most! No, for I have to die: and this my ill Comes to me, nor to-morrow, no, nor yet The third day of the month, but now, even now, I shall be reckoned among those no more. Farewell, be happy! And to thee, indeed, Husband, the boast remains permissible Thou hadst a wife was worthy! and to you, Children; as good a mother gave you birth."

"Have courage!" interposed the friends. "For him I have no scruple to declare--all this Will he perform, except he fail of sense."

"All this shall be--shall be!" Admetos sobbed: "Fear not! And, since I had thee living, dead Alone wilt thou be called my wife: no fear That some Thessalian ever styles herself Bride, hails this man for husband in thy place! No woman, be she of such lofty line Or such surpassing beauty otherwise! Enough of children: gain from these I have, Such only may the Gods grant! since in thee Absolute is our loss, where all was gain. And I shall bear for thee no year-long grief, But grief that lasts while my own days last, love! Love! For my hate is she who bore me, now: And him I hate, my father: loving-ones Truly, in word not deed! But thou didst pay All dearest to thee down, and buy my life, Saving me so! Is there not cause enough That I who part with such companionship In thee, should make my moan? I moan, and more: For I will end the feastings--social flow O' the wine friends flock for, garlands and the Muse That graced my dwelling. Never now for me To touch the lyre, to lift my soul in song At summons of the Lydian flute; since thou From out my life hast emptied all the joy! And this thy body, in thy likeness wrought By some wise hand of the artificers, Shall lie disposed within my marriage-bed: This I will fall on, this enfold about, Call by thy name,--my dear wife in my arms Even though I have not, I shall seem to have-- A cold delight, indeed, but all the same So should I lighten of its weight my soul! And, wandering my way in dreams perchance, Thyself wilt bless me: for, come when they will, Even by night our loves are sweet to see. But were the tongue and tune of Orpheus mine, So that to Koré crying, or her lord, In hymns, from Hades I might rescue thee-- Down would I go, and neither Plouton's dog Nor Charon, he whose oar sends souls across, Should stay me till again I made thee stand Living, within the light! But, failing this, There, where thou art, await me when I die, Make ready our abode, my housemate still! For in the selfsame cedar, me with thee Will I provide that these our friends shall place, My side lay close by thy side! Never, corpse Although I be, would I division bear From thee, my faithful one of all the world!"

So he stood sobbing: nowise insincere, But somehow child-like, like his children, like Childishness the world over. What was new In this announcement that his wife must die? What particle of pain beyond the pact He made, with eyes wide open, long ago-- Made and was, if not glad, content to make? Now that the sorrow, he had called for, came, He sorrowed to the height: none heard him say, However, what would seem so pertinent, "To keep this pact, I find surpass my power: Rescind it, Moirai! Give me back her life, And take the life I kept by base exchange! Or, failing that, here stands your laughing-stock Fooled by you, worthy just the fate o' the fool Who makes a pother to escape the best And gain the worst you wiser Powers allot!" No, not one word of this: nor did his wife Despite the sobbing, and the silence soon To follow, judge so much was in his thought-- Fancy that, should the Moirai acquiesce, He would relinquish life nor let her die. The man was like some merchant who, in storm, Throws the freight over to redeem the ship: No question, saving both were better still. As it was,--why, he sorrowed, which sufficed. So, all she seemed to notice in his speech Was what concerned her children. Children, too, Bear the grief and accept the sacrifice. Rightly rules nature: does the blossomed bough O' the grape-vine, or the dry grape's self, bleed wine?

So, bending to her children all her love, She fastened on their father's only word To purpose now, and followed it with this: "O children, now yourselves have heard these things-- Your father saying he will never wed Another woman to be over you, Nor yet dishonor me!"

"And now at least I say it, and I will accomplish too!"

"Then, for such promise of accomplishment, Take from my hand these children!"

"Thus I take-- Dear gift from the dear hand!"

"Do thou become Mother, now, to these children in my place!"

"Great the necessity, I should be so, At least, to these bereaved of thee!"

"Child--child! Just when I needed most to live, below Am I departing from you both!"

"Ah me! And what shall I do, then, left lonely thus?"

"Time will appease thee: who is dead is naught."

"Take me with thee--take, by the Gods below!"

"We are sufficient, we who die for thee."

"O Powers, ye widow me of what a wife!"

"And truly the dimmed eye draws earthward now!"

"Wife, if thou leav'st me, I am lost indeed!"

"She once was--now is nothing, thou mayst say."

"Raise thy face, nor forsake thy children thus!"

"Ah, willingly indeed I leave them not! But--fare ye well, my children!"

"Look on them-- Look!"

"I am nothingness."

"What dost thou? Leav'st ..."

"Farewell!"

And in the breath she passed away. "Undone--me miserable!" moaned the king, While friends released the long-suspended sigh. "Gone is she: no wife for Admetos more!"

Such was the signal: how the woe broke forth, Why tell?--or how the children's tears ran fast Bidding their father note the eyelids' stare, Hands' droop, each dreadful circumstance of death.

"Ay, she hears not, she sees not: I and you, 'T is plain, are stricken hard and have to bear!" Was all Admetos answered; for, I judge, He only now began to taste the truth: The thing done lay revealed, which undone thing, Rehearsed for fact by fancy, at the best, Never can equal. He had used himself This long while (as he muttered presently) To practise with the terms, the blow involved By the bargain, sharp to bear, but bearable Because of plain advantage at the end. Now that, in fact not fancy, the blow fell-- Needs must he busy him with the surprise. "Alkestis--not to see her nor be seen, Hear nor be heard of by her, any more To-day, to-morrow, to the end of time-- Did I mean this should buy my life?" thought he.

So, friends came round him, took him by the hand, Bade him remember our mortality, Its due, its doom: how neither was he first, Nor would be last, to thus deplore the loved.

"I understand," slow the words came at last. "Nor of a sudden did the evil here Fly on me: I have known it long ago, Ay, and essayed myself in misery; Nothing is new. You have to stay, you friends, Because the next need is to carry forth The corpse here: you must stay and do your part, Chant proper pæan to the God below; Drink-sacrifice he likes not. I decree That all Thessalians over whom I rule Hold grief in common with me; let them shear Their locks, and be the peplos black they show! And you who to the chariot yoke your steeds, Or manage steeds one-frontleted,--I charge, Clip from each neck with steel the mane away! And through my city, nor of flute nor lyre Be there a sound till twelve full moons succeed. For I shall never bury any corpse Dearer than this to me, nor better friend: One worthy of all honor from me, since Me she has died for, she and she alone."

With that, he sought the inmost of the house, He and his dead, to get grave's garniture, While the friends sang the pæan that should peal. "Daughter of Pelias, with farewell from me, I' the house of Hades have thy unsunned home! Let Hades know, the dark-haired deity,-- And he who sits to row and steer alike, Old corpse-conductor, let him know he bears Over the Acherontian lake, this time, I' the two-oared boat, the best--oh, best by far Of womankind! For thee, Alkestis Queen! Many a time those haunters of the Muse Shall sing thee to the seven-stringed mountain-shell, And glorify in hymns that need no harp, At Sparta when the cycle comes about, And that Karneian month wherein the moon Rises and never sets the whole night through: So too at splendid and magnificent Athenai. Such the spread of thy renown, And such the lay that, dying, thou hast left Singer and sayer. Oh that I availed Of my own might to send thee once again From Hades' hall, Kokutos' stream, by help O' the oar that dips the river, back to-day!" So, the song sank to prattle in her praise: "Light, from above thee, lady, fall the earth, Thou only one of womankind to die, Wife for her husband! If Admetos take Anything to him like a second spouse-- Hate from his offspring and from us shall be His portion, let the king assure himself! No mind his mother had to hide in earth Her body for her son's sake, nor his sire Had heart to save whom he begot,--not they, The white-haired wretches! only thou it was, I' the bloom of youth, didst save him and so die! Might it be mine to chance on such a mate And partner! For there 's penury in life Of such allowance: were she mine at least, So wonderful a wife, assuredly She would companion me throughout my days And never once bring sorrow!" A great voice-- "My hosts here!" Oh, the thrill that ran through us! Never was aught so good and opportune As that great interrupting voice! For see! Here maundered this dispirited old age Before the palace; whence a something crept Which told us well enough without a word What was a-doing inside,--every touch O' the garland on those temples, tenderest Disposure of each arm along its side, Came putting out what warmth i' the world was left. Then, as it happens at a sacrifice When, drop by drop, some lustral bath is brimmed: Into the thin and clear and cold, at once They slaughter a whole wine-skin; Bacchos' blood Sets the white water all aflame: even so, Sudden into the midst of sorrow, leapt Along with the gay cheer of that great voice, Hope, joy, salvation: Herakles was here! Himself, o' the threshold, sent his voice on first To herald all that human and divine I' the weary happy face of him,--half God, Half man, which made the god-part God the more.

"Hosts mine," he broke upon the sorrow with, "Inhabitants of this Pheraian soil, Chance I upon Admetos inside here?"

The irresistible sound wholesome heart O' the hero,--more than all the mightiness At labor in the limbs that, for man's sake, Labored and meant to labor their life-long,-- This drove back, dried up sorrow at its source. How could it brave the happy weary laugh Of who had bantered sorrow, "Sorrow here? What have you done to keep your friend from harm? Could no one give the life I see he keeps? Or, say there 's sorrow here past friendly help, Why waste a word or let a tear escape While other sorrows wait you in the world, And want the life of you, though helpless here?" Clearly there was no telling such an one How, when their monarch tried who loved him more Than he loved them, and found they loved, as he, Each man, himself, and held, no otherwise, That, of all evils in the world, the worst Was--being forced to die, whate'er death gain: How all this selfishness in him and them Caused certain sorrow which they sang about,-- I think that Herakles, who held his life Out on his hand, for any man to take-- I think his laugh had marred their threnody.

"He is in the house," they answered. After all, They might have told the story, talked their best About the inevitable sorrow here, Nor changed nor cheeked the kindly nature,--no! So long as men were merely weak, not bad, He loved men: were they Gods he used to help? "Yea, Pheres' son is in-doors, Herakles. But say, what sends thee to Thessalian soil, Brought by what business to this Pherai town?"

"A certain labor that I have to do Eurustheus the Tirunthian," laughed the God.

"And whither wendest--on what wandering Bound now?" (They had an instinct, guessed what meant Wanderings, labors, in the God's light mouth.)

"After the Thrakian Diomedes' car With the four horses."

"Ah, but canst thou that? Art inexperienced in thy host to be?"

"All-inexperienced: I have never gone As yet to the land o' the Bistones."

"Then, look By no means to be master of the steeds Without a battle!" "Battle there may be: I must refuse no labor, all the same."

"Certainly, either having slain a foe Wilt thou return to us, or, slain thyself, Stay there!" "And, even if the game be so, The risk in it were not the first I run."

"But, say thou overpower the lord o' the place, What more advantage dost expect thereby?"

"I shall drive off his horses to the king."

"No easy handling them to bit the jaw!"

"Easy enough; except, at least, they breathe Fire from their nostrils!" "But they mince up men With those quick jaws!" "You talk of provender For mountain-beasts, and not mere horses' food!"

"Thou mayst behold their mangers caked with gore!"

"And of what sire does he who bred them boast Himself the son?" "Of Ares, king o' the targe-- Thrakian, of gold throughout." Another laugh. "Why, just the labor, just the lot for me Dost thou describe in what I recognize! Since hard and harder, high and higher yet, Truly this lot of mine is like to go If I must needs join battle with the brood Of Ares: ay, I fought Lukaon first, And again, Kuknos: now engage in strife This third time, with such horses and such lord. But there is nobody shall ever see Alkmené's son shrink foemen's hand before!"

--"Or ever hear him say" (the Chorus thought) "That death is terrible; and help us so To chime in--'terrible beyond a doubt, And, if to thee, why, to ourselves much more: Know what has happened, then, and sympathize'!" Therefore they gladly stopped the dialogue, Shifted the burden to new shoulder straight, As, "Look where comes the lord o' the land, himself, Admetos, from the palace!" they outbroke In some surprise, as well as much relief. What had induced the king to waive his right And luxury of woe in loneliness?

Out he came quietly; the hair was clipt, And the garb sable; else no outward sign Of sorrow as he came and faced his friend. Was truth fast terrifying tears away? "Hail, child of Zeus, and sprung from Perseus too!" The salutation ran without a fault.

"And thou, Admetos, King of Thessaly!"

"Would, as thou wishest me, the grace might fall! But my good-wisher, that thou art, I know."

"What 's here? these shorn locks, this sad show of thee?"

"I must inter a certain corpse to-day."

"Now, from thy children God avert mischance!"

"They live, my children; all are in the house!"

"Thy father--if 't is he departs indeed, His age was ripe at least."

"My father lives, And she who bore me lives too, Herakles."

"It cannot be thy wife Alkestis gone?"

"Twofold the tale is, I can tell of her."

"Dead dost thou speak of her, or living yet?"

"She is--and is not: hence the pain to me!"

"I learn no whit the more, so dark thy speech!"

"Know'st thou not on what fate she needs must fall?"

"I know she is resigned to die for thee."

"How lives she still, then, if submitting so?"

"Eh, weep her not beforehand! wait till then!"

"Who is to die is dead; doing is done."

"To be and not to be are thought diverse."

"Thou judgest this--I, that way, Herakles!"

"Well, but declare what causes thy complaint! Who is the man has died from out thy friends?"

"No man: I had a woman in my mind."

"Alien, or some one born akin to thee?"

"Alien: but still related to my house."

"How did it happen then that here she died?"

"Her father dying left his orphan here."

"Alas, Admetos--would we found thee gay, Not grieving!"

"What as if about to do Subjoinest thou that comment?" "I shall seek Another hearth, proceed to other hosts."

"Never, O king, shall that be! No such ill Betide me!" "Nay, to mourners should there come A guest, he proves importunate!" "The dead-- Dead are they: but go thou within my house!"

"'T is base carousing beside friends who mourn."

"The guest-rooms, whither we shall lead thee, lie Apart from ours." "Nay, let me go my way! Ten-thousandfold the favor I shall thank!"

"It may not be thou goest to the hearth Of any man but me!" so made an end Admetos, softly and decisively, Of the altercation. Herakles forbore: And the king bade a servant lead the way, Open the guest-rooms ranged remote from view O' the main hall, tell the functionaries, next, They had to furnish forth a plenteous feast: And then shut close the doors o' the hall, midway, "Because it is not proper friends who feast Should hear a groaning or be grieved," quoth he.

Whereat the hero, who was truth itself, Let out the smile again, repressed awhile Like fountain-brilliance one forbids to play. He did too many grandnesses, to note Much in the meaner things about his path: And stepping there, with face towards the sun, Stopped seldom, to pluck weeds or ask their names. Therefore he took Admetos at the word: This trouble must not hinder any more A true heart from good will and pleasant ways. And so, the great arm, which had slain the snake, Strained his friend's head a moment in embrace On that broad breast beneath the lion's hide, Till the king's cheek winced at the thick rough gold; And then strode off, with who had care of him, To the remote guest-chamber: glad to give Poor flesh and blood their respite and relief In the interval 'twixt fight and fight again-- All for the world's sake. Our eyes followed him, Be sure, till those mid-doors shut us outside. The king, too, watched great Herakles go off All faith, love, and obedience to a friend.

And when they questioned him, the simple ones, "What dost thou? Such calamity to face, Lies full before thee--and thou art so bold As play the host, Admetos? Hast thy wits?" He replied calmly to each chiding tongue: "But if from house and home I forced away A coming guest, wouldst thou have praised me more? No, truly! since calamity were mine, Nowise diminished: while I showed myself Unhappy and inhospitable too: So adding to my ills this other ill, That mine were styled a stranger-hating house. Myself have ever found this man the best Of entertainers when I went his way To parched and thirsty Argos." "If so be-- Why didst thou hide what destiny was here, When one came that was kindly, as thou say'st?"

"He never would have willed to cross my door Had he known aught of my calamities. And probably to some of you I seem Unwise enough in doing what I do; Such will scarce praise me: but these halls of mine Know not to drive off and dishonor guests."

And so, the duty done, he turned once more To go and busy him about his dead. As for the sympathizers left to muse, There was a change, a new light thrown on things, Contagion from the magnanimity O' the man whose life lay on his hand so light, As up he stepped, pursuing duty still "Higher and harder," as he laughed and said. Somehow they found no folly now in the act They blamed erewhile: Admetos' private grief Shrank to a somewhat pettier obstacle I' the way o' the world: they saw good days had been, And good days, peradventure, still might be, Now that they overlooked the present cloud Heavy upon the palace opposite. And soon the thought took words and music thus:--

"Harbor of many a stranger, free to friend, Ever and always, O thou house o' the man We mourn for! Thee, Apollon's very self, The lyric Puthian, deigned inhabit once, Become a shepherd here in thy domains, And pipe, adown the winding hillside paths, Pastoral marriage-poems to thy flocks At feed: while with them fed in fellowship, Through joy i' the music, spot-skin lynxes; ay, And lions too, the bloody company, Came, leaving Othrus' dell; and round thy lyre, Phoibos, there danced the speckle-coated fawn, Pacing on lightsome fetlock past the pines Tress-topped, the creature's natural boundary Into the open everywhere; such heart Had she within her, beating joyous beats, At the sweet reassurance of thy song! Therefore the lot o' the master is, to live In a home multitudinous with herds, Along by the fair-flowing Boibian lake, Limited, that ploughed land and pasture-plain, Only where stand the sun's steeds, stabled west I' the cloud, by that mid-air which makes the clime Of those Molossoi: and he rules as well O'er the Aigaian, up to Pelion's shore,-- Sea-stretch without a port! Such lord have we: And here he opens house now, as of old, Takes to the heart of it a guest again: Though moist the eyelid of the master, still Mourning his dear wife's body, dead but now!"

And they admired: nobility of soul Was self-impelled to reverence, they saw: The best men ever prove the wisest too: Something instinctive guides them still aright. And on each soul this boldness settled now, That one who reverenced the Gods so much Would prosper yet: (or--I could wish it ran-- Who venerates the Gods i' the main will still Practise things honest though obscure to judge).

They ended, for Admetos entered now; Having disposed all duteously indoors, He came into the outside world again, Quiet as ever: but a quietude Bent on pursuing its descent to truth, As who must grope until he gain the ground O' the dungeon doomed to be his dwelling now. Already high o'er head was piled the dusk, When something pushed to stay his downward step, Pluck back despair just reaching its repose. He would have bidden the kind presence there Observe that,--since the corpse was coming out, Cared for in all things that befit the case, Carried aloft, in decency and state, To the last burial-place and burning pile,-- 'T were proper friends addressed, as custom prompts, Alkestis bound on her last journeying.

"Ay, for we see thy father," they subjoined, "Advancing as the aged foot best may; His servants, too: each bringing in his hand Adornments for thy wife, all pomp that 's due To the downward-dwelling people." And in truth, By slow procession till they filled the stage, Came Pheres, and his following, and their gifts. You see, the worst of the interruption was, It plucked back, with an over-hasty hand, Admetos from descending to the truth, (I told you)--put him on the brink again, Full i' the noise and glare where late he stood: With no fate fallen and irrevocable, But all things subject still to chance and change: And that chance--life, and that change--happiness. And with the low strife came the little mind: He was once more the man might gain so much, Life too and wife too, would his friends but help! All he felt now was that there faced him one Supposed the likeliest, in emergency, To help: and help, by mere self-sacrifice So natural, it seemed as if the sire Must needs lie open still to argument, Withdraw the rash decision, not to die But rather live, though death would save his son:-- Argument like the ignominious grasp O' the drowner whom his fellow grasps as fierce, Each marvelling that the other needs must hold Head out of water, though friend choke thereby.

And first the father's salutation fell. Burdened he came, in common with his child, Who lost, none would gainsay, a good chaste spouse: Yet such things must be borne, though hard to bear. "So, take this tribute of adornment, deep In the earth let it descend along with her! Behooves we treat the body with respect --Of one who died, at least, to save thy life, Kept me from being childless, nor allowed That I, bereft of thee, should peak and pine In melancholy age! she, for the sex, All of her sisters, put in evidence, By daring such a feat, that female life Might prove more excellent than men suppose. O thou Alkestis!" out he burst in fine, "Who, while thou savedst this my son, didst raise Also myself from sinking,--hail to thee! Well be it with thee even in the house Of Hades! I maintain, if mortals must Marry, this sort of marriage is the sole Permitted those among them who are wise!"

So his oration ended. Like hates like: Accordingly Admetos,--full i' the face Of Pheres, his true father, outward shape And inward fashion, body matching soul,-- Saw just himself when years should do their work And reinforce the selfishness inside Until it pushed the last disguise away: As when the liquid metal cools i' the mould, Stands forth a statue: bloodless, hard, cold bronze. So, in old Pheres, young Admetos showed, Pushed to completion: and a shudder ran, And his repugnance soon had vent in speech: Glad to escape outside, nor, pent within, Find itself there fit food for exercise.

"Neither to this interment called by me Comest thou, nor thy presence I account Among the covetable proofs of love. As for thy tribute of adornment,--no! Ne'er shall she don it, ne'er in debt to thee Be buried! What is thine, that keep thou still! Then it behooved thee to commiserate When I was perishing: but thou--who stood'st Foot-free o' the snare, wast acquiescent then That I, the young, should die, not thou, the old-- Wilt thou lament this corpse thyself hast slain? Thou wast not, then, true father to this flesh; Nor she, who makes profession of my birth And styles herself my mother, neither she Bore me: but, come of slave's blood, I was cast Stealthily 'neath the bosom of thy wife! Thou showedst, put to touch, the thing thou art, Nor I esteem myself born child of thee! Otherwise, thine is the preëminence O'er all the world in cowardice of soul: Who, being the old man thou art, arrived Where life should end, didst neither will nor dare Die for thy son, but left the task to her, The alien woman, whom I well might think Own, only mother both and father too! And yet a fair strife had been thine to strive, --Dying for thy own child; and brief for thee In any case, the rest of time to live; While I had lived, and she, our rest of time, Nor I been left to groan in solitude. Yet certainly all things which happy man Ought to experience, thy experience grasped. Thou wast a ruler through the bloom of youth, And I was son to thee, recipient due Of sceptre and demesne,--no need to fear That dying thou shouldst leave an orphan house For strangers to despoil. Nor yet wilt thou Allege that as dishonoring, forsooth, Thy length of days, I gave thee up to die,-- I, who have held thee in such reverence! And in exchange for it, such gratitude Thou, father,--thou award'st me, mother mine! Go, lose no time, then, in begetting sons Shall cherish thee in age, and, when thou diest, Deck up and lay thee out as corpses claim! For never I, at least, with this my hand Will bury thee: it is myself am dead So far as lies in thee. But if I light Upon another savior, and still see The sunbeam,--his, the child I call myself, His, the old age that claims my cherishing. How vainly do these aged pray for death, Abuse the slow drag of senility! But should death step up, nobody inclines To die, nor age is now the weight it was!"

You see what all this poor pretentious talk Tried at,--how weakness strove to hide itself In bluster against weakness,--the loud word To hide the little whisper, not so low Already in that heart beneath those lips! Ha, could it be, who hated cowardice Stood confessed craven, and who lauded so Self-immolating love, himself had pushed The loved one to the altar in his place? Friends interposed, would fain stop further play O' the sharp-edged tongue: they felt love's champion here Had left an undefended point or two, The antagonist might profit by; bade "Pause! Enough the present sorrow! Nor, O son, Whet thus against thyself thy father's soul!"

Ay, but old Pheres was the stouter stuff! Admetos, at the flintiest of the heart, Had so much soft in him as held a fire: The other was all iron, clashed from flint Its fire, but shed no spark and showed no bruise. Did Pheres crave instruction as to facts? He came, content, the ignoble word, for him, Should lurk still in the blackness of each breast, As sleeps the water-serpent half surmised: Not brought up to the surface at a bound, By one touch of the idly-probing spear, Reed-like against unconquerable scale. He came pacific, rather, as strength should, Bringing the decent praise, the due regret, And each banality prescribed of old. Did he commence "Why let her die for you?" And rouse the coiled and quiet ugliness, "What is so good to man as man's own life?" No: but the other did: and, for his pains, Out, full in face of him, the venom leapt.

"And whom dost thou make bold, son--Ludian slave, Or Phrugian whether, money made thy ware, To drive at with revilings? Know'st thou not I, a Thessalian, from Thessalian sire Spring and am born legitimately free? Too arrogant art thou; and, youngster words Casting against me, having had thy fling, Thou goest not off as all were ended so! I gave thee birth indeed and mastership I' the mansion, brought thee up to boot: there ends My owing, nor extends to die for thee! Never did I receive it as a law Hereditary, no, nor Greek at all, That sires in place of sons were hound to die. For, to thy sole and single self wast thou Born, with whatever fortune, good or bad; Such things as bear bestowment, those thou hast; Already ruling widely, broad lands, too, Doubt not but I shall leave thee in due time: For why? My father left me them before. Well then, where wrong I thee?--of what defraud? Neither do thou die for this man, myself, Nor let him die for thee!--is all I beg. Thou joyest seeing daylight: dost suppose Thy father Joys not too? Undoubtedly, Long I account the time to pass below, And brief my span of days; yet sweet the same: Is it otherwise to thee who, impudent, Didst fight off this same death, and livest now Through having sneaked past fate apportioned thee, And slain thy wife so? Cryest cowardice On me, I wonder, thou--whom, poor poltroon, A very woman worsted, daring death Just for the sake of thee, her handsome spark? Shrewdly hast thou contrived how not to die Forevermore now: 't is but still persuade The wife, for the time being, to take thy place! What, and thy friends who would not do the like, These dost thou carp at, craven thus thyself? Crouch and be silent, craven! Comprehend That, if thou lovest so that life of thine, Why, everybody loves his own life too: So, good words, henceforth! If thou speak us ill, Many and true an ill thing shalt thou hear!"

There you saw leap the hydra at full length! Only, the old kept glorying the more, The more the portent thus uncoiled itself, Whereas the young man shuddered head to foot, And shrank from kinship with the creature. Why Such horror, unless what he hated most, Vaunting itself outside, might fairly claim Acquaintance with the counterpart at home? I would the Chorus here had plucked up heart, Spoken out boldly and explained the man, If not to men, to Gods. That way, I think, Sophokles would have led their dance and song. Here, they said simply, "Too much evil spoke On both sides!" As the young before, so now They bade the old man leave abusing thus.

"Let him speak,--I have spoken!" said the youth: And so died out the wrangle by degrees, In wretched bickering. "If thou wince at fact, Behooved thee not prove faulty to myself!"

"Had I died for thee I had faulted more!"

"All 's one, then, for youth's bloom and age to die?"

"Our duty is to live one life, not two!"

"Go then, and outlive Zeus, for aught I care!"

"What, curse thy parents with no sort of cause?"

"Curse, truly! All thou lovest is long life!"

"And dost not thou, too, all for love of life, Carry out now, in place of thine, this corpse?"

"Monument, rather, of thy cowardice, Thou worst one!"

"Not for me she died, I hope! That, thou wilt hardly say!" "No; simply this: Would, some day, thou mayst come to need myself!"

"Meanwhile, woo many wives--the more will die!"

"And so shame thee who never dared the like!"

"Dear is this light o' the sun-god--dear, I say!"

"Proper conclusion for a beast to draw!"

"One thing is certain: there 's no laughing now, As out thou bearest the poor dead old man!"

"Die when thou wilt, thou wilt die infamous!"

"And once dead, whether famed or infamous, I shall not care!" "Alas and yet again! How full is age of impudency!" "True! Thou couldst not call thy young wife impudent: She was found foolish merely."

"Get thee gone! And let me bury this my dead!" "I go. Thou buriest her whom thou didst murder first; Whereof there 's some account to render yet Those kinsfolk by the marriage-side! I think, Brother Akastos may be classed with me, Among the beasts, not men, if he omit Avenging upon thee his sister's blood!"

"Go to perdition, with thy housemate too! Grow old all childlessly, with child alive, Just as ye merit! for to me, at least, Beneath the same roof ne'er do ye return. And did I need by heralds' help renounce The ancestral hearth, I had renounced the same! But we--since this woe, lying at our feet I' the path, is to be borne--let us proceed And lay the body on the pyre." I think, What, through this wretched wrangle, kept the man From seeing clear--beside the cause I gave-- Was, that the woe, himself described as full I' the path before him, there did really lie-- Not roll into the abyss of dead and gone. How, with Alkestis present, calmly crowned, Was she so irrecoverable yet-- The bird, escaped, that 's just on bough above, The flower, let flutter half-way down the brink? Not so detached seemed lifelessness from life But--one dear stretch beyond all straining yet-- And he might have her at his heart once more, When, in the critical minute, up there comes The father and the fact, to trifle time!

"To the pyre!" an instinct prompted: pallid face, And passive arm and pointed foot, when these No longer shall absorb the sight, O friends, Admetos will begin to see indeed Who the true foe was, where the blows should fall!

So, the old selfish Pheres went his way, Case-hardened as he came; and left the youth, (Only half selfish now, since sensitive) To go on learning by a light the more, As friends moved off, renewing dirge the while:

"Unhappy in thy daring! Noble dame, Best of the good, farewell! With favoring face May Hermes the infernal, Hades too, Receive thee! And if there,--ay, there,--some touch Of further dignity await the good, Sharing with them, mayst thou sit throned by her The Bride of Hades, in companionship!"

Wherewith, the sad procession wound away, Made slowly for the suburb sepulchre. And lo,--while still one's heart, in time and tune, Paced after that symmetric step of Death Mute-marching, to the mind's eye, at the head O' the mourners--one hand pointing out their path With the long pale terrific sword we saw. The other leading, with grim tender grace, Alkestis quieted and consecrate,-- Lo, life again knocked laughing at the door! The world goes on, goes ever, in and through, And out again o' the cloud. We faced about. Fronted the palace where the mid-hall gate Opened--not half, nor half of half, perhaps-- Yet wide enough to let out light and life, And warmth, and bounty, and hope, and joy, at once. Festivity burst wide, fruit rare and ripe Crushed in the mouth of Bacchos, pulpy-prime, All juice and flavor, save one single seed Duly ejected from the God's nice lip, Which lay o' the red edge, blackly visible-- To wit, a certain ancient servitor: On whom the festal jaws o' the palace shut, So, there he stood, a much-bewildered man. Stupid? Nay, but sagacious in a sort: Learned, life-long, i' the first outside of things, Though bat for blindness to what lies beneath And needs a nail-scratch ere 't is laid you bare. This functionary was the trusted one We saw deputed by Admetos late To lead in Herakles and help him, soul And body, to such snatched repose, snapped-up Sustainment, as might do away the dust O' the last encounter, knit each nerve anew For that next onset sure to come at cry O' the creature next assailed,--nay, should it prove Only the creature that came forward now To play the critic upon Herakles!

"Many the guests,"--so he soliloquized In musings burdensome to breast before, When it seemed not too prudent tongue should wag,-- "Many, and from all quarters of this world, The guests I now have known frequent our house, For whom I spread the banquet; but than this, Never a worse one did I yet receive At the hearth here! One who seeing, first of all, The master's sorrow, entered gate the same, And had the hardihood to house himself. Did things stop there! But, modest by no means, He took what entertainment lay to hand, Knowing of our misfortune,--did we fail In aught of the fit service, urged us serve Just as a guest expects! And in his hands Taking the ivied goblet, drinks and drinks The unmixed product of black mother-earth, Until the blaze o' the wine went round about And warmed him: then he crowns with myrtle sprigs His head, and howls discordance--twofold lay Was thereupon for us to listen to-- This fellow singing, namely, nor restrained A jot by sympathy with sorrows here-- While we o' the household mourned our mistress--mourned, That is to say, in silence--never showed The eyes, which we kept wetting, to the guest-- For there Admetos was imperative. And so, here am I helping make at home A guest, some fellow ripe for wickedness, Robber or pirate, while she goes her way Out of our house: and neither was it mine To follow in procession, nor stretch forth Hand, wave my lady dear a last farewell, Lamenting who to me and all of us Domestics was a mother: myriad harms She used to ward away from every one, And mollify her husband's ireful mood. I ask then, do I justly hate or no This guest, this interloper on our grief?"

"Hate him and justly!" Here 's the proper judge Of what is due to the house from Herakles! This man of much experience saw the first O' the feeble duckings-down at destiny, When King Admetos went his rounds, poor soul, A-begging somebody to be so brave As die for one afraid to die himself-- "Thou, friend? Thou, love? Father or mother, then! None of you? What, Alkestis must Death catch? O best of wives, one woman in the world! But nowise droop: our prayers may still assist: Let us try sacrifice; if those avail Nothing and Gods avert their countenance, Why, deep and durable our grief will be!" Whereat the house, this worthy at its head, Re-echoed "deep and durable our grief!" This sage, who justly hated Herakles, Did he suggest once "Rather I than she!" Admonish the Turannos--"Be a man! Bear thine own burden, never think to thrust Thy fate upon another and thy wife! It were a dubious gain could death be doomed That other, and no passionatest plea Of thine, to die instead, have force with fate; Seeing thou lov'st Alkestis: what were life Unlighted by the loved one? But to live-- Not merely live unsolaced by some thought, Some word so poor--yet solace all the same-- As 'Thou i' the sepulchre, Alkestis, say! Would I, or would not I, to save thy life, Die, and die on, and die forevermore?' No! but to read red-written up and down The world 'This is the sunshine, this the shade, This is some pleasure of earth, sky or sea, Due to that other, dead that thou mayst live!' Such were a covetable gain to thee? Go die, fool, and be happy while 't is time!" One word of counsel in this kind, methinks, Had fallen to better purpose than Ai, ai, Pheu, pheu, e, papai, and a pother of praise O' the best, best, best one! Nothing was to hate In King Admetos, Pheres, and the rest O' the household down to his heroic self! This was the one thing hateful: Herakles Had flung into the presence, frank and free, Out from the labor into the repose, Ere out again and over head and ears I' the heart of labor, all for love of men: Making the most o' the minute, that the soul And body, strained to height a minute since, Might lie relaxed in joy, this breathing-space, For man's sake more than ever; till the bow, Restrung o' the sudden, at first cry for help, Should send some unimaginable shaft True to the aim and shatteringly through The plate-mail of a monster, save man so. He slew the pest o' the marish yesterday: To-morrow he would bit the flame-breathed stud That fed on man's-flesh: and this day between-- Because he held it natural to die, And fruitless to lament a thing past cure, So, took his fill of food, wine, song and flowers, Till the new labor claimed him soon enough,-- "Hate him and justly!" True, Charopé mine! The man surmised not Herakles lay hid I' the guest; or, knowing it, was ignorant That still his lady lived--for Herakles; Or else judged lightness needs must indicate This or the other caitiff quality: And therefore--had been right if not so wrong! For who expects the sort of him will scratch A nail's depth, scrape the surface just to see What peradventure underlies the same?

So, he stood petting up his puny hate, Parent-wise, proud of the ill-favored babe. Not long! A great hand, careful lest it crush, Startled him on the shoulder: up he stared, And over him, who stood but Herakles! There smiled the mighty presence, all one smile And no touch more of the world-weary God, Through the brief respite. Just a garland's grace About the brow, a song to satisfy Head, heart and breast, and trumpet-lips at once, A solemn draught of true religious wine, And--how should I know?--half a mountain-goat Tom up and swallowed down,--the feast was fierce But brief: all cares and pains took wing and flew, Leaving the hero ready to begin And help mankind, whatever woe came next, Even though what came next should be naught more Than the mean querulous mouth o' the man, remarked Pursing its grievance up till patience failed And the sage needs must rush out, as we saw, To sulk outside and pet his hate in peace. By no means would the Helper have it so: He who was just about to handle brutes In Thrace, and bit the jaws which breathed the flame,-- Well, if a good laugh and a jovial word Could bridle age which blew bad humors forth, That were a kind of help, too! "Thou, there!" hailed This grand benevolence the ungracious one-- "Why look'st so solemn and so thought-absorbed? To guests a servant should not sour-faced be, But do the honors with a mind urbane. While thou, contrariwise, beholding here Arrive thy master's comrade, hast for him A churlish visage, all one beetle-brow-- Having regard to grief that's out-of-door! Come hither, and so get to grow more wise! Things mortal--know'st the nature that they have? No, I imagine! whence could knowledge spring? Give ear to me, then! For all flesh to die, Is Nature's due; nor is there any one Of mortals with assurance he shall last The coming morrow: for, what 's born of chance Invisibly proceeds the way it will, Not to be learned, no fortune-teller's prize. This, therefore, having heard and known through me, Gladden thyself! Drink! Count the day-by-day Existence thine, and all the other--chance! Ay, and pay homage also to by far The sweetest of divinities for man, Kupris! Benignant Goddess will she prove! But as for aught else, leave and let things be! And trust my counsel, if I seem to speak To purpose--as I do, apparently. Wilt not thou, then,--discarding overmuch Mournfulness, do away with this shut door, Come drink along with me, be-garlanded This fashion? Do so, and--I well know what-- From this stern mood, this shrunk-up state of mind, The pit-pat fall o' the flagon-juice down throat, Soon will dislodge thee from bad harborage! Men being mortal should think mortal-like: Since to your solemn, brow-contracting sort, All of them,--so I lay down law at least,-- Life is not truly life but misery."

Whereto the man with softened surliness: "We know as much: but deal with matters, now, Hardly befitting mirth and revelry."

"No intimate, this woman that is dead: Mourn not too much! For, those o' the house itself, Thy masters live, remember!"

"Live indeed? Ah, thou know'st naught o' the woe within these walls!"

"I do--unless thy master spoke me false Somehow!" "Ay, ay, too much he loves a guest, Too much, that master mine!" so muttered he.

"Was it improper he should treat me well, Because an alien corpse was in the way?"

"No alien, but most intimate indeed!"

"Can it be, some woe was, he told me not?"

"Farewell and go thy way! Thy cares for thee-- To us, our master's sorrow is a care."

"This word begins no tale of alien woe!"

"Had it been other woe than intimate, I could have seen thee feast, nor felt amiss."

"What! have I suffered strangely from my host?"

"Thou cam'st not at a fit reception-time: With sorrow here beforehand: and thou seest Shorn hair, black robes." "But who is it that 's dead? Some child gone? or the aged sire perhaps?"

"Admetos' wife, then! she has perished, guest!"

"How sayest? And did ye house me, all the same?"

"Ay: for he had thee in that reverence He dared not turn thee from his door away!"

"O hapless, and bereft of what a mate!"

"All of us now are dead, not she alone!"

"But I divined it! seeing, as I did, His eye that ran with tears, his close-clipt hair, His countenance! Though he persuaded me, Saying it was a stranger's funeral He went with to the grave: against my wish, He forced on me that I should enter doors, Drink in the hall o' the hospitable man Circumstanced so! And do I revel yet With wreath on head? But--thou to hold thy peace, Nor me what a woe oppressed my friend! Where is he gone to bury her? Where am I To go and find her?" "By the road that leads Straight to Larissa, thou wilt see the tomb, Out of the suburb, a carved sepulchre."

So said he, and therewith dismissed himself Inside to his lamenting: somewhat soothed, However, that he had adroitly spoilt The mirth of the great creature: oh, he marked The movement of the mouth, how lip pressed lip, And either eye forgot to shine, as, fast, He plucked the chaplet from his forehead, dashed The myrtle-sprays down, trod them underfoot! And all the joy and wonder of the wine Withered away, like fire from off a brand The wind blows over--beacon though it be, Whose merry ardor only meant to make Somebody all the better for its blaze, And save lost people in the dark: quenched now!

Not long quenched! As the flame, just hurried off The brand's edge, suddenly renews its bite, Tasting some richness caked i' the core o' the tree,-- Pine, with a blood that 's oil,--and triumphs up Pillar-wise to the sky and saves the world: So, in a spasm and splendor of resolve, All at once did the God surmount the man.

"O much-enduring heart and hand of mine! Now show what sort of son she bore to Zeus, That daughter of Elektruon, Tiruns' child, Alkmené! for that son must needs save now The just-dead lady: ay, establish here I' the house again Alkestis, bring about Comfort and succor to Admetos so! I will go lie in wait for Death, black-stoled King of the corpses! I shall find him, sure, Drinking, beside the tomb, o' the sacrifice: And if I lie in ambuscade, and leap Out of my lair, and seize--encircle him Till one hand join the other round about-- There lives not who shall pull him out from me, Rib-mauled, before he let the woman go! But even say I miss the booty,--say, Death comes not to the boltered blood,--why then, Down go I, to the unsunned dwelling-place Of Koré and the king there,--make demand, Confident I shall bring Alkestis back, So as to put her in the hands of him My host, that housed me, never drove me off: Though stricken with sore sorrow, hid the stroke, Being a noble heart and honoring me! Who of Thessalians, more than this man, loves The stranger? Who, that now inhabits Greece? Wherefore he shall not say the man was vile Whom he befriended,--native noble heart!"

So, one look upward, as if Zeus might laugh Approval of his human progeny,-- One summons of the whole magnific frame, Each sinew to its service,--up he caught, And over shoulder cast, the lion-shag, Let the club go,--for had he not those hands? And so went striding off, on that straight way Leads to Larissa and the suburb tomb. Gladness be with thee, Helper of our world! I think this is the authentic sign and seal Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad, And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts Into a rage to suffer for mankind, And recommence at sorrow: drops like seed After the blossom, ultimate of all. Say, does the seed scorn earth and seek the sun? Surely it has no other end and aim Than to drop, once more die into the ground, Taste cold and darkness and oblivion there: And thence rise, tree-like grow through pain to joy, More joy and most joy,--do man good again.

So, to the struggle off strode Herakles. When silence closed behind the lion-garb, Back came our dull fact settling in its place, Though heartiness and passion half-dispersed The inevitable fate. And presently In came the mourners from the funeral, One after one, until we hoped the last Would be Alkestis and so end our dream. Could they have really left Alkestis lone I' the wayside sepulchre! Home, all save she! And when Admetos felt that it was so, By the stand-still: when he lifted head and face From the two hiding hands and peplos' fold, And looked forth, knew the palace, knew the hills, Knew the plains, knew the friendly frequence there, And no Alkestis any more again, Why, the whole woe billow-like broke on him.

"O hateful entry, hateful countenance O' the widowed halls!"--he moaned. "What was to be? Go there? Stay here? Speak, not speak? All was now Mad and impossible alike; one way And only one was sane and safe--to die: Now he was made aware how dear is death, How lovable the dead are, how the heart Yearns in us to go hide where they repose, When we find sunbeams do no good to see, Nor earth rests rightly where our footsteps fall. His wife had been to him the very pledge, Sun should be sun, earth--earth; the pledge was robbed, Pact broken, and the world was left no world." He stared at the impossible, mad life: Stood, while they urged "Advance--advance! Go deep Into the utter dark, thy palace-core!" They tried what they called comfort, "touched the quick Of the ulceration in his soul," he said, With memories,--"once thy joy was thus and thus!" True comfort were to let him fling himself Into the hollow grave o' the tomb, and so Let him lie dead along with all he loved.

One bade him note that his own family Boasted a certain father whose sole son, Worthy bewailment, died: and yet the sire Bore stoutly up against the blow and lived; For all that he was childless now, and prone Already to gray hairs, far on in life. Could such a good example miss effect? Why fix foot, stand so, staring at the house, Why not go in, as that wise kinsman would?

"Oh that arrangement of the house I know! How can I enter, how inhabit thee Now that one cast of fortune changes all? Oh me, for much divides the then from now! Then--with those pine-tree torches, Pelian pomp And marriage-hymns, I entered, holding high The hand of my dear wife; while many-voiced The revelry that followed me and her That 's dead now,--friends felicitating both, As who were lofty-lineaged, each of us Born of the best, two wedded and made one; Now--wail is wedding-chant's antagonist, And, for white peplos, stoles in sable state Herald my way to the deserted couch!"

The one word more they ventured was, "This grief Befell thee witless of what sorrow means, Close after prosperous fortune: but, reflect! Thou hast saved soul and body. Dead, thy wife-- Living, the love she left. What 's novel here? Many the man, from whom Death long ago Loosed the life-partner!" Then Admetos spoke: Turned on the comfort, with no tears, this time. He was beginning to be like his wife. I told you of that pressure to the point, Word slow pursuing word in monotone, Alkestis spoke with; so Admetos, now, Solemnly bore the burden of the truth. And as the voice of him grew, gathered strength, And groaned on, and persisted to the end, We felt how deep had been descent in grief, And with what change he came up now to light, And left behind such littleness as tears.

"Friends, I account the fortune of my wife Happier than mine, though it seem otherwise: For, her indeed no grief will ever touch, And she from many a labor pauses now, Renowned one! Whereas I, who ought not live, But do live, by evading destiny, Sad life am I to lead, I learn at last! For how shall I bear going in-doors here? Accosting whom? By whom saluted back, Shall I have joyous entry? Whither turn? Inside, the solitude will drive me forth, When I behold the empty bed--my wife's-- The seat she used to sit upon, the floor Unsprinkled as when dwellers loved the cool, The children that will clasp my knees about, Cry for their mother back: these servants too Moaning for what a guardian they have lost! Inside my house such circumstance awaits, Outside,--Thessalian people's marriage-feasts And gatherings for talk will harass me, With overflow of women everywhere; It is impossible I look on them-- Familiars of my wife and just her age! And then, whoever is a foe of mine, And lights on me--why, this will be his word-- 'See there! alive ignobly, there he skulks That played the dastard when it came to die, And, giving her he wedded, in exchange, Kept himself out of Hades safe and sound, The coward! Do you call that creature--man? He hates his parents for declining death, Just as if he himself would gladly die!' This sort of reputation shall I have, Beside the other ills enough in store. Ill-famed, ill-faring,--what advantage, friends, Do you perceive I gain by life for death?"

That was the truth. Vexed waters sank to smooth: 'T was only when the last of bubbles broke, The latest circlet widened all away And left a placid level, that up swam To the surface the drowned truth, in dreadful change. So, through the quiet and submission,--ay, Spite of some strong words--(for you miss the tone) The grief was getting to be infinite-- Grief, friends fell back before. Their office shrank To that old solace of humanity!-- "Being born mortal, bear grief! Why born else?" And they could only meditate anew.

"They, too, upborne by airy help of song. And haply science, which can find the stars, Had searched the heights: had sounded depths as well By catching much at books where logic lurked, Yet nowhere found they aught could overcome Necessity; not any medicine served, Which Thrakian tablets treasure, Orphic voice Wrote itself down upon: nor remedy Which Phoibos gave to the Asklepiadai; Cutting the roots of many a virtuous herb To solace overburdened mortals. None! Of this sole goddess, never may we go To altar nor to image: sacrifice She hears not. All to pray for is--'Approach! But, oh, no harder on me, awful one, Than heretofore! Let life endure thee still! For, whatsoe'er Zeus' nod decree, that same In concert with thee hath accomplishment. Iron, the very stuff o' the Chaluboi, Thou, by sheer strength, dost conquer and subdue; Nor, of that harsh abrupt resolve of thine, Any relenting is there!" "O my king! Thee also, in the shackles of those hands, Not to be shunned, the Goddess grasped! Yet, bear! Since never wilt thou lead from underground The dead ones, wail thy worst! If mortals die,-- The very children of immortals, too, Dropped 'mid our darkness, these decay as sure! Dear indeed was she while among us: dear, Now she is dead, must she forever be: Thy portion was to clasp, within thy couch, The noblest of all women as a wife. Nor be the tomb of her supposed some heap That hides mortality: but like the Gods Honored, a veneration to a world Of wanderers! Oft the wanderer, struck thereby, Who else had sailed past in his merchant-ship, Ay, he shall leave ship, land, long wind his way Up to the mountain-summit, till there break Speech forth, 'So, this was she, then, died of old To save her husband! now, a deity She bends above us. Hail, benignant one! Give good!' Such voices so will supplicate. But--can it be? Alkmené's offspring comes, Admetos!--to thy house advances here!"

I doubt not, they supposed him decently Dead somewhere in that winter world of Thrace-- Vanquished by one o' the Bistones, or else Victim to some mad steed's voracity-- For did not friends prognosticate as much? It were a new example to the point, That "children of immortals, dropped by stealth Into our darkness, die as sure as we!" A case to quote and comfort people with: But, as for lamentation, ai and pheu, Right-minded subjects kept them for their lord.

Ay, he it was advancing! In he strode, And took his stand before Admetos,--turned Now by despair to such a quietude, He neither raised his face nor spoke, this time, The while his friend surveyed him steadily. That friend looked rough with fighting: had he strained Worst brute to breast was ever strangled yet? Somehow, a victory--for there stood the strength, Happy, as always; something grave, perhaps The great vein-cordage on the fret-worked front, Black-swollen, beaded yet with battle-dew The yellow hair o' the hero!--his big frame A-quiver with each muscle sinking back Into the sleepy smooth it leaped from late. Under the great guard of one arm, there leant A shrouded something, live and woman-like, Propped by the heartbeats 'neath the lion-coat. When he had finished his survey, it seemed, The heavings of the heart began subside, The helpful breath returned, and last the smile Shone out, all Herakles was back again, As the words followed the saluting hand.

"To friendly man, behooves we freely speak, Admetos!--nor keep buried, deep in breast, Blame we leave silent. I assuredly Judged myself proper, if I should approach By accident calamities of thine, To be demonstrably thy friend: but thou Told'st me not of the corpse then claiming care, That was thy wife's, but didst instal me guest I' the house here, as though busied with a grief Indeed, but then, mere grief beyond thy gate: And so, I crowned my head, and to the Gods Poured my libations in thy dwelling-place, With such misfortune round me. And I blame-- Certainly blame thee, having suffered thus! But still I would not pain thee, pained enough: So let it pass! Wherefore I seek thee now, Having turned back again though onward bound, That I will tell thee. Take and keep for me This woman, till I come thy way again, Driving before me, having killed the king O' the Bistones, that drove of Thrakian steeds; In such case, give the woman back to me! But should I fare,--as fare I fain would not, Seeing I hope to prosper and return,-- Then, I bequeath her as thy household slave. She came into my hands with good hard toil! For, what find I, when started on my course, But certain people, a whole country-side, Holding a wrestling-bout? as good to me As a new labor: whence I took, and here Come keeping with me, this, the victor's prize. For, such as conquered in the easy work, Gained horses which they drove away: and such As conquered in the harder,--those who boxed And wrestled,--cattle; and, to crown the prize, A woman followed. Chancing as I did, Base were it to forego this fame and gain! Well, as I said, I trust her to thy care: No woman I have kidnapped, understand! But good hard toil has done it: here I come! Some day, who knows? even thou wilt praise the feat!"

Admetos raised his face and eyed the pair: Then, hollowly and with submission, spoke, And spoke again, and spoke time after time, When he perceived the silence of his friend Would not be broken by consenting word. As a tired slave goes adding stone to stone Until he stop some current that molests, So poor Admetos piled up argument Vainly against the purpose all too plain In that great brow acquainted with command.

"Nowise dishonoring, nor amid my foes Ranking thee, did I hide my wife's ill fate; But it were grief superimposed on grief, Shouldst thou have hastened to another home. My own woe was enough for me to weep! But, for this woman,--if it so may be,-- Bid some Thessalian,--I entreat thee, king!-- Keep her,--who has not suffered like myself! Many of the Pheraioi welcome thee. Be no reminder to me of my ills! I could not, if I saw her come to live, Restrain the tear! Inflict on me, diseased, No new disease: woe bends me down enough! Then, where could she be sheltered in my house, Female and young too? For that she is young, The vesture and adornment prove. Reflect! Should such an one inhabit the same roof With men? And how, mixed up, a girl, with youths, Shall she keep pure, in that case? No light task To curb the May-day youngster, Herakles! I only speak because of care for thee. Or must I, in avoidance of such harm, Make her to enter, lead her life within The chamber of the dead one, all apart? How shall I introduce this other, couch This where Alkestis lay? A double blame I apprehend: first, from the citizens-- Lest some tongue of them taunt that I betray My benefactress, fall into the snare Of a new fresh face: then, the dead one's self,-- Will she not blame me likewise? Worthy, sure, Of worship from me! circumspect my ways, And jealous of a fault, are bound to be. But thou,--O woman, whosoe'er thou art,-- Know, thou hast all the form, art like as like Alkestis, in the bodily shape! Ah me! Take--by the Gods--this woman from my sight, Lest thou undo me, the undone before! Since I seem--seeing her--as if I saw My own wife! And confusions cloud my heart, And from my eyes the springs break forth! Ah me Unhappy--how I taste for the first time My misery in all its bitterness!"

Whereat the friends conferred: "The chance, in truth, Was an untoward one--none said otherwise. Still, what a God comes giving, good or bad, That, one should take and bear with. Take her, then!"

Herakles,--not unfastening his hold On that same misery, beyond mistake Hoarse in the words, convulsive in the face,-- "I would that I had such a power," said he, "As to lead up into the light again Thy very wife, and grant thee such a grace!"

"Well do I know thou wouldst: but where the hope? There is no bringing back the dead to light."

"Be not extravagant in grief, no less! Bear it, by augury of better things!"

"'T is easier to advise 'bear up,' than bear!"

"But how carve way i' the life that lies before, If bent on groaning ever for the past?"

"I myself know that: but a certain love Allures me to the choice I shall not change."

"Ay, but, still loving dead ones, still makes weep."

"And let it be so! She has ruined me, And still more than I say: that answers all."

"Oh, thou hast lost a brave wife: who disputes?"

"So brave a one--that he whom thou behold'st Will never more enjoy his life again!"

"Time will assuage! The evil yet is young!"

"Time, thou mayst say, will; if time mean--to die."

"A wife--the longing for new marriage-joys Will stop thy sorrow!" "Hush, friend,--hold thy peace! What hast thou said! I could not credit ear!"

"How then? Thou wilt not marry, then, but keep A widowed couch?" "There is not any one Of womankind shall couch with whom thou seest!"

"Dost think to profit thus in any way The dead one?" "Her, wherever she abide, My duty is to honor." "And I praise-- Indeed I praise thee! Still, thou hast to pay The price of it, in being held a fool!"

"Fool call me--only one name call me not! Bridegroom!" "No: it was praise, I portioned thee, Of being good true husband to thy wife!"

"When I betray her, though she is no more, May I die!" And the thing he said was true: For out of Herakles a great glow broke. There stood a victor worthy of a prize: The violet-crown that-withers on the brow Of the half-hearted claimant. Oh, he knew The signs of battle hard fought and well won, This queller of the monsters!--knew his friend Planted firm foot, now, on the loathly thing That was Admetos late! "would die," he knew, Ere let the reptile raise its crest again. If that was truth, why try the true friend more?

"Then, since thou canst be faithful to the death, Take, deep into thy house, my dame!" smiled he.

"Not so!--I pray, by thy Progenitor!"

"Thou wilt mistake in disobeying me!"

"Obeying thee, I have to break my heart!"

"Obey me! Who knows but the favor done May fall into its place as duty too?"

So, he was humble, would decline no more Bearing a burden: he just sighed, "Alas! Would thou hadst never brought this prize from game!"

"Yet, when I conquered there, thou conqueredst!"

"All excellently urged! Yet--spite of all, Bear with me! let the woman go away!"

"She shall go, if needs must: but ere she go, See if there _is_ need!" "Need there is! At least, Except I make thee angry with me, so!"

"But I persist, because I have my spice Of intuition likewise: take the dame!"

"Be thou the victor, then! But certainly Thou dost thy friend no pleasure in the act!"

"Oh, time will come when thou shalt praise me! Now-- Only obey!" "Then, servants, since my house Must needs receive this woman, take her there!"

"I shall not trust this woman to the care Of servants." "Why, conduct her in, thyself, If that seem preferable!" "I prefer, With thy good leave, to place her in thy hands!"

"I would not touch her! Entry to the house-- That, I concede thee." "To thy sole right hand I mean to trust her!" "King! Thou wrenchest this Out of me by main force, if I submit!"

"Courage, friend! Come, stretch hand forth: Good! Now touch The stranger-woman!" "There! A hand I stretch-- As though it meant to cut off Gorgon's head!"

"Hast hold of her?" "Fast hold." "Why, then, hold fast And have her! and, one day, asseverate Thou wilt, I think, thy friend, the son of Zeus, He was the gentle guest to entertain! Look at her! See if she, in any way, Present thee with resemblance of thy wife!"

Ah, but the tears come, find the words at fault! There is no telling how the hero twitched The veil off: and there stood, with such fixed eyes And such slow smile, Alkestis' silent self! It was the crowning grace of that great heart, To keep back joy: procrastinate the truth Until the wife, who had made proof and found The husband wanting, might essay once more, Hear, see, and feel him renovated now-- Able to do, now, all herself had done, Risen to the height of her: so, hand in hand, The two might go together, live and die.

Beside, when he found speech, you guess the speech. He could not think he saw his wife again: It was some mocking God that used the bliss To make him mad! Till Herakles must help: Assure him that no spectre mocked at all; He was embracing whom he buried once. Still,--did he touch, might he address the true,-- True eye, true body of the true live wife?

And Herakles said, smiling, "All was truth. Spectre? Admetos had not made his guest One who played ghost-invoker, or such cheat! Oh, he might speak and have response, in time! All heart could wish was gained now--life for death: Only, the rapture must not grow immense: Take care, nor wake the envy of the Gods!"

"O thou, of greatest Zeus true son,"--so spoke Admetos when the closing word must come, "Go ever in a glory of success, And save, that sire, his offspring to the end! For thou hast--only thou--raised me and mine Up again to this light and life!" Then asked Tremblingly, how was trod the perilous path Out of the dark into the light and life: How it had happened with Alkestis there.

And Herakles said little, but enough-- How he engaged in combat with that king O' the dæmons: how the field of contest lay By the tomb's self: how he sprang from ambuscade, Captured Death, caught him in that pair of hands.

But all the time, Alkestis moved not once Out of the set gaze and the silent smile; And a cold fear ran through Admetos' frame: "Why does she stand and front me, silent thus?"

Herakles solemnly replied, "Not yet Is it allowable thou hear the things She has to tell thee; let evanish quite That consecration to the lower Gods, And on our upper world the third day rise! Lead her in, meanwhile; good and true thou art, Good, true, remain thou! Practise piety To stranger-guests the old way! So, farewell! Since forth I fare, fulfil my urgent task Set by the king, the son of Sthenelos."

Fain would Admetos keep that splendid smile Ever to light him. "Stay with us, thou heart! Remain our house-friend!"

"At some other day! Now, of necessity, I haste!" smiled he.

"But mayst thou prosper, go forth on a foot Sure to return! Through all the tetrarchy, Command my subjects that they institute Thanksgiving-dances for the glad event, And bid each altar smoke with sacrifice! For we are minded to begin a fresh Existence, better than the life before; Seeing I own myself supremely blest."

Whereupon all the friendly moralists Drew this conclusion: chirped, each beard to each: "Manifold are thy shapings, Providence! Many a hopeless matter Gods arrange. What we expected never came to pass: What we did not expect Gods brought to bear; So have things gone, this whole experience through!"

* * * * *

Ah, but if you had seen the play itself! They say, my poet failed to get the prize: Sophokles got the prize,--great name! They say, Sophokles also means to make a piece, Model a new Admetos, a new wife: Success to him! One thing has many sides. The great name! But no good supplants a good, Nor beauty undoes beauty. Sophokles Will carve and carry a fresh cup, brimful Of beauty and good, firm to the altar-foot, And glorify the Dionusiac shrine: Not clash against this crater in the place Where the God put it when his mouth had drained, To the last dregs, libation lifeblood-like, And praised Euripides forevermore-- _The Human with his droppings of warm tears_.

Still, since one thing may have so many sides, I think I see how,--far from Sophokles,-- You, I, or any one might mould a new Admetos, new Alkestis. Ah, that brave Bounty of poets, the one royal race That ever was, or will be, in this world! They give no gift that hounds itself and ends I' the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds I' the heart and soul o' the taker, so transmutes The man who only was a man before, That he grows godlike in his turn, can give-- He also: share the poets' privilege, Bring forth new good, new beauty, from the old. As though the cup that gave the wine, gave, too, The God's prolific giver of the grape, That vine, was wont to find out, fawn around His footstep, springing still to bless the dearth, At bidding of a Mainad. So with me: For I have drunk this poem, quenched my thirst, Satisfied heart and soul--yet more remains! Could we too make a poem? Try at least, Inside the head, what shape the rose-mists take!

When God Apollon took, for punishment, A mortal form and sold himself a slave To King Admetos till a term should end,-- Not only did he make, in servitude, Such music, while he fed the flocks and herds, As saved the pasturage from wrong or fright, Curing rough creatures of ungentleness: Much more did that melodious wisdom work Within the heart o' the master: there, ran wild Many a lust and greed that grow to strength By preying on the native pity and care, Would else, all undisturbed, possess the land.

And these the God so tamed, with golden tongue, That, in the plenitude of youth and power, Admetos vowed himself to rule thenceforth In Pherai solely for his people's sake, Subduing to such end each lust and greed That dominates the natural charity.

And so the struggle ended. Right ruled might: And soft yet brave, and good yet wise, the man Stood up to be a monarch; having learned The worth of life, life's worth would he bestow On all whose lot was cast, to live or die, As he determined for the multitude. So stands a statue: pedestalled sublime, Only that it may wave the thunder off, And ward, from winds that vex, a world below.

And then,--as if a whisper found its way E'en to the sense o' the marble,--"Vain thy vow! The royalty of its resolve, that head Shall hide within the dust ere day be done: That arm, its outstretch of beneficence, Shall have a speedy ending on the earth: Lie patient, prone, while light some cricket leaps And takes possession of the masterpiece, To sit, sing louder as more near the sun. For why? A flaw was in the pedestal; Who knows? A worm's work! Sapped, the certain fate O' the statue is to fall, and thine to die!"

Whereat the monarch, calm, addressed himself To die, but bitterly the soul outbroke-- "O prodigality of life, blind waste I' the world, of power profuse without the will To make life do its work, deserve its day! My ancestors pursued their pleasure, poured The blood o' the people out in idle war, Or took occasion of some weary peace To hid men dig down deep or build up high, Spend bone and marrow that the king might feast Entrenched and buttressed from the vulgar gaze. Yet they all lived, nay, lingered to old age: As though Zeus loved that they should laugh to scorn The vanity of seeking other ends In rule, than just the ruler's pastime. They Lived; I must die." And, as some long last moan Of a minor suddenly is propped beneath By note which, new-struck, turns the wail that was Into a wonder and a triumph, so Began Alkestis: "Nay, thou art to live! The glory that, in the disguise of flesh, Was helpful to our house,--he prophesied The coming fate: whereon, I pleaded sore That he,--I guessed a God, who to his couch Amid the clouds must go and come again, While we were darkling,--since he loved us both, He should permit thee, at whatever price, To live and carry out to heart's content Soul's purpose, turn each thought to very deed, Nor let Zeus lose the monarch meant in thee.

"To which Apollon, with a sunset smile, Sadly--'and so should mortals arbitrate! It were unseemly if they aped us Gods, And, mindful of our chain of consequence, Lost care of the immediate earthly link: Forwent the comfort of life's little hour, In prospect of some cold abysmal blank Alien eternity,--unlike the time They know, and understand to practise with,-- No,--our eternity--no heart's blood, bright And warm outpoured in its behoof, would tinge Never so palely, warm a whit the more: Whereas retained and treasured--left to beat Joyously on, a life's length, in the breast O' the loved and loving--it would throb itself Through, and suffuse the earthly tenement, Transform it, even as your mansion here Is love-transformed into a temple-home Where I, a God, forget the Olumpian glow, I' the feel of human richness like the rose: Your hopes and fears, so blind and yet so sweet With death about them. Therefore, well in thee To look, not on eternity, but time: To apprehend that, should Admetos die, All, we Gods purposed in him, dies as sure: That, life's link snapping, all our chain is lost. And yet a mortal glance might pierce, methinks, Deeper into the seeming dark of things, And learn, no fruit, man's life can bear, will fade: Learn, if Admetos die now, so much more Will pity for the frailness found in flesh, Will terror at the earthly chance and change Frustrating wisest scheme of noblest soul, Will these go wake the seeds of good asleep Throughout the world: as oft a rough wind sheds The unripe promise of some field-flower,--true! But loosens too the level, and lets breathe A thousand captives for the year to come. Nevertheless, obtain thy prayer, stay fate! Admetos lives--if thou wilt die for him!'

"So was the pact concluded that I die, And thou live on, live for thyself, for me, For all the world. Embrace and bid me hail, Husband, because I have the victory-- Am, heart, soul, head to foot, one happiness!"

Whereto Admetos, in a passionate cry: "Never, by that true word Apollon spoke! All the unwise wish is unwished, O wife! Let purposes of Zeus fulfil themselves, If not through me, then through some other man! Still, in myself he had a purpose too, Inalienably mine, to end with me: This purpose--that, throughout my earthly life, Mine should be mingled and made up with thine,-- And we two prove one force and play one part And do one thing. Since death divides the pair, 'T is well that I depart and thou remain Who wast to me as spirit is to flesh: Let the flesh perish, be perceived no more, So thou, the spirit that informed the flesh, Bend yet awhile, a very flame above The rift I drop into the darkness by,-- And bid remember, flesh and spirit once Worked in the world, one body, for man's sake. Never be that abominable show Of passive death without a quickening life-- Admetos only, no Alkestis now!"

Then she: "O thou Admetos, must the pile Of truth on truth, which needs but one truth more To tower up in completeness, trophy-like, Emprise of man, and triumph of the world, Must it go ever to the ground again Because of some faint heart or faltering hand, Which we, that breathless world about the base, Trusted should carry safe to altitude, Superimpose o' the summit, our supreme Achievement, our victorious coping-stone? Shall thine, Beloved, prove the hand and heart That fail again, flinch backward at the truth Would cap and crown the structure this last time,-- Precipitate our monumental hope And strew the earth ignobly yet once more? See how, truth piled on truth, the structure wants, Waits justs the crowning truth I claim of thee! Wouldst thou, for any joy to be enjoyed, For any sorrow that thou mightst escape, Unwill thy will to reign a righteous king? Nowise! And were there two lots, death and life,-- Life, wherein good resolve should go to air, Death, whereby finest fancy grew plain fact I' the reign of thy survivor,--life or death? Certainly death, thou choosest. Here stand I The wedded, the beloved one: hadst thou loved Her who less worthily could estimate Both life and death than thou? Not so should say Admetos, whom Apollon made come court Alkestis in a car, submissive brutes Of blood were yoked to, symbolizing soul Must dominate unruly sense in man. Then, shall Admetos and Alkestis see Good alike, and alike choose, each for each, Good,--and yet, each for other, at the last, Choose evil? What? thou soundest in my soul To depths below the deepest, reachest good In evil, that makes evil good again, And so allottest to me that I live And not die--letting die, not thee alone, But all true life that lived in both of us? Look at me once ere thou decree the lot!"

Therewith her whole soul entered into his, He looked the look back, and Alkestis died.

And even while it lay, i' the look of him, Dead, the dimmed body, bright Alkestis' soul Had penetrated through the populace Of ghosts, was got to Koré,--throned and crowned The pensive queen o' the twilight, where she dwells Forever in a muse, but half away From flowery earth she lost and hankers for,-- And there demanded to become a ghost Before the time. Whereat the softened eyes Of the lost maidenhood that lingered still Straying among the flowers in Sicily, Sudden was startled back to Hades' throne By that demand: broke through humanity Into the orbed omniscience of a God, Searched at a glance Alkestis to the soul, And said--while a long slow sigh lost itself I' the hard and hollow passage of a laugh:

"Hence, thou deceiver! This is not to die, If, by the very death which mocks me now, The life, that 's left behind and past my power, Is formidably doubled. Say, there fight Two athletes, side by side, each athlete armed With only half the weapons, and no more, Adequate to a contest with their foe: If one of these should fling helm, sword and shield To fellow--shieldless, swordless, helmless late-- And so leap naked o'er the barrier, leave A combatant equipped from head to heel, Yet cry to the other side, 'Receive a friend Who fights no longer!' 'Back, friend, to the fray!' Would be the prompt rebuff; I echo it. Two souls in one were formidable odds: Admetos must not be himself and thou!"

And so, before the embrace relaxed a whit, The lost eyes opened, still beneath the look; And lo, Alkestis was alive again, And of Admetos' rapture who shall speak?

So, the two lived together long and well. But never could I learn, by word of scribe Or voice of poet, rumor wafts our way, That--of the scheme of rule in righteousness, The bringing back again the Golden Age, Which, rather than renounce, our pair would die-- That ever one faint particle came true, With both alive to bring it to effect: Such is the envy Gods still bear mankind!

So might our version of the story prove, And no Euripidean pathos plague Too much my critic-friend of Syracuse.

"Besides your poem failed to get the prize: (That is, the first prize: second prize is none.) Sophokles got it!" Honor the great name! All cannot love two great names; yet some do: I know the poetess who graved in gold, Among her glories that shall never fade, This style and title for Euripides, _The Human with his droppings of warm tears_.

I know, too, a great Kaunian painter, strong As Herakles, though rosy with a robe Of grace that softens down the sinewy strength: And he has made a picture of it all. There lies Alkestis dead, beneath the sun, She longed to look her last upon, beside The sea, which somehow tempts the life in us To come trip over its white waste of waves, And try escape from earth, and fleet as free. Behind the body, I suppose there bends Old Pheres in his hoary impotence; And women-wailers in a corner crouch --Four, beautiful as you four--yes, indeed!-- Close, each to other, agonizing all, As fastened, in fear's rhythmic sympathy, To two contending opposite. There strains The might o' the hero 'gainst his more than match, --Death, dreadful not in thew and bone, but like The envenomed substance that exudes some dew Whereby the merely honest flesh and blood Will fester up and run to ruin straight, Ere they can close with, clasp and overcome The poisonous impalpability That simulates a form beneath the flow Of those gray garments; I pronounce that piece Worthy to set up in our Poikilé!

And all came,--glory of the golden verse, And passion of the picture, and that fine Frank outgush of the human gratitude Which saved our ship and me, in Syracuse,-- Ay, and the tear or two which slipt perhaps Away from you, friends, while I told my tale, --It all came of this play that gained no prize! Why crown whom Zeus has crowned in soul before?

ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY

INCLUDING A TRANSCRIPT FROM EURIPIDES, BEING

THE LAST ADVENTURE OF BALAUSTION

οὐκ ἔσθω κενέβρει'· ὁπόταν δὲ θύῃς τι, κάλει με.

"I eat no carrion; when you sacrifice Some cleanly creature--call me for a slice!"

Wind, wave, and bark, bear Euthukles and me, Balaustion, from--not sorrow but despair, Not memory but the present and its pang! Athenai, live thou hearted in my heart: Never, while I live, may I see thee more, Never again may these repugnant orbs Ache themselves blind before the hideous pomp, The ghastly mirth which mocked thine overthrow --Death's entry, Haides' outrage! Doomed to die,-- Fire should have flung a passion of embrace About thee till, resplendently inarmed, (Temple by temple folded to his breast, All thy white wonder fainting out in ash,) Lightly some vaporous sigh of soul escaped And so the Immortals bade Athenai back! Or earth might sunder and absorb thee, save, Buried below Olumpos and its gods, Akropolis to dominate her realm For Koré, and console the ghosts; or, sea, What if thy watery plural vastitude, Rolling unanimous advance, had rushed, Might upon might, a moment,--stood, one stare, Sea-face to city-face, thy glaucous wave Glassing that marbled last magnificence,-- Till fate's pale tremulous foam-flower tipped the gray, And when wave broke and overswarmed, and, sucked To bounds back, multitudinously ceased, Let land again breathe unconfused with sea, Attiké was, Athenai was not now!

Such end I could have borne, for I had shared. But this which, glanced at, aches within my orbs To blinding,--bear me thence, bark, wind and wave! Me, Euthukles, and, hearted in each heart, Athenai, undisgraced as Pallas' self, Bear to my birthplace, Helios' island-bride, Zeus' darling: thither speed us, homeward-bound, Wafted already twelve hours' sail away From horror, nearer by one sunset Rhodes!

Why should despair be? Since, distinct above Man's wickedness and folly, flies the wind And floats the cloud, free transport for our soul Out of its fleshly durance dim and low,-- Since disembodied soul anticipates (Thought-borne as now in rapturous unrestraint) Above all crowding; crystal silentness, Above all noise, a silver solitude:-- Surely, where thought so bears soul, soul in time May permanently bide, "assert the wise," There live in peace, there work in hope once more-- Oh, nothing doubt, Philemon! Greed and strife, Hatred and cark and care, what place have they In yon blue liberality of heaven? How the sea helps! How rose-smit earth will rise Breast-high thence, some bright morning, and be Rhodes! Heaven, earth and sea, my warrant--in their name, Believe--o'er falsehood, truth is surely sphered, O'er ugliness beams beauty, o'er this world Extends that realm where "as the wise assert," Philemon, thou shalt see Euripides Clearer than mortal sense perceived the man!

A sunset nearer Rhodes, by twelve hours' sweep Of surge secured from horror? Rather say, Quieted out of weakness into strength. I dare invite, survey the scene my sense Staggered to apprehend: for, disenvolved From the mere outside anguish and contempt, Slowly a justice centred in a doom Reveals itself. Ay, pride succumbed to pride, Oppression met the oppressor and was matched. Athenai's vaunt braved Sparté's violence Till, in the shock, prone fell Peiraios, low Rampart and bulwark lay, as--timing stroke Of hammer, axe, and beam hoist, poised and swung-- The very flute-girls blew their laughing best, In dance about the conqueror while he bade Music and merriment help enginery Batter down, break to pieces all the trust Of citizens once, slaves now. See what walls Play substitute for the long double range Themistoklean, heralding a guest From harbor on to citadel! Each side Their senseless walls demolished stone by stone, See,--outer wall as stonelike, heads and hearts,-- Athenai's terror-stricken populace! Prattlers, tongue-tied in crouching abjectness,-- Braggarts, who wring hands wont to flourish swords-- Sophist and rhetorician, demagogue, (Argument dumb, authority a jest,) Dikast and heliast, pleader, litigant, Quack-priest, sham-prophecy-retailer, scout O' the customs, sycophant, whate'er the style, Altar-scrap-snatcher, pimp and parasite,-- Rivalities at truce now each with each, Stupefied mud-banks,--such an use they serve! While the one order which performs exact To promise, functions faithful last as first, What is it but the city's lyric troop, Chantress and psaltress, flute-girl, dancing-girl? Athenai's harlotry takes laughing care Their patron miss no pipings, late she loved, But deathward tread at least the kordax-step.

Die then, who pulled such glory on your heads! There let it grind to powder! Perikles! The living are the dead now: death be life! Why should the sunset yonder waste its wealth? Prove thee Olumpian! If my heart supply Inviolate the structure,--true to type, Build me some spirit-place no flesh shall find, As Pheidias may inspire thee; slab on slab, Renew Athenai, quarry out the cloud, Convert to gold yon west extravagance! 'Neath Propulaia, from Akropolis By vapory grade and grade, gold all the way, Step to thy snow-Pnux, mount thy Bema-cloud, Thunder and lighten thence a Hellas through That shall be better and more beautiful And too august for Sparté's foot to spurn! Chasmed in the crag, again our Theatre Predominates, one purple: Staghunt-month, Brings it not Dionusia? Hail, the Three! Aischulos, Sophokles, Euripides Compete, gain prize or lose prize, godlike still. Nay, lest they lack the old god-exercise-- Their noble want the unworthy,--as of old, (How otherwise should patience crown their might?) What if each find his ape promoted man, His censor raised for antic service still? Some new Hermippos to pelt Perikles, Kratinos to swear Pheidias robbed a shrine, Eruxis--I suspect, Euripides, No brow will ache because with mop and mow He gibes my poet! There 's a dog-faced dwarf That gets to godship somehow, yet retains His apehood in the Egyptian hierarchy, More decent, indecorous just enough: Why should not dog-ape, graced in due degree, Grow Momos as thou Zeus? Or didst thou sigh Rightly with thy Makaria? "After life, Better no sentiency than turbulence; Death cures the low contention." Be it so! Yet progress means contention, to my mind.

Euthukles, who, except for love that speaks, Art silent by my side while words of mine Provoke that foe from which escape is vain Henceforward, wake Athenai's fate and fall,-- Memories asleep as, at the altar-foot, Those Furies in the Oresteian song,-- Do I amiss, who wanting strength use craft, Advance upon the foe I cannot fly, Nor feign a snake is dormant though it gnaw? That fate and fall, once bedded in our brain, Roots itself past upwrenching; but coaxed forth, Encouraged out to practise fork and fang,-- Perhaps, when satiate with prompt sustenance, It may pine, likelier die than if left swell In peace by our pretension to ignore, Or pricked to threefold fury, should our stamp Bruise and not brain the pest.

A middle course! What hinders that we treat this tragic theme As the Three taught when either woke some woe, --How Klutaimnestra hated, what the pride Of Iokasté, why Medeia clove Nature asunder. Small rebuked by large, We felt our puny hates refine to air, Our poor prides sink, prevent the humbling hand, Our petty passions purify their tide. So, Euthukles, permit the tragedy To re-enact itself, this voyage through, Till sunsets end and sunrise brighten Rhodes! Majestic on the stage of memory, Peplosed and kothorned, let Athenai fall Once more, nay, oft again till life conclude, Lent for the lesson: Choros, I and thou! What else in life seems piteous any more After such pity, or proves terrible Beside such terror?

Still--since Phrunichos Offended, by too premature a touch Of that Milesian smart-place freshly frayed-- (Ah, my poor people, whose prompt remedy Was--fine the poet, not reform thyself!) Beware precipitate approach! Rehearse Rather the prologue, well a year away, Than the main misery, a sunset old. What else but fitting prologue to the piece Style an adventure, stranger than my first By so much as the issue it enwombed Lurked big beyond Balaustion's littleness? Second supreme adventure! O that Spring, That eve I told the earlier to my friends! Where are the four now, with each red-ripe mouth Crumpled so close, no quickest breath it fetched Could disengage the lip-flower furled to bud For fear Admetos--shivering head and foot, As with sick soul and blind averted face He trusted hand forth to obey his friend-- Should find no wife in her cold hand's response, Nor see the disenshrouded statue start. Alkestis, live the life and love the love! I wonder, does the streamlet ripple still, Out-smoothing galingale and watermint Its mat-floor? while at brim, 'twixt sedge and sedge, What bubblings past Baccheion, broadened much, Pricked by the reed and fretted by the fly, Oared by the boatman-spider's pair of arms! Lenaia was a gladsome month ago-- Euripides had taught "Andromedé" Next month, would teach "Kresphontes"--which same month Some one from Phokis, who companioned me Since all that happened on those temple-steps, Would marry me and turn Athenian too. Now! if next year the masters let the slaves Do Bacchic service and restore mankind That trilogy whereof, 'tis noised, one play Presents the Bacchai,--no Euripides Will teach the choros, nor shall we be tinged By any such grand sunset of his soul, Exiles from dead Athenai,--not the live That's in the cloud there with the new-born star!

Speak to the infinite intelligence, Sing to the everlasting sympathy! Winds belly sail, and drench of dancing brine Buffet our boat-side, so the prore bound free! Condense our voyage into one great day Made up of sunset-closes: eve by eve, Resume that memorable night-discourse When--like some meteor-brilliance, fire and filth, Or say, his own Amphitheos, deity And dung, who, bound on the gods' embassage, Got men's acknowledgement in kick and cuff-- We made acquaintance with a visitor Ominous, apparitional, who went Strange as he came, but shall not pass away. Let us attempt that memorable talk, Clothe the adventure's every incident With due expression: may not looks be told, Gesture made speak, and speech so amplified That words find blood-warmth which, cold-writ, they lose?

Recall the night we heard the news from Thrace, One year ago, Athenai still herself.

We two were sitting silent in the house, Yet cheerless hardly. Euthukles, forgive! I somehow speak to unseen auditors. Not _you_, but--Euthukles had entered, grave, Grand, may I say, as who brings laurel-branch And message from the tripod: such it proved.

He first removed the garland from his brow, Then took my hand and looked into my face.

"Speak good words!" much misgiving faltered I.

"Good words, the best, Balaustion! He is crowned, Gone with his Attic ivy home to feast, Since Aischulos required companionship. Pour a libation for Euripides!"

When we had sat the heavier silence out-- "Dead and triumphant still!" began reply To my eye's question. "As he willed, he worked: And, as he worked, he wanted not, be sure, Triumph his whole life through, submitting work To work's right judges, never to the wrong, To competency, not ineptitude. When he had run life's proper race and worked Quite to the stade's end, there remained to try The stade's turn, should strength dare the double course. Half the diaulos reached, the hundred plays Accomplished, force in its rebound sufficed To lift along the athlete and ensure A second wreath, proposed by fools for first, The statist's olive as the poet's bay. Wiselier, he suffered not a twofold aim Retard his pace, confuse his sight; at once Poet and statist; though the multitude Girded him ever 'All thine aim thine art? The idle poet only? No regard For civic duty, public service, here? We drop our ballot-bean for Sophokles! Not only could he write "Antigoné" But--since (we argued) whoso penned that piece Might just as well conduct a squadron,--straight Good-naturedly he took on him command. Got laughed at, and went back to making plays, Having allowed us our experiment Respecting the fit use of faculty.' No whit the more did athlete slacken pace. Soon the jeers grew: 'Cold hater of his kind, A sea-cave suits him, not the vulgar hearth! What need of tongue-talk, with a bookish store Would stock ten cities?' Shadow of an ass! No whit the worse did athlete touch the mark And, at the turning-point, consign his scorn O' the scorners to that final trilogy 'Hupsipule,' 'Phoinissai,' and the Match Of Life Contemplative with Active Life, Zethos against Amphion. Ended so? Nowise!--began again; for heroes rest Dropping shield's oval o'er the entire man. Ami he who thus took Contemplation's prize Turned stade-point but to face Activity. Out of all shadowy hands extending help For life's decline pledged to youth's labor still, Whatever renovation flatter age,-- Society with pastime, solitude With peace,--he chose the hand that gave the heart, Bade Macedonian Archelaos take The leavings of Athenai, ash once flame. For fifty politicians' frosty work, One poet's ash proved ample and to spare: He propped the state and filled the treasury, Counselled the king as might a meaner soul, Furnished the friend with what shall stand in stead Of crown and sceptre, star his name about When these are dust; for him, Euripides Last the old hand on the old phorminx flung, Clashed thence 'Alkaion,' maddened 'Pentheus' up; Then music sighed itself away, one moan Iphigeneia made by Aulis' strand; With her and music died Euripides.

"The poet-friend who followed him to Thrace, Agathon, writes thus much: the merchant-ship Moreover brings a message from the king To young Euripides, who went on board This morning at Mounuchia: all is true."

I said "Thank Zeus for the great news and good!"

"Nay, the report is running in brief fire Through the town's stubbly furrow," he resumed: --"Entertains brightly what their favorite styles 'The City of Gapers' for a week perhaps, Supplants three luminous tales, but yesterday Pronounced sufficient lamps to last the month: How Glauketes, outbidding Morsimos, Paid market-price for one Kopaic eel A thousand drachmai, and then cooked his prize Not proper conger-fashion but in oil And nettles, as man fries the foam-fish-kind; How all the captains of the triremes, late Victors at Arginousai, on return Will, for return, be straightway put to death; How Mikon wagered a Thessalian mime Trained him by Lais, looked on as complete, Against Leogoras' blood-mare koppa-marked, Valued six talents,--swore, accomplished so, The girl could swallow at a draught, nor breathe, A choinix of unmixed Mendesian wine; And having lost the match will--dine on herbs! Three stories late aflame, at once extinct, Outblazed by just 'Euripides is dead'!

"I met the concourse from the Theatre, The audience flocking homeward: victory Again awarded Aristophanes Precisely for his old play chopped and changed, 'The Female Celebrators of the Feast'-- That Thesmophoria, tried a second time. 'Never such full success!'--assured the folk, Who yet stopped praising to have word of mouth With 'Euthukles, the bard's own intimate, Balaustion's husband, the right man to ask.'

"'Dead, yes, but how dead, may acquaintance know? You were the couple constant at his cave: Tell us now, is it true that women, moved By reason of his liking Krateros' ...

"I answered 'He was loved by Sokrates.'

"'Nay,' said another, 'envy did the work! For, emulating poets of the place, One Arridaios, one Krateues, both Established in the royal favor, these' ...

"'Protagoras instructed him,' said I.

"'_Phu_,' whistled Comic Platon, 'hear the fact! 'Twas well said of your friend by Sophokles, "He hate our women? In his verse, belike. But when it comes to prose-work,--ha, ha, ha!" New climes don't change old manners: so, it chanced, Pursuing an intrigue one moonless night With Arethousian Nikodikos' wife, (Come now, his years were simply seventy-five,) Crossing the palace-court, what haps he on But Archelaos' pack of hungry hounds? Who tore him piecemeal ere his cry brought help.'

"I asked: Did not you write 'The Festivals'? You best know what dog tore him when alive. You others, who now make a ring to hear, Have not you just enjoyed a second treat, Proclaimed that ne'er was play more worthy prize Than this, myself assisted at, last year, And gave its worth to,--spitting on the same? Appraise no poetry,--price cuttlefish, Or that seaweed-alphestes, scorpion-sort, Much famed for mixing mud with fantasy On midnights! I interpret no foul dreams."

If so said Euthukles, so could not I, Balaustion, say. After "Lusistraté" No more for me of "people's privilege," No witnessing "the Grand old Comedy Coeval with our freedom, which, curtailed, Were freedom's deathblow: relic of the past, When Virtue laughingly told truth to Vice, Uncensured, since the stern mouth, stuffed with flowers, Through poetry breathed satire, perfumed blast Which sense snuffed up while searched unto the bone!" I was a stranger: "For first joy," urged friends, "Go hear our Comedy, some patriot piece That plies the selfish advocates of war With argument so unevadable That crash fall Kleons whom the finer play Of reason, tickling, deeper wounds no whit Than would a spear-thrust from a savory-stalk! No: you hear knave and fool told crime and fault, And see each scourged his quantity of stripes. 'Rough dealing, awkward language,' whine our fops: The world's too squeamish now to bear plain words Concerning deeds it acts with gust enough: But, thanks to wine-lees and democracy, We've still our stage where truth calls spade a spade! Ashamed? Phuromachos' decree provides The sex may sit discreetly, witness all, Sorted, the good with good, the gay with gay, Themselves unseen, no need to force a blush. A Rhodian wife and ignorant so long? Go hear next play!"

I heard "Lusistraté." Waves, said to wash pollution from the world, Take that plague-memory, cure that pustule caught As, past escape, I sat and saw the piece By one appalled at Phaidra's fate,--the chaste, Whom, because chaste, the wicked goddess chained To that same serpent of unchastity She loathed most, and who, coiled so, died distraught Rather than make submission, loose one limb Love-wards, at lambency of honeyed tongue, Or torture of the scales which scraped her snow --I say, the piece by him who charged this piece (Because Euripides shrank not to teach, If gods be strong and wicked, man, though weak, May prove their match by willing to be good) With infamies the Scythian's whip should cure-- "Such outrage done the public--Phaidra named! Such purpose to corrupt ingenuous youth, Such insult cast on female character!"-- Why, when I saw that bestiality-- So beyond all brute-beast imagining, That when, to point the moral at the close, Poor Salabaccho, just to show how fair Was "Reconciliation," stripped her charms, That exhibition simply bade us breathe, Seemed something healthy and commendable After obscenity grotesqued so much It slunk away revolted at itself. Henceforth I had my answer when our sage Pattern-proposing seniors pleaded grave, "You fail to fathom here the deep design! All's acted in the interest of truth, Religion, and those manners old and dear Which made our city great when citizens Like Aristeides and like Miltiades Wore each a golden tettix in his hair." What do they wear now under--Kleophon?

Well, for such reasons,--I am out of breath, But loathsomeness we needs must hurry past,-- I did not go to see, nor then nor now, The "Thesmophoriazousai." But, since males Choose to brave first, blame afterward, nor brand Without fair taste of what they stigmatize, Euthukles had not missed the first display, Original portrait of Euripides By "Virtue laughingly reproving Vice:" "Virtue,"--the author, Aristophanes, Who mixed an image out of his own depths, Ticketed as I tell you. Oh, this time No more pretension to recondite worth! No joke in aid of Peace, no demagogue Pun-pelleted from Pnux, no kordax-dance Overt helped covertly the Ancient Faith! All now was muck, home-produce, honestman The author's soul secreted to a play Which gained the prize that day we heard the death.

I thought "How thoroughly death alters things! Where is the wrong now, done our dead and great? How natural seems grandeur in relief, Cliff-base with frothy spites against its calm!"

Euthukles interposed--he read my thought--

"O'er them, too, in a moment came the change. The crowd's enthusiastic, to a man: Since, rake as such may please the ordure-heap Because of certain sparkles presumed ore, At first flash of true lightning overhead, They look up, nor resume their search too soon. The insect-scattering sign is evident, And nowhere winks a firefly rival now, Nor bustles any beetle of the brood With trundled dung-ball meant to menace heaven. Contrariwise, the cry is 'Honor him!' 'A statue in the theatre!' wants one; Another 'Bring the poet's body back, Bury him in Peiraios: o'er his tomb Let Alkamenes carve the music-witch, The songstress-siren, meed of melody: Thoukudides invent his epitaph!' To-night the whole town pays its tribute thus."

Our tribute should not be the same, my friend! Statue? Within our heart he stood, he stands! As for the vest outgrown now by the form, Low flesh that clothed high soul,--a vesture's fate-- Why, let it fade, mix with the elements There where it, falling, freed Euripides! But for the soul that's tutelary now Till time end, o'er the world to teach and bless-- How better hail its freedom than by first Singing, we two, its own song back again, Up to that face from which flowed beauty--face Now abler to see triumph and take love Than when it glorified Athenai once?

The sweet and strange Alkestis, which saved me, Secured me--you, ends nowise, to my mind, In pardon of Admetos. Hearts are fain To follow cheerful weary Herakles Striding away from the huge gratitude, Club shouldered, lion-fleece round loin and flank, Bound on the next new labor "height o'er height Ever surmounting,--destiny's decree!" Thither He helps us: that's the story's end; He smiling said so, when I told him mine-- My great adventure, how Alkestis helped. Afterward, when the time for parting fell, He gave me, with two other precious gifts, This third and best, consummating the grace, "Herakles," writ by his own hand, each line.

"If it have worth, reward is still to seek. Somebody, I forget who, gained the prize And proved arch-poet: time must show!" he smiled: "Take this, and, when the noise tires out, judge me-- Some day, not slow to dawn, when somebody-- Who? I forget--proves nobody at all!"

Is not that day come? What if you and I Re-sing the song, inaugurate the fame? We have not waited to acquaint ourselves With song and subject; we can prologize How, at Eurustheus' bidding,--hate strained hard,-- Herakles had departed, one time more, On his last labor, worst of all the twelve; Descended into Haides, thence to drag The triple-headed hound, which sun should see Spite of the god whose darkness whelped the Fear. Down went the hero, "back--how should he come?" So laughed King Lukos, an old enemy, Who judged that absence testified defeat Of the land's loved one,--since he saved the land And for that service wedded Megara Daughter of Thebai, realm her child should rule. Ambition, greed and malice seized their prey, The Heracleian House, defenceless left, Father and wife and child, to trample out Trace of its hearth-fire: since extreme old age Wakes pity, woman's wrong wins championship, And child may grow up man and take revenge. Hence see we that, from out their palace-home Hunted, for last resource they cluster now Couched on the cold ground, hapless supplicants About their court-yard altar,--Household Zeus It is, the Three in funeral garb beseech, Delaying death so, till deliverance come-- When did it ever?--from the deep and dark. And thus breaks silence old Amphitruon's voice.... Say I not true thus far, my Euthukles?

Suddenly, torch-light! knocking at the door, Loud, quick, "Admittance for the revels' lord!" Some unintelligible Komos-cry-- _Raw-flesh red, no cap upon his head,_ _Dionusos, Bacchos, Phales, Iacchos,_ _In let him reel with the kid-skin at his heel,_ _Where it buries in the spread of the bushy myrtle-bed!_ (Our Rhodian Jackdaw-song was sense to that!) Then laughter, outbursts ruder and more rude, Through which, with silver point, a fluting pierced, And ever "Open, open, Bacchos bids!"

But at last--one authoritative word, One name of an immense significance: For Euthukles rose up, threw wide the door.

There trooped the Choros of the Comedy Crowned and triumphant; first, those flushed Fifteen, Men that wore women's garb, grotesque disguise. Then marched the Three,--who played Mnesilochos, Who, Toxotes, and who, robed right, masked rare, Monkeyed our Great and Dead to heart's content That morning in Athenai. Masks were down And robes doffed now; the sole disguise was drink.

Mixing with these--I know not what gay crowd, Girl-dancers, flute-boys, and pre-eminent Among them,--doubtless draped with such reserve As stopped fear of the fifty-drachma fine (Beside one's name on public fig-tree nailed) Which women pay who in the streets walk bare,-- Behold Elaphion of the Persic dance! Who lately had frisked fawn-foot, and the rest, --All for the Patriot Cause, the Antique Faith, The Conservation of True Poesy-- Could I but penetrate the deep design! Elaphion, more Peiraios-known as "Phaps," Tripped at the head of the whole banquet-band Who came in front now, as the first fell back; And foremost--the authoritative voice, The revels-leader, he who gained the prize, And got the glory of the Archon's feast-- There stood in person Aristophanes.

And no ignoble presence! On the bulge Of the clear baldness,--all his head one brow,-- True, the veins swelled, blue network, and there surged A red from cheek to temple,--then retired As if the dark-leaved chaplet damped a flame,-- Was never nursed by temperance or health. But huge the eyeballs rolled back native fire, Imperiously triumphant: nostrils wide Waited their incense; while the pursed mouth's pout Aggressive, while the beak supreme above, While the head, face, nay, pillared throat thrown back, Beard whitening tinder like a vinous foam, These made a glory, of such insolence-- I thought,--such domineering deity Hephaistos might have carved to cut the brine For his gay brother's prow, imbrue that path Which, purpling, recognized the conqueror. Impudent and majestic: drunk, perhaps, But that's religion; sense too plainly snuffed: Still, sensuality was grown a rite.

What I had disbelieved most proved most true. There was a mind here, mind a-wantoning At ease of undisputed mastery Over the body's brood, those appetites. Oh, but he grasped them grandly, as the god His either struggling handful,--hurtless snakes Held deep down, strained hard off from side and side! Mastery his, theirs simply servitude, So well could firm fist help intrepid eye. Fawning and fulsome, had they licked and hissed? At mandate of one muscle, order reigned. They had been wreathing much familiar now About him on his entry; but a squeeze Choked down the pests to place: their lord stood free.

Forward he stepped: I rose and fronted him.

"Hail, house, the friendly to Euripides!" (So he began) "Hail, each inhabitant! You, lady? What, the Rhodian? Form and face, Victory's self upsoaring to receive The poet? Right they named you ... some rich name, Vowel-buds thorned about with consonants, Fragrant, felicitous, rose-glow enriched By the Isle's unguent: some diminished end In _ion_, Kallistion? delicater still, Kubelion or Melittion,--or, suppose (Less vulgar love than bee or violet) Phibalion, for the mouth split red-fig-wise, Korakinidion for the coal-black hair, Nettarion, Phabion for the darlingness? But no, it was some fruit-flower, Rhoidion ... ha, We near the balsam-bloom--Balaustion! Thanks, Rhodes! Folk have called me Rhodian, do you know? Not fools so far! Because, if Helios wived, As Pindaros sings somewhere prettily, Here blooms his offspring, earth-flesh with sun-fire, Rhodes' blood and Helios' gold. My phorminx, boy! Why does the boy hang back and balk an ode Tiptoe at spread of wing? But like enough, Sunshine frays torchlight. Witness whom you scare, Superb Balaustion! Look outside the house! _Pho_, you have quenched my Komos by first frown, Struck dead all joyance: not a fluting puffs From idle cheekband! Ah, my Choros too? You've eaten cuckoo-apple? Dumb, you dogs? So much good Thasian wasted on your throats And out of them not one _Threttanelo?_ _Neblaretai!_ Because this earth-and-sun Product looks wormwood and all bitter herbs? Well, do I blench, though me she hates the most Of mortals? By the cabbage, off they slink! You, too, my Chrusomelolonthion-Phaps, Girl-goldling-beetle-beauty? You, abashed, Who late, supremely unabashable, Propped up my play at that important point When Artamouxia tricks the Toxotes? Ha, ha,--thank Hermes for the lucky throw,-- We came last comedy of the whole seven, So went all fresh to judgment well-disposed For who should fatly feast them, eye and ear, We two between us! What, you fail your friend? Away then, free me of your cowardice! Go, get you the goat's breakfast! Fare afield, Ye circumcised of Egypt, pigs to sow, Back to the Priest's or forward to the crows, So you but rid me of such company! Once left alone, I can protect myself From statuesque Balaustion pedestalled On much disapprobation and mistake! She dares not beat the sacred brow, beside! Bacchos' equipment, ivy safeguards well As Phoibos' bay.

"They take me at my word! One comfort is, I shall not want them long, The Archon's cry creaks, creaks, 'Curtail expense!' The war wants money, year the twenty-sixth! Cut down our Choros number, clip costume, Save birds' wings, beetles' armor, spend the cash In three-crest skull-caps, three days' salt-fish-slice, Three-banked-ships for these sham-ambassadors, And what not: any cost but Comedy's! 'No Choros'--soon will follow; what care I? Archinos and Agurrhios, scrape your flint, Flay your dead dog, and curry favor so! Choros in rags, with loss of leather next, We lose the boys' vote, lose the song and dance, Lose my Elaphion! Still, the actor stays. Save but my acting, and the baldhead bard Kudathenaian and Pandionid, Son of Philippos, Aristophanes Surmounts his rivals now as heretofore, Though stinted to mere sober prosy verse-- 'Manners and men,' so squeamish gets the world! No more 'Step forward, strip for anapæsts!' No calling naughty people by their names, No tickling audience into gratitude With chickpease, barleygroats and nuts and plums, No setting Salabaccho" ...

As I turned--

"True, lady, I am tolerably drunk: The proper inspiration! Otherwise,-- Phrunichos, Choirilos!--had Aischulos So foiled you at the goat-song? Drink 's a god. How else did that old doating driveller Kratinos foil me, match my masterpiece The 'Clouds'? I swallowed cloud-distilment--dew Undimmed by any grape-blush, knit my brow And gnawed my style and laughed my learnedest; While he worked at his 'Willow-wicker-flask,' Swigging at that same flask by which he swore, Till, sing and empty, sing and fill again, Somehow result was--what it should not be Next time, I promised him and kept my word! Hence, brimful now of Thasian ... I 'll be bound, Mendesian, merely: triumph-night, you know, The High Priest entertains the conqueror, And, since war worsens all things, stingily The rascal starves whom he is bound to stuff, Choros and actors and their lord and king The poet: supper, still he needs must spread-- And this time all was conscientious fare: He knew his man, his match, his master--made Amends, spared neither fish, flesh, fowl nor wine: So merriment increased, I promise you, Till--something happened."

Here he strangely paused,

"After that,--Well, it either was the cup To the Good Genius, our concluding pledge, That wrought me mischief, decently unmixed,-- Or, what if, when _that_ happened, need arose Of new libation? Did you only know What happened! Little wonder I am drunk."

Euthukles, o'er the boat-side, quick, what change, Watch, in the water! But a second since, It laughed a ripply spread of sun and sea, Say fused with wave, to never disunite. Now, sudden all the surface, hard and black, Lies a quenched light, dead motion: What the cause? Look up and lo, the menace of a cloud Has solemnized the sparkling, spoil the sport! Just so, some overshadow, some new care Stopped all the mirth and mocking on his face And left there only such a dark surmise --No wonder if the revel disappeared, So did his face shed silence every side! I recognized a new man fronting me.

"So!" he smiled, piercing to my thought at once, "You see myself? Balaustion's fixed regard Can strip the proper Aristophanes Of what our sophists, in their jargon, style His accidents? My soul sped forth but now To meet your hostile survey,--soul unseen, Yet veritably cinct for soul-defence With satyr sportive quips, cranks, boss and spike, Just as my visible body paced the street, Environed by a boon companionship Your apparition also puts to flight. Well, what care I, if, unaccoutred twice, I front my foe--no comicality Round soul, and body-guard in banishment? Thank your eyes' searching, undisguised I stand: The merest female child may question me. Spare not, speak bold, Balaustion!"

I did speak:

"Bold speech be--welcome to this honored hearth, Good Genius! Glory of the poet, glow O' the humorist who castigates his kind, Suave summer-lightning lambency which plays On stag-horned tree, misshapen crag askew, Then vanishes with unvindictive smile After a moment's laying black earth bare. Splendor of wit that springs a thunderball-- Satire--to burn and purify the world, True aim, fair purpose: just wit justly strikes Injustice,--right, as rightly quells the wrong, Finds out in knaves', fools', cowards' armory The tricky tinselled place fire flashes through, No damage else, sagacious of true ore; Wit, learned in the laurel, leaves each wreath O'er lyric shell or tragic barbiton,-- Though alien gauds be singed,--undesecrate, The genuine solace of the sacred brow. Ay, and how pulses flame a patriot-star Steadfast athwart our country's night of things, To beacon, would she trust no meteor-blaze, Athenai from the rock she steers for straight! O light, light, light, I hail light everywhere, No matter for the murk that was,--perchance, That will be,--certes, never should have been Such orb's associate!

"Aristophanes! 'The merest female child may question you?' Once, in my Rhodes, a portent of the wave Appalled our coast: for many a darkened day, Intolerable mystery and fear. Who snatched a furtive glance through crannied peak, Could but report of snake-scale, lizard-limb,-- So swam what, making whirlpools as it went, Madded the brine with wrath or monstrous sport. ''T is Tuphon, loose, unmanacled from mount.' Declared the priests, 'no way appeasable Unless perchance by virgin-sacrifice!' Thus grew the terror and o'erhung the doom-- Until one eve a certain female-child Strayed in safe ignorance to seacoast edge, And there sat down and sang to please herself. When all at once, large-looming from his wave, Out leaned, chin hand-propped, pensive on the ledge, A sea-worn face, sad as mortality, Divine with yearning after fellowship. He rose but breast-high. So much god she saw; So much she sees now, and does reverence!"

Ah, but there followed tail-splash, frisk of fin! Let cloud pass, the sea's ready laugh outbreaks. No very godlike trace retained the mouth Which mocked with--

"So, He taught you tragedy! I always asked 'Why may not women act?' Nay, wear the comic visor just as well; Or, better, quite cast off the face-disguise And voice-distortion, simply look and speak, Real women playing women as men--men! I shall not wonder if things come to that, Some day when I am distant far enough. Do you conceive the quite new Comedy When laws allow? laws only let girls dance, Pipe, posture,--above all, Elaphionize, Provided they keep decent--that is, dumb. Ay, and, conceiving, I would execute, Had I but two lives: one were overworked! How penetrate encrusted prejudice, Pierce ignorance three generations thick Since first Sousarion crossed our boundary? He battered with a big Megaric stone; Chionides felled oak and rough-hewed thence This club I wield now, having spent my life In planing knobs and sticking studs to shine; Somebody else must try mere polished steel!"

Emboldened by the sober mood's return, "Meanwhile," said I, "since planed and studded club Once more has pashed competitors to dust, And poet proves triumphant with that play Euthukles found last year unfortunate,-- Does triumph spring from smoothness still more smoothed, Fresh studs sown thick and threefold? In plain words, Have you exchanged brute-blows,--which teach the brute Man may surpass him in brutality,-- For human fighting, or true god-like force Which breathes persuasion nor needs fight at all? Have you essayed attacking ignorance, Convicting folly, by their opposites, Knowledge and wisdom? not by yours for ours, Fresh ignorance and folly, new for old, Greater for less, your crime for our mistake! If so success at last have crowned desert, Bringing surprise (dashed haply by concern At your discovery such wild waste of strength --And what strength!--went so long to keep in vogue Such warfare--and what warfare!--shamed so fast, So soon made obsolete, as fell their foe By the first arrow native to the orb, First onslaught worthy Aristophanes)-- Was this conviction's entry that same strange 'Something that happened' to confound your feast?"

"Ah, did he witness then my play that failed, First 'Thesmophoriazousai'? Well and good! But did he also see--your Euthukles-- My 'Grasshoppers,' which followed and failed too, Three months since, at the 'Little-in-the-Fields'?"

"To say that he did see that First--should say He never cared to see its following."

"There happens to be reason why I wrote First play and second also. Ask the cause! I warrant you receive, ere talk be done, Fit answer, authorizing either act. But here 's the point: as Euthukles made vow Never again to taste my quality, So I was minded next experiment Should tickle palate--yea, of Euthukles! Not by such utter change, such absolute A topsyturvy of stage-habitude As you and he want,--Comedy built fresh, By novel brick and mortar, base to roof,-- No, for I stand too near and look too close! Pleasure and pastime yours, spectators brave, Should I turn art's fixed fabric upside down! Little you guess how such tough work tasks soul! Not overtasks, though: give fit strength fair play, And strength 's a demiourgos! Art renewed? Ay, in some closet where strength shuts out--first The friendly faces, sympathetic cheer: 'More of the old provision, none supplies So bounteously as thou,--our love, our pride, Our author of the many a perfect piece! Stick to that standard, change were decadence! Next, the unfriendly: 'This time, strain will tire, He 's fresh, Ameipsias thy antagonist!' --Or better, in some Salaminian cave Where sky and sea and solitude make earth And man and noise one insignificance, Let strength propose itself,--behind the world,-- Sole prize worth winning, work that satisfies Strength it has dared and done strength's uttermost! After which,--clap-to closet and quit cave,-- Strength may conclude in Archelaos' court, And yet esteem the silken company So much sky-scud, sea-froth, earth-thistledown, For aught their praise or blame should joy or grieve. Strength amid crowds as late in solitude May lead the still life, ply the wordless task: Then only, when seems need to move or speak, Moving--for due respect, when statesmen pass, (Strength, in the closet, watched how spiders spin!) Speaking--when fashion shows intelligence, (Strength, in the cave, oft whistled to the gulls!) In short, has learnt first, practised afterwards! Despise the world and reverence yourself,-- Why, you may unmake things and remake things, And throw behind you, unconcerned enough, What 's made or marred: 'you teach men, are not taught!' So marches off the stage Euripides!

"No such thin fare feeds flesh and blood like mine, No such faint fume of fancy sates my soul, No such seclusion, closet, cave or court, Suits either: give me Iostephanos Worth making happy what coarse way she will-- O happy-maker, when her cries increase About the favorite! 'Aristophanes! More grist to mill, here 's Kleophon to grind! He's for refusing peace, though Sparté cede Even Dekeleia! Here 's Kleonumos Declaring--though he threw away his shield, He 'll thrash you till you lay your lyre aside! Orestes bids mind where you walk of nights-- He wants your cloak as you his cudgelling. Here 's, finally, Melanthios fat with fish, The gormandizer-spendthrift-dramatist! So, bustle! Pounce on opportunity! Let fun a-screaming in Parabasis, Find food for folk agape at either end, Mad for amusement! Times grow better too, And should they worsen, why, who laughs, forgets. In no ease, venture boy-experiments! Old wine 's the wine: new poetry drinks raw: Two plays a season is your pledge, beside; So, give us "Wasps" again, grown hornets mow!'"

Then he changed.

"Do you so detect in me-- Brow-bald, chin-bearded, me, curved cheek, carved lip, Or where soul sits and reigns in either eye-- What suits the--stigma, I say,--style say you, Of 'Wine-lees-poet'? Bravest of buffoons, Less blunt, than Telekleides, less obscene Than Murtilos, Hermippos: quite a match In elegance for Eupolis himself, Yet pungent as Kratinos at his best? Graced with traditional immunity Ever since, much about my grandsire's time, Some funny village-man in Megara, Lout-lord and clown-king, used a privilege, As due religious drinking-bouts came round, To daub his phiz,--no, that was afterward,-- He merely mounted cart with mates of choice And traversed country, taking house by house, At night,--because of danger in the freak,-- Then hollaed 'Skin-flint starves his laborers! Clench-fist stows figs away, cheats government! Such an one likes to kiss his neighbor's wife, And beat his own; while such another ... Boh!' Soon came the broad day, circumstantial tale, Dancing and verse, and there 's our Comedy, There's Mullos, there 's Euetes, there 's the stock I shall be proud to graft my powers upon! Protected? Punished quite as certainly When Archons pleased to lay down each his law,-- Your Morucheides-Surakosios sort,-- Each season, 'No more naming citizens, Only abuse the vice, the vicious spare! Observe, henceforth no Areopagite Demean his rank by writing Comedy!' (They one and all could write the 'Clouds' of course.) 'Needs must we nick expenditure, allow Comedy half a choros, supper--none, Times being hard, while applicants increase For, what costs cash, the Tragic Trilogy.' Lofty Tragedians! How they lounge aloof Each with his Triad, three plays to my one, Not counting the contemptuous fourth, the frank Concession to mere mortal levity, Satyric pittance tossed our beggar-world! Your proud Euripides from first to last Doled out some five such, never deigned us more! And these--what curds and whey for marrowy wine! That same Alkestis you so rave about Passed muster with him for a Satyr-play, The prig!--why trifle time with toys and skits When he could stuff four ragbags sausage-wise With sophistry, with bookish odds and ends, Sokrates, meteors, moonshine, 'Life 's not Life,' 'The tongue swore, but unsworn the mind remains,' And fifty such concoctions, crabtree-fruit Digested while, head low and heels in heaven, He lay, let Comics laugh--for privilege! Looked puzzled on, or pityingly off, But never dreamed of paying gibe by jeer, Buffet by blow: plenty of proverb-pokes At vice and folly, wicked kings, mad mobs! No sign of wincing at my Comic lash, No protest against infamous abuse, Malignant censure,--naught to prove I scourged With tougher thong-than leek-and-onion-plait! If ever he glanced gloom, aggrieved at all, The aggriever must be--Aischulos perhaps: Or Sophokles he 'd take exception to. --Do you detect in me--in me, I ask, The man like to accept this measurement Of faculty, contentedly sit classed Mere Comic Poet--since I wrote 'The Birds'?"

I thought there might lurk truth in jest's disguise.

"Thanks!" he resumed, so quick to construe smile! "I answered--in my mind--these gapers thus: Since old wine 's ripe and new verse raw, you judge-- What if I vary vintage-mode and mix Blossom with must, give nosegay to the brew, Fining, refining, gently, surely, till The educated taste turns unawares From customary dregs to draught divine? Then answered--with my lips: More 'Wasps' you want? Come next year and I give you 'Grasshoppers'! And 'Grasshoppers' I gave them,--last month's play. They formed the Choros. Alkibiades, No longer Triphales but Trilophos, (Whom I called Darling-of-the-Summertime, Born to be nothing else but beautiful And brave, to eat, drink, love his life away) Persuades the Tettix (our Autochthon-brood, That sip the dew and sing on olive-branch Above the ant-and-emmet populace) To summon all who meadow, hill and dale Inhabit--bee, wasp, woodlouse, dragonfly-- To band themselves against red nipper-nose Stagbeetle, huge Taügetan (you guess-- Sparté) Athenai needs must battle with, Because her sons are grown effeminate To that degree--so morbifies their flesh The poison-drama of Euripides, Morals and music--there 's no antidote Occurs save warfare which inspirits blood, And brings us back perchance the blessed time When (Choros takes up tale) our commonalty Firm in primeval virtue, antique faith, Ere earwig-sophist plagued or pismire-sage, Cockered no noddle up with A, b, g, Book-learning, logic-chopping, and the moon, But just employed their brains on "_Ruppapai_, Row, boys, munch barley-bread, and take your ease-- Mindful, however, of the tier beneath!' Ah, golden epoch! while the nobler sort (Such needs must study, no contesting that!) Wore no long curls but used to crop their hair, Gathered the tunic well about the ham, Remembering 't was soft sand they used for seat At school-time, while--mark this--the lesson long, No learner ever dared to cross his legs! Then, if you bade him take the myrtle-bough And sing for supper--'t was some grave romaunt _How man of Mitulené, wondrous wise,_ _Jumped into hedge, by mortals quickset called,_ _And there, anticipating Oidipous,_ _Scratched out his eyes and scratched them in again_. None of your Phaidras, Augés, Kanakés, To mincing music, turn, trill, tweedle-trash, Whence comes that Marathon is obsolete! Next, my Antistrophé was--praise of Peace: Ah, could our people know what Peace implies! Home to the farm and furrow! Grub one's vine, Romp with one's Thratta, pretty serving-girl. When wifie 's busy bathing! Eat and drink. And drink and eat, what else is good in life? Slice hare, toss pancake, gayly gurgle down The Thasian grape in celebration due Of Bacchos! Welcome, dear domestic rite, When wife and sons and daughters, Thratta too, Pour pea-soup as we chant delectably _In Bacchos reels, his tunic at his heels!_ Enough, you comprehend,--I do at least! Then,--be but patient,--the Parabasis! Pray! For in that I also pushed reform. None of the self-laudation, vulgar brag, Vainglorious rivals cultivate so much! No! If some merest word in Art's defence Justice demanded of me,--never fear! Claim was preferred, but dignifiedly. A cricket asked a locust (winged, you know) What he had seen most rare in foreign parts? 'I have flown far,' chirped he, 'North, East, South, West, And nowhere heard of poet worth a fig If matched with Bald-head here, Aigina's boast, Who in this play bids rivalry despair Past, present, and to come, so marvellous His Tragic, Comic, Lyric excellence! Whereof the fit reward were (not to speak Of dinner every day at public cost I' the Prutaneion) supper with yourselves, My Public, best dish offered bravest bard!' No more! no sort of sin against good taste! Then, satire,--Oh, a plain necessity! But I won't tell you: for--could I dispense With one more gird at old Ariphrades? How scorpion-like he feeds on human flesh-- Ever finds out some novel infamy Unutterable, inconceivable, Which all the greater need was to describe Minutely, each tail-twist at ink-shed time ... Now, what 's your gesture caused by? What you loathe, Don't I loathe doubly, else why take such pains To tell it you? But keep your prejudice! My audience justified you! Housebreakers! This pattern-purity was played and failed Last Rural Dionusia--failed! for why? Ameipsias followed with the genuine stuff. He had been mindful to engage the Four-- Karkinos and his dwarf-crab-family-- Father and sons, they whirled like spinning-tops, Choros gigantically poked his fun, The boys' frank laugh relaxed the seniors' brow, The skies re-echoed victory's acclaim, Ameipsias gained his due, I got my dose Of wisdom for the future. Purity? No more of that next month, Athenai mine! Contrive new cut of robe who will,--I patch The old exomis, add no purple sleeve! The Thesmophoriazousai, smartened up With certain plaits, shall please, I promise you!

"Yes, I took up the play that failed last year, And re-arranged things; threw adroitly in-- No Parachoregema--men to match My women there already; and when these (I had a hit at Aristullos here, His plan how womankind should rule the roast) Drove men to plough--'A-field, ye cribbed of cape!' Men showed themselves exempt from service straight Stupendously, till all the boys cried 'Brave!' Then for the elders, I bethought me too, Improved upon Mnesilochos' release From the old bowman, board and binding-strap: I made his son-in-law Euripides Engage to put both shrewish wives away-- 'Gravity,' one, the other 'Sophist-lore'-- And mate with the Bald Bard's hetairai twain-- 'Goodhumor' and 'Indulgence:' on they tripped, Murrhiné, Akalanthis,--'beautiful Their whole belongings'--crowd joined choros there! And while the Toxotes wound up his part By shower of nuts and sweetmeats on the mob, The woman-choros celebrated New Kalligeneia, the frank last-day rite. Brief, I was chairéd and caressed and crowned And the whole theatre broke out a-roar, Echoed my admonition--choros-cap-- _Rivals of mine, your hands to your faces!_ _Summon no more the Muses, the Graces,_ _Since here by my side they have chosen their places!_ And so we all flocked merrily to feast,-- I, my choragos, choros, actors, mutes And flutes aforesaid, friends in crowd, no fear, At the Priest's supper; and hilarity Grew none the less that, early in the piece, Ran a report, from row to row close-packed, Of messenger's arrival at the Port With weighty tidings, 'Of Lusandros' flight,' Opined one; 'That Euboia penitent Sends the Confederation fifty ships,' Preferred another; while 'The Great King's Eye Has brought a present for Elaphion here, That rarest peacock Kompolakuthes!' Such was the supposition of a third. 'No matter what the news,' friend Strattis laughed, 'It won't be worse for waiting: while each click Of the klepsudra sets a shaking grave Resentment in our shark's-head, boiled and spoiled By this time: dished in Sphettian vinegar, Silphion and honey, served with cocks'-brain-sauce! So, swift to supper, Poet! No mistake, This play; nor, like the unflavored "Grasshoppers," Salt without thyme!' Right merrily we supped, Till--something happened.

"Out it shall, at last!

"Mirth drew to ending, for the cup was crowned To the Triumphant!' Kleonclapper erst, Now, Plier of a scourge Euripides Fairly turns tail from, flying Attiké For Makedonia's rocks and frosts and bears, Where, furry grown, he growls to match the squeak Of girl-voiced, crocus-vested Agathon! Ha ha, he he!' When suddenly a knock-- Sharp, solitary, cold, authoritative.

"'_Babaiax!_ Sokrates a-passing by, A-peering in, for Aristullos' sake, To put a question touching Comic Law?' "No! Enters an old pale-swathed majesty, Makes slow mute passage through two ranks as mute, (Strattis stood up with all the rest, the sneak!) Gray brow still bent on ground, upraised at length When, our Priest reached, full front the vision paused.

"'Priest!'--the deep tone succeeded the fixed gaze-- 'Thou carest that thy god have spectacle Decent and seemly; wherefore, I announce That, since Euripides is dead to-day, My Choros, at the Greater Feast, next month, Shall, clothed in black, appear ungarlanded!'

"Then the gray brow sank low, and Sophokles Re-swathed him, sweeping doorward: mutely passed 'Twixt rows as mute, to mingle possibly With certain gods who convoy age to port; And night resumed him.

"When our stupor broke, Chirpings took courage, and grew audible.

"'Dead--so one speaks now of Euripides!' 'Ungarlanded dance Choros, did he say? I guess the reason: in extreme old age No doubt such have the gods for visitants. Why did he dedicate to Herakles An altar else, but that the god, turned Judge, Told him in dream who took the crown of gold? He who restored Akropolis the theft, Himself may feel perhaps a timely twinge At thought of certain other crowns he filched From--who now visits Herakles the Judge. Instance "Medeia"! that play yielded palm To Sophokles; and he again--to whom? Euphorion! Why? Ask Herakles the Judge!' 'Ungarlanded, just means--economy! Suppress robes, chaplets, everything suppress Except the poet's present! An old tale Put capitally by Trugaios--eh? News from the world of transformation strange! How Sophokles is grown Simonides, And--aged, rotten--all the same, for greed Would venture on a hurdle out to sea! So jokes Philonides. Kallistratos Retorts, Mistake! Instead of stinginess-- The fact is, in extreme decrepitude, He has discarded poet and turned priest, Priest of Half-Hero Alkon: visited In his own house too by Asklepios' self, So he avers. Meanwhile, his own estate Lies fallow; Iophon 's the manager,-- Nay, touches up a play, brings out the same, Asserts true sonship. See to what you sink After your dozen-dozen prodigies! Looking so old--Euripides seems young, Born ten years later.'

"'Just his tricky style! Since, stealing first away, he wins first word Out of good-natured rival Sophokles, Procures himself no bad panegyric. Had fate willed otherwise, himself were taxed To pay survivor's-tribute,--harder squeezed From anybody beaten first to last, Than one who, steadily a conqueror, Finds that his magnanimity is tasked To merely make pretence and--beat itself!'

"So chirped the feasters though suppressedly.

"But I--what else do you suppose?--had pierced Quite through friends' outside-straining, foes' mock-praise, And reached conviction hearted under all. Death's rapid line had closed a life's account, And cut off, left unalterably clear The summed-up value of Euripides.

"Well, it might be the Thasian! Certainly There sang suggestive music in my ears; And, through--what sophists style--the wall of sense My eyes pierced: death seemed life and life seemed death, Envisaged that way, now, which I, before, Conceived was just a moon-struck mood. Quite plain There re-insisted,--ay, each prim stiff phrase Of each old play, my still-new laughing-stock, Had meaning, well worth poet's pains to state, Should life prove half true life's term,--death, the rest. As for the other question, late so large, Now all at once so little,--he or I,-- Which better comprehended playwright craft,-- There, too, old admonition took fresh point. As clear recurred our last word-interchange Two years since, when I tried with 'Ploutos.' 'Vain!' Saluted me the cold grave-bearded bard-- 'Vain, this late trial, Aristophanes! None balks the genius with impunity! You know what kind's the nobler, what makes grave Or what makes grin: there 's yet a nobler still, Possibly,--what makes wise, not grave,--and glad, Not grinning: whereby laughter joins with tears, Tragic and Comic Poet prove one power, And Aristophanes becomes our Fourth-- Nay, greatest! Never needs the Art stand still, But those Art leans on lag, and none like you, Her strongest of supports, whose step aside Undoes the march: defection checks advance Too late adventured! See the "Ploutos" here! This step decides your foot from old to new-- Proves you relinquish song and dance and jest, Discard the beast, and, rising from all-fours, Fain would paint, manlike, actual human life, Make veritable men think, say and do. Here 's the conception: which to execute, Where 's force? Spent! Ere the race began, was breath O' the runner squandered' on each friendly fool-- Wit-fireworks fizzed off while day craved no flame; How should the night receive her due of fire Flared out in Wasps and Horses, Clouds and Birds, Prodigiously a-crackle? Rest content! The new adventure for the novel man Born to that next success myself foresee In right of where I reach before I rest. At end of a long course, straight all the way, Well may there tremble somewhat into ken The untrod path, clouds veiled from earlier gaze! None may live two lives: I have lived mine through, Die where I first stand still. You retrograde. I leave my life's work. _I_ compete with you, My last with your last, my "Antiope"-- "Phoinissai"--with this "Ploutos"? No, I think! Ever shall great and awful Victory Accompany my life--in Maketis If not Athenai. Take my farewell, friend! Friend,--for from no consummate excellence Like yours, whatever fault may countervail, Do I profess estrangement: murk the marsh, Yet where a solitary marble block Blanches the gloom, there let the eagle perch! You show--what splinters of Pentelikos, Islanded by what ordure! Eagles fly, Rest on the right place, thence depart as free; But 'ware man's footstep, would it traverse mire Untainted! Mire is safe for worms that crawl.'

"Balaustion! Here are very many words, All to portray one moment's rush of thought,-- And much they do it! Still, you understand. The Archon, the Feast-master, read their sum And substance, judged the banquet-glow extinct, So rose, discreetly if abruptly, crowned The parting cup,--'To the Good Genius, then!'

"Up starts young Strattis for a final flash: 'Ay, the Good Genius! To the Comic Muse, She who evolves superiority. Triumph and joy from sorrow, unsuccess And all that 's incomplete in human life; Who proves such actual failure transient wrong, Since out of body uncouth, halt and maimed-- Since out of soul grotesque, corrupt or blank-- Fancy, uplifted by the Muse, can flit To soul and body, reinstate them Man: Beside which perfect man, how clear we see Divergency from type was earth's effect! Escaping whence by laughter,--Fancy's feat,-- We right man's wrong, establish true for false,-- Above misshapen body, uncouth soul, Reach the fine form, the clear intelligence-- Above unseemliness, reach decent law,-- By laughter: attestation of the Muse That low-and-ugsome is not signed and sealed Incontrovertibly man's portion here, Or, if here,--why, still high-and-fair exists In that ethereal realm where laughs our soul Lift by the Muse. Hail thou her ministrant! Hail who accepted no deformity In man as normal and remediless, But rather pushed it to such gross extreme That, outraged, we protest by eye's recoil The opposite proves somewhere rule and law! Hail who implied, by limning Lamachos, Plenty and pastime wait on peace, not war! Philokleon--better bear a wrong than plead, Play the litigious fool to stuff the mouth Of dikast with the due three-obol fee! The Paphlagonian--stick to the old sway Of few and wise, not rabble-government! Trugaios, Pisthetairos, Strepsiades,-- Why multiply examples? Hail, in fine, The hero of each painted monster--so Suggesting the unpictured perfect shape! Pour out! A laugh to Aristophanes!'

"'Stay, my fine Strattis'--and I stopped applause-- 'To the Good Genius--but the Tragic Muse! She who instructs her poet, bids man's soul Play man's part merely nor attempt the gods' Ill-guessed of! Task humanity to height, Put passion to prime use, urge will, unshamed When will's last effort breaks in impotence! No power forego, elude: no weakness,--plied Fairly by power and will,--renounce, deny! Acknowledge, in such miscalled weakness, strength Latent: and substitute thus things for words! Make man run life's race fairly,--legs and feet, Craving no false wings to o'erfly its length! Trust on, trust ever, trust to end--in truth! By truth of extreme passion, utmost will, Shame back all false display of either force-- Barrier about such strenuous heat and glow, That cowardice shall shirk contending,--cant, Pretension, shrivel at truth's first approach! Pour to the Tragic Muse's ministrant Who, as he pictured pure Hippolutos, Abolished our earth's blot Ariphrades; Who, as he drew Bellerophon the bold, Proclaimed Kleonumos incredible; Who, as his Theseus towered up man once more, Made Alkibiades shrink boy again! A tear--no woman's tribute, weak exchange For action, water spent and heart's-blood saved-- No man's regret for greatness gone, ungraced Perchance by even that poor meed, man's praise-- But some god's superabundance of desire, Yearning of will to 'scape necessity,-- Love's overbrimming for self-sacrifice, Whence good might be, which never else may be, By power displayed, forbidden this strait sphere,-- Effort expressible one only way-- Such tear from me fall to Euripides!'

"The Thasian!--All, the Thasian, I account!

"Whereupon outburst the whole company Into applause and--laughter, would you think?

"'The unrivalled one! How, never at a loss, He turns the Tragic on its Comic side Else imperceptible! Here 's death itself-- Death of a rival, of an enemy,-- Scarce seen as Comic till the master-touch Made it acknowledge Aristophanes! Lo, that Euripidean laurel-tree Struck to the heart by lightning! Sokrates Would question us, with buzz of "how" and "why," Wherefore the berry's virtue, the bloom's vice, Till we all wished him quiet with his friend; Agathon would compose an elegy, Lyric bewailment fit to move a stone, And, stones responsive, we might wince, 't is like; Nay, with most cause of all to weep the least, Sophokles ordains mourning for his sake While we confess to a remorseful twinge:-- Suddenly, who but Aristophanes, Prompt to the rescue, puts forth solemn hand, Singles us out the tragic tree's best branch, Persuades it groundward and, at tip, appends, For votive-visor, Faun's goat-grinning face! Back it flies, evermore with jest a-top, And we recover the true mood, and laugh!"

"I felt as when some Nikias,--ninny-like Troubled by sunspot-portent, moon-eclipse,-- At fault a little, sees no choice but sound Retreat from foeman; and his troops mistake The signal, and hail onset in the blast, And at their joyous answer, _alalé_, Back the old courage brings the scattered wits; He wonders what his doubt meant, quick confirms The happy error, blows the charge amain. So I repaired things.

"'Both be praised,' thanked I. 'You who have laughed with Aristophanes, You who wept rather with the Lord of Tears! Priest, do thou, president alike o'er each, Tragic and Comic function of the god, Help with libation to the blended twain! Either of which who serving, only serves-- Proclaims himself disqualified to pour To that Good Genius--complex Poetry, Uniting each god-grace, including both: Which, operant for body as for soul, Masters alike the laughter and the tears, Supreme in lowliest earth, sublimest sky. Who dares disjoin these,--whether he ignores Body or soul, whichever half destroys,-- Maims the else perfect manhood, perpetrates Again the inexpiable crime we curse-- Hacks at the Hermai, halves each guardian shape Combining, nowise vainly, prominence Of august head and enthroned intellect, With homelier symbol of asserted sense,-- Nature's prime impulse, earthly appetite. For, when our folly ventures on the freak, Would fain abolish joy and fruitfulness, Mutilate nature--what avails the Head Left solitarily predominant,-- Unbodied soul,--not Hermes, both in one? I, no more than our City, acquiesce In such a desecration, but defend Man's double nature--ay, wert thou its foe! Could I once more, thou cold Euripides, Encounter thee, in naught would I abate My warfare, nor subdue my worst attack On thee whose life-work preached "Raise soul, sink sense! Evirate Hermes!"--would avenge the god, And justify myself. Once face to face, Thou, the argute and tricksy, shouldst not wrap, As thine old fashion was, in silent scorn The breast that quickened at the sting of truth, Nor turn from me, as, if the tale be true, From Lais when she met thee in thy walks, And questioned why she had no rights as thou. Not so shouldst thou betake thee, be assured, To book and pencil, deign me no reply! I would extract an answer from those lips So closed and cold, were mine the garden-chance! Gone from the world! Does none remain to take Thy part and ply me with thy sophist-skill? No sun makes proof of his whole potency For gold and purple in that orb we view: The apparent orb does little but leave blind The audacious, and confused the worshipping; But, close on orb's departure, must succeed The serviceable cloud,--must intervene, Induce expenditure of rose and blue, Reveal what lay in him was lost to us. So, friends, what hinders, as we homeward go, If, privileged by triumph gained to-day, We clasp that cloud our sun left saturate, The Rhodian rosy with Euripides? Not of my audience on my triumph-day, She nor her husband! After the night's news Neither will sleep but watch; I know the mood. Accompany! my crown declares my right!'

"And here you stand with those warm golden eyes!

"In honest language, I am scarce too sure Whether I really felt, indeed expressed Then, in that presence, things I now repeat: Nor half, nor any one word,--will that do? Maybe, such eyes must strike conviction, turn One's nature bottom upwards, show the base-- The live rock latent under wave and foam: Superimposure these! Yet solid stuff Will ever and anon, obeying star, (And what star reaches rock-nerve like an eye?) Swim up to surface, spout or mud or flame, And find no more to do than sink as fast.

"Anyhow, I have followed happily The impulse, pledged my Genius with effect, Since, come to see you, I am shown--myself!"

I answered:

"One of us declared for both 'Welcome the glory of Aristophanes.' The other adds: and,--if that glory last, Nor marsh-born vapor creep to veil the same,-- Once entered, share in our solemnity! Commemorate, as we, Euripides!"

"What?" he looked round, "I darken the bright house? Profane the temple of your deity? That 's true! Else wherefore does he stand portrayed? What Rhodian paint and pencil saved so much, Beard, freckled face, brow--all but breath, I hope! Come, that 's unfair: myself am somebody, Yet my pictorial fame 's just potter's work,-- I merely figure on men's drinking-mugs! I and the Flat-nose, Sophroniskos' son, Oft make a pair. But what 's this lies below? His table-book and graver, playwright's tool! And lo, the sweet psalterion, strung and screwed, Whereon he tried those _le-é-é-é-és_ And _ke-é-é-é-és_ and turns and trills, Lovely lark's tirra-lirra, lad's delight! Aischulos' bronze-throat eagle-bark at blood Has somehow spoiled my taste for twitterings! With ... what, and did he leave you 'Herakles'? The 'Frenzied Hero,' one unfractured sheet, No pine-wood tablets smeared with treacherous wax-- Papuros perfect as e'er tempted pen! This sacred twist of bay-leaves dead and sere Must be that crown the fine work failed to catch,-- No wonder! This might crown 'Antiope.' 'Herakles' triumph? In your heart perhaps! But elsewhere? Come now, I'll explain the case, Show you the main mistake. Give me the sheet!"

I interrupted:

"Aristophanes! The stranger-woman sues in her abode-- 'Be honored as our guest!' But, call it--shrine, Then 'No dishonor to the Daimon!' bids The priestess 'or expect dishonor's due!' You enter fresh from your worst infamy, Last instance of long outrage; yet I pause, Withhold the word a-tremble on my lip, Incline me, rather, yearn to reverence,-- So you but suffer that I see the blaze And not the bolt,--the splendid fancy-fling, Not the cold iron malice, the launched lie Whence heavenly fire has withered; impotent, Yet execrable, leave it 'neath the look Of yon impassive presence! What he scorned, His life long, need I touch, offend my foot, To prove that malice missed its mark, that lie Cumbers the ground, returns to whence it came? I marvel, I deplore,--the rest be mute! But, throw off hate's celestiality,-- Show me, apart from song-flash and wit-flame, A mere man's hand ignobly clenched against Yon supreme calmness,--and I interpose, Such as you see me! Silk breaks lightning's blow!" He seemed to scarce so much as notice me, Aught I had spoken, save the final phrase: Arrested there.

"Euripides grown calm! Calmness supreme means dead and therefore safe," He muttered; then more audibly began--

"Dead! Such must die! Could people comprehend! There 's the unfairness of it! So obtuse Are all: from Solon downward with his saw, 'Let none revile the dead,--no, though the son, Nay, far descendant, should revile thyself!'-- To him who made Elektra, in the act Of wreaking vengeance on her worst of foes, Scruple to blame, since speech that blames insults Too much the very villain life-released. Now, _I_ say, only after death, begins That formidable claim,--immunity Of faultiness from fault's due punishment! The living, who defame me,--why, they live: Fools,--I best prove them foolish by their life, Will they but work on, lay their work by mine, And wait a little, one Olympiad, say! Then, where 's the vital force, mine froze beside? The sturdy fibre, shamed my brittle stuff? The school-correctness, sure of wise award When my vagaries cease to tickle taste? Where 's censure that must sink me, judgment big Awaiting just the word posterity Pants to pronounce? Time's wave breaks, buries--_whom_, Fools, when myself confronts you four years hence? But die, ere next Lenaia,--safely so You 'scape me, slink with all your ignorance, Stupidity and malice, to that hole O'er which survivors croak 'Respect the dead!' Ay, for I needs must! But allow me clutch Only a carrion-handful, lend it sense, (Mine, not its own, or could it answer me?) And question, 'You, I pluck from hiding-place, Whose cant was, certain years ago, my "Clouds" Might last until the swallows came with Spring-- Whose chatter, "Birds" are unintelligible, Mere psychologic puzzling: poetry? List, the true lay to rock a cradle with! _O man of Mitulené, wondrous wise!_' --Would not I rub each face in its own filth To tune of 'Now that years have come and gone, How does the fact stand? What 's demonstrable By time, that tries things?--your own test, not mine Who think men are, were, ever will be fools, Though somehow fools confute fools,--as these, you! Don't mumble to the sheepish twos and threes You cornered and called "audience!" face this _me_ Who know, and can, and--helped by fifty years-- Do pulverize you pygmies, then as now!'

"Ay, now as then, I pulverize the brood, Balaustion! Mindful, from the first, where foe Would hide head safe when hand had flung its stone, I did not turn cheek and take pleasantry, But flogged while skin could purple and flesh start, To teach fools whom they tried conclusions with. First face a-splutter at me got such splotch Of prompt slab mud as, filling mouth to maw, Made its concern thenceforward not so much To criticise me as go cleanse itself. The only drawback to which huge delight,-- (He saw it, how he saw it, that calm cold Sagacity you call Euripides!) --Why, 't is that, make a muckheap of a man, There, pillared by your prowess, he remains, Immortally immerded. Not so he! Men pelted him but got no pellet back. He reasoned, I 'll engage,--'Acquaint the world Certain minuteness butted at my knee? Dogface Eruxis, the small satirist,-- What better would the manikin desire Than to strut forth on tiptoe, notable As who so far up fouled me in the flank?' So dealt he with the dwarfs: we giants, too, Why must we emulate their pin-point play? Render imperishable--impotence, For mud throw mountains? Zeus, by mud unreached,-- Well, 't was no dwarf he heaved Olumpos at!"

My heart burned up within me to my tongue.

"And why must men remember, ages hence, Who it was rolled down rocks, but refuse too-- Strattis might steal from! mixture-monument, Recording what? 'I, Aristophanes, Who boast me much inventive in my art, Against Euripides thus volleyed muck Because, in art, he too extended bounds. I--patriot, loving peace and hating war,-- Choosing the rule of few, but wise and good, Rather than mob-dictature, fools and knaves However multiplied their mastery,-- Despising most of all the demagogue, (Noisome air-bubble, buoyed up, borne along By kindred breath of knave and fool below, Whose hearts swell proudly as each puffing face Grows big, reflected in that glassy ball, Vacuity, just bellied out to break And righteously bespatter friends the first,) I loathing,--beyond less puissant speech Than my own god-grand language to declare,-- The fawning, cozenage and calumny Wherewith such favorite feeds the populace That fan and set him flying for reward:-- I who, detecting what vice underlies Thought's superstructure,--fancy's sludge and slime 'Twixt fact's sound floor and thought's mere surface-growth Of hopes and fears which root no deeplier down Than where all such mere fungi breed and bloat-- Namely, man's misconception of the God:-- I, loving, hating, wishful from my soul That truth should triumph, falsehood have defeat, --Why, all my soul's supremacy of power Did I pour out in volley just on him Who, his whole life long, championed every cause I called my heart's cause, loving as I loved, Hating my hates, spurned falsehood, championed truth,-- Championed truth not by flagellating foe With simple rose and lily, gibe and jeer, Sly wink of boon-companion o'er the bowze Who, while he blames the liquor, smacks the lip, Blames, doubtless, but leers condonation too,-- No, the balled fist broke brow like thunderbolt, Battered till brain flew! Seeing which descent, None questioned that was first acquaintanceship, The avenger's with the vice he crashed through bone. Still, he displeased me; and I turned from foe To fellow-fighter, flung much stone, more mud,-- But missed him, since he lives aloof, I see.' Pah! stop more shame, deep-cutting glory through, Nor add, this poet, learned,--found no taunt Tell like 'That other poet studies books!' Wise,--cried 'At each attempt to move our hearts, He uses the mere phrase of daily life!' Witty,--'His mother was a herb-woman!' Veracious, honest, loyal, fair and good,-- 'It was Kephisophon who helped him write!'

"Whence,--oh the tragic end of Comedy!-- Balaustion pities Aristophanes. For, who believed him? Those who laughed so loud? They heard him call the sun Sicilian cheese! Had he called true cheese--curd, would muscle move? What made them laugh but the enormous lie? 'Kephisophon wrote "Herakles"? ha, ha, What can have stirred the wine-dregs, soured the soul, And set a-lying Aristophanes? Some accident at which he took offence! The Tragic Master in a moody muse Passed him unhailing, and it hurts--it hurts! Beside, there 's license for the Wine-lees-song!'"

Blood burnt the cheekbone, each black eye flashed fierce.

"But this exceeds our license! Stay awhile-- That 's the solution! both are foreigners, The fresh-come Rhodian lady, and her spouse The man of Phokis: newly resident, Nowise instructed--that explains it all! No born and bred Athenian but would smile, Unless frown seemed more fit for ignorance. These strangers have a privilege!

"You blame" (Presently he resumed with milder mien) "Both theory and practice--Comedy: Blame her from altitudes the Tragic friend Rose to, and upraised friends along with him, No matter how. Once there, all 's cold and fine, Passionless, rational; our world beneath Shows (should you condescend to grace so much As glance at poor Athenai) grimly gross-- A population which, mere flesh and blood, Eats, drinks, and kisses, falls to fisticuffs, Then hugs as hugely: speaks too as it acts, Prodigiously talks nonsense,--townsmen needs Must parley in their town's vernacular. Such world has, of two courses, one to choose: Unworld itself,--or else go blackening off To its crow-kindred, leave philosophy Her heights serene, fit perch for owls like you. Now, since the world demurs to either course, Permit me,--in default of boy or girl, So they be reared Athenian, good and true,-- To praise what you most blame! Hear Art's defence! I 'll prove our institution, Comedy, Coeval with the birth of freedom, matched So nice with our Republic, that its growth Measures each greatness, just as its decline Would signalize the downfall of the pair. Our Art began when Bacchos ... never mind! You and your master don't acknowledge gods: 'They are not, no, they are not!' well,--began When the rude instinct of our race outspoke, Found,--on recurrence of festivity Occasioned by black mother-earth's good will To children, as they took her vintage-gifts,-- Found--not the least of many benefits-- That wine unlocked the stiffest lip, and loosed The tongue late dry and reticent of joke, Through custom's gripe which gladness thrusts aside. So, emulating liberalities, Heaven joined with earth for that god's day at least, Renewed man's privilege, grown obsolete, Of telling truth nor dreading punishment. Whereon the joyous band disguised their forms With skins, beast-fashion, daubed each phiz with dregs, Then hollaed 'Neighbor, you are fool, you--knave, You--hard to serve, you--stingy to reward!' The guiltless crowed, the guilty sunk their crest, And good folk gained thereby, 't was evident. Whence, by degrees, a birth of happier thought, The notion came--not simply this to say, But this to do--prove, put in evidence, And act the fool, the knave, the harsh, the hunks, Who _did_ prate, cheat, shake fist, draw purse-string tight, As crowd might see, which only heard before.

"So played the Poet, with his man of parts; And all the others, found unqualified To mount cart and be persons, made the mob, Joined choros, fortified their fellows' fun, Anticipated the community, Gave judgment which the public ratified. Suiting rough weapon doubtless to plain truth, They flung, for word-artillery, why--filth; Still, folks who wiped the unsavory salute From visage, would prefer the mess, to wit-- Steel, poked through midriff with a civil speech, As now the way is: then, the kindlier mode Was--drub not stab, rib-roast not scarify! So did Sousarion introduce, and so Did I, acceding, find the Comic Art: Club,--if I call it,--notice what 's implied! An engine proper for rough chastisement, No downright slaying: with impunity-- Provided crabtree, steeped in oily joke, Deal only such a bruise as laughter cures. I kept the gained advantage: stickled still For club-law--stout fun and allowanced thumps: Knocked in each knob a crevice to hold joke As fig-leaf holds the fat-fry.

"Next, whom thrash? Only the coarse fool and the clownish knave? Higher, more artificial, composite Offence should prove my prowess, eye and arm! Not who robs henroost, tells of untaxed figs, Spends all his substance on stewed ellops-fish, Or gives a pheasant to his neighbor's wife: No! strike malpractice that affects the State, The common weal--intriguer or poltroon, Venality, corruption, what care I If shrewd or witless merely?--so the thing Lay sap to aught that made Athenai bright And happy, change her customs, lead astray Youth or age, play the demagogue at Pnux, The sophist in Palaistra, or--what 's worst, As widest mischief,--from the Theatre Preach innovation, bring contempt on oaths, Adorn licentiousness, despise the Cult. Are such to be my game? Why, then there wants Quite other cunning than a cudgel-sweep! Grasp the old stout stock, but new tip with steel Each boss, if I would bray--no callous hide Simply, but Lamachos in coat of proof, Or Kleon cased about with impudence! Shaft pushed no worse while point pierced sparkling so That none smiled 'Sportive, what seems savagest, --Innocuous anger, spiteless rustic mirth!' Yet spiteless in a sort, considered well, Since I pursued my warfare till each wound Went through the mere man, reached the principle Worth purging from Athenai. Lamachos? No, I attacked war's representative; Kleon? No, flattery of the populace; Sokrates? No, but that pernicious seed Of sophists whereby hopeful youth is taught To jabber argument, chop logic, pore On sun and moon, and worship Whirligig. Oh, your tragedian, with the lofty grace, Aims at no other and effects as much? Candidly: what 's a polished period worth, Filed curt sententiousness of loaded line, When he who deals out doctrine, primly steps From just that selfsame moon he maunders of, And, blood-thinned by his pallid nutriment, Proposes to rich earth-blood--purity? In me, 't was equal-balanced flesh rebuked Excess alike in stuff-guts Glauketes Or starveling Chairephon; I challenged both,-- Strong understander of our common life, I urged sustainment of humanity. Whereas when your tragedian cries up Peace-- He 's silent as to cheese-cakes Peace may chew; Seeing through rabble-rule, he shuts his eye To what were better done than crowding Pnux-- That 's dance '_Threttanelo_, the Kuklops drunk!'

"My power has hardly need to vaunt itself! Opposers peep and mutter, or speak plain: 'No naming names in Comedy!' votes one, 'Nor vilifying live folk!' legislates Another, 'urge amendment on the dead!' 'Don't throw away hard cash,' supplies a third, 'But crib from actor's dresses, choros-treats!' Then Kleon did his best to bully me: Called me before the Law Court: 'Such a play Satirized citizens with strangers there, Such other,'--why, its fault was in myself! I was, this time, the stranger, privileged To act no play at all,--Egyptian, I-- Rhodian or Kameirensian, Aiginete, Lindian, or any foreigner he liked-- Because I can't write Attic, probably! Go ask my rivals,--how they roughed my fleece, And how, shorn pink themselves, the huddled sheep Shiver at distance from the snapping shears! Why must they needs provoke me?

"All the same, No matter for my triumph, I foretell Subsidence of the day-star: quench his beams? No Aias e'er was equal to the feat By throw of shield, tough-hided seven times seven, 'Twixt sky and earth! 't is dullards soft and sure Who breathe against his brightest, here a sigh And there a 'So let be, we pardon you!' Till the minute mist hangs a block, has tamed Noonblaze to 'twilight mild and equable,' Vote the old women spinning out of doors. Give me the earth-spasm, when the lion ramped And the bull gendered in the brave gold flare! Oh, you shall have amusement,--better still, Instruction! no more horse-play, naming names, Taxing the fancy when plain sense will serve! Thearion, now, my friend who bakes you bread, What 's worthier limning than his household life? His whims and ways, his quarrels with the spouse, And how the son, instead of learning knead Kilikian loaves, brings heartbreak on his sire By buying horseflesh branded _San_, each flank, From shrewd Menippos who imports the ware: While pretty daughter Kepphé too much haunts The shop of Sporgilos the barber! brave! Out with Thearion's meal-tub politics In lieu of Pisthetairos, Strepsiades! That 's your exchange? O Muse of Megara! Advise the fools '_Feed babe on weasel-lap_ _For wild-boar's marrow, Cheiron's hero-pap,_ _And rear, for man--Ariphrades, mayhap!_' Yes, my Balaustion, yes, my Euthukles, That 's _your_ exchange,--who, foreigners in fact And fancy, would impose your squeamishness On sturdy health, and substitute such brat For the right offspring of us Rocky Ones, Because babe kicks the cradle,--crows, not mewls!

"Which brings me to the prime fault, poison-speck Whence all the plague springs--that first feud of all 'Twixt me and you and your Euripides. 'Unworld the world,' frowns he, my opposite. I cry, 'Life!' 'Death,' he groans, 'our better Life!' Despise what is--the good and graspable, Prefer the out of sight and in at mind, To village-joy, the well-side violet-patch, The jolly club-feast when our field 's in soak, Roast thrushes, hare-soup, pea-soup, deep washed down With Peparethian; the prompt paying off That black-eyed brown-skinned country-flavored wench We caught among our brushwood foraging: On these look fig-juice, curdle up life's cream, And fall to magnifying misery! Or, if you condescend to happiness, Why, talk, talk, talk about the empty name While thing's self lies neglected 'neath your nose! _I_ need particular discourtesy And private insult from Euripides To render contest with him credible? Say, all of me is outraged! one stretched sense, I represent the whole Republic,--gods, Heroes, priests, legislators, poets,--prone, And pummelled into insignificance, If will in him were matched with power of stroke. For see what he has changed or hoped to change! How few years since, when he began the fight, Did there beat life indeed Athenai through! Plenty and peace, then! Hellas thundersmote The Persian. He himself had birth, you say, That morn salvation broke at Salamis, And heroes still walked earth. Themistokles-- Surely his mere back-stretch of hand could still Find, not so lost in dark, Odusseus?--he Holding as surely on to Herakles,-- Who touched Zeus, link by link, the unruptured chain! Were poets absent? Aischulos might hail-- With Pindaros, Theognis,--whom for sire? Homeros' self, departed yesterday! While Hellas, saved and sung to, then and thus,-- Ah, people,--ah, lost antique liberty! We lived, ourselves, undoubted lords of earth: Wherever olives flourish, corn yields crop To constitute our title--ours such land! Outside of oil and breadstuff,--barbarism! What need of conquest? Let barbarians starve! Devote our whole strength to our sole defence, Content with peerless native products, home, Beauty profuse in earth's mere sights and sounds, Such men, such women, and such gods their guard! The gods? he worshipped best who feared them most, And left their nature uninquired into, --Nature? their very names! pay reverence, Do sacrifice for our part, theirs would be To prove benignantest of playfellows. With kindly humanism they countenanced Our emulation of divine escapes Through sense and soul: soul, sense are made to use; Use each, acknowledging its god the while! Crush grape, dance, drink, indulge, for Bacchos' sake! 'T is Aphrodité's feast-day--frisk and fling, Provided we observe our oaths, and house Duly the stranger: Zeus takes umbrage else! Ah, the great time--had I been there to taste! Perikles, right Olumpian,--occupied As yet with getting an Olumpos reared Marble and gold above Akropolis,-- Wisely so spends what thrifty fools amassed For cut-throat projects. Who carves Promachos? Who writes the Oresteia?

"Ah, the time! For, all at once, a cloud has blanched the blue, A cold wind creeps through the close vineyard-rank, The olive-leaves curl, violets crisp and close Like a nymph's wrinkling at the bath's first splash On breast. (Your pardon!) There 's a restless change, Deterioration. Larks and nightingales Are silenced, here and there a gor-crow grim Flaps past, as scenting opportunity. Where Kimon passaged to the Boulé once, A starveling crew, unkempt, unshorn, unwashed, Occupy altar-base and temple-step, Are minded to indoctrinate our youth! How call these carrion kill-joys that intrude? 'Wise men,' their nomenclature! Prodikos-- Who scarce could, unassisted, pick his steps From way Theseia to the Tripods' way,-- This empty noddle comprehends the sun,-- How he 's Aigina's bigness, wheels no whit His way from east to west, nor wants a steed! And here 's Protagoras sets wrongheads right, Explains what virtue, vice, truth, falsehood mean, Makes all we seemed to know prove ignorance Yet knowledge also, since, on either side Of any question, something is to say, Nothing to 'stablish, all things to disturb! And shall youth go and play at kottabos, Leaving unsettled whether moon-spots breed? Or dare keep Choes ere the problem 's solved-- Why should I like my wife who dislikes me? 'But sure the gods permit this, censure that?' So tell them! straight the answer 's in your teeth: 'You relegate these points, then, to the gods? What and where are they?' What my sire supposed, And where yon cloud conceals them! 'Till they 'scape, And scramble down to Leda, as a swan, Europa, as a bull! why not as--ass To somebody? Your sire was Zeus perhaps! Either--away with such ineptitude! Or, wanting energy to break your bonds, Stick to the good old stories, think the rain Is--Zeus distilling pickle through a sieve! Think thunder 's thrown to break Theoros' head For breaking oaths first! Meanwhile let ourselves Instruct your progeny you prate like fools Of father Zeus, who 's but the atmosphere, Brother Poseidon, otherwise called--sea, And son Hephaistos--fire and nothing else! Over which nothings there 's a something still, "Necessity," that rules the universe And cares as much about your Choes-feast Performed or intermitted, as you care Whether gnats sound their trump from head or tail!' When, stupefied at such philosophy, We cry, 'Arrest the madmen, governor! Pound hemlock and pour bull's-blood, Perikles!' Would you believe? The Olumpian bends his brow, Scarce pauses from his building! 'Say they thus? Then, they say wisely. Anaxagoras, I had not known how simple proves eclipse But for thy teaching! Go, fools, learn like me!'

"Well, Zeus nods: man must reconcile himself, So, let the Charon's-company harangue, And Anaxagoras be--as we wish! A comfort is in nature: while grass grows And water runs, and sesame pricks tongue, And honey from Brilesian hollow melts On mouth, and Bacchis' flavorous lip beats both, You will not be untaught life's use, young man? _Pho!_ My young man just proves that panniered ass Said to have borne Youth strapped on his stout back, With whom a serpent bargained, bade him swap The priceless boon for--water to quench thirst! What 's youth to my young man? In love with age, He Spartanizes, argues, fasts and frowns, Denies the plainest rules of life, long since Proved sound; sets all authority aside, Must simply recommence things, learn ere act, And think out thoroughly how youth should pass-- Just as if youth stops passing, all the same!

"One last resource is left us--poetry! 'Vindicate nature, prove Plataian help, Turn out, a thousand strong, all right and tight, To save Sense, poet! Bang the sophist-brood Would cheat man out of wholesome sustenance By swearing wine is water, honey--gall, Saperdion--the Empousa! Panic-smit, Our juveniles abstain from Sense and starve: Be yours to disenchant them! Change things back! Or better, strain a point the other way And handsomely exaggerate wronged truth! Lend wine a glory never gained from grape, Help honey with a snatch of him we style The Muses' Bee, baybloom-fed Sophokles, And give Saperdion a Kimberic robe!'

"'I, his successor,' gruff the answer grunts, 'Incline to poetize philosophy, Extend it rather than restrain; as thus-- Are heroes men? No more, and scarce as much, Shall mine be represented. Are men poor? Behold them ragged, sick, lame, halt and blind! Do they use speech? Ay, street-terms, market-phrase! Having thus drawn sky earthwards, what comes next But dare the opposite, lift earth to sky? Mere puppets once, I now make womankind, For thinking, saying, doing, match the male. Lift earth? I drop to, dally with, earth's dung! --Recognize in the very slave--man's mate, Declare him brave and honest, kind and true, And reasonable as his lord, in brief. I paint men as they are--so runs my boast-- Not as they should be: paint--what 's part of man, --Women and slaves,--not as, to please your pride, They should be, but your equals, as they are. Oh, and the Gods! Instead of abject mien, Submissive whisper, while my Choros cants, "Zeus,--with thy cubit's length of attributes,-- May I, the ephemeral, ne'er scrutinize Who made the heaven and earth and all things there!" Myself shall say ... Ay, 'Herakles' may help! Give me,--I want the very words,--attend!"

He read. Then--"Murder 's out,--'There are no Gods,' Man has no master, owns, by consequence, No right, no wrong, except to please or plague! His nature: what man likes be man's sole law Still, since he likes Saperdion, honey, figs, Man may reach freedom by your roundabout! 'Never believe yourselves the freer thence! There are no gods, but there 's "Necessity,"-- Duty enjoined you, fact in figment's place, Throned on no mountain, native to the mind! Therefore deny yourselves Saperdion, figs And honey, for the sake of--what I dream, A-sitting with my legs up!'

"Infamy! The poet casts in calm his lot with these Assailants of Apollon! Sworn to serve Each Grace, the Furies call him minister-- He, who was born for just that roseate world Renounced so madly, where what 's false is fact, Where he makes beauty out of ugliness, Where he lives, life itself disguised for him As immortality--so works the spell, The enthusiastic mood which marks a man Muse-mad, dream-drunken, wrapt around by verse, Encircled with poetic atmosphere, As lark emballed by its own crystal song, Or rose enmisted by that scent it makes! No, this were unreality! the real He wants, not falsehood,--truth alone he seeks, Truth, for all beauty! Beauty, in all truth-- That 's certain somehow! Must the eagle lilt Lark-like, needs fir-tree blossom rose-like? No! Strength and utility charm more than grace, And what 's most ugly proves most beautiful. So much assistance from Euripides!

"Whereupon I betake me, since needs must, To a concluding--'Go and feed the crows! Do! Spoil your art as you renounce your life, Poetize your so precious system, do, Degrade the hero, nullify the god, Exhibit women, slaves and men as peers,-- Your castigation follows prompt enough! When all 's concocted upstairs, heels o'erhead, Down must submissive drop the masterpiece For public praise or blame: so, praise away, Friend Sokrates, wife's-friend Kephisophon! Boast innovations, cramp phrase, uncouth song, Hard matter and harsh manner, gods, men, slaves And women jumbled to a laughing-stock Which Hellas shall hold sides at lest she split! Hellas, on these, shall have her word to say!'

"She has it and she says it--there 's the curse!-- She finds he makes the shag-rag hero-race, The noble slaves, wise women, move as much Pity and terror as true tragic types: Applauds inventiveness--the plot so new, The turn and trick subsidiary so strange! She relishes that homely phrase of life, That common town-talk, more than trumpet-blasts; Accords him right to chop and change a myth: What better right had he, who told the tale In the first instance, to embellish fact? This last may disembellish yet improve! Both find a block: this man carves back to bull What first his predecessor cut to sphinx: Such genuine actual roarer, nature's brute, Intelligible to our time, was sure The old-world artist's purpose, had he worked To mind; this both means and makes the thing! If, past dispute, the verse slips oily-bathed In unctuous music--say, effeminate-- We also say, like Kuthereia's self, A lulling effluence which enswathes some isle Where hides a nymph, not seen but felt the more. That 's Hellas' verdict!

"Does Euripides Even so far absolved, remain content? Nowise! His task is to refine, refine, Divide, distinguish, subtilize away Whatever seemed a solid planting-place For footfall,--not in that phantasmal sphere Proper to poet, but on vulgar earth Where people used to tread with confidence. There 's left no longer one plain positive Enunciation incontestable Of what is good, right, decent here on earth. Nobody now can say, 'This plot is mine, Though but a plethron square,--my duty!'--'Yours? Mine, or at least not yours,' snaps somebody! And, whether the dispute be parent-right Or children's service, husband's privilege Or wife's submission, there 's a snarling straight, Smart passage of opposing 'yea' and 'nay,' 'Should,' 'should not,' till, howe'er the contest end, Spectators go off sighing 'Clever thrust! Why was I so much hurried to pay debt, Attend my mother, sacrifice an ox, And set my name down "for a trireme, good"? Something I might have urged on t' other side! No doubt, Chresphontes or Bellerophon We don't meet every day; but Stab-and-stitch The tailor--ere I turn the drachmas o'er I owe him for a chiton, as he thinks, I 'll pose the blockhead with an argument!'

"So has he triumphed, your Euripides! Oh, I concede, he rarely gained a prize: That 's quite another matter! cause for that! Still, when 't was got by Ions, Iophons, Off he would pace confoundedly superb, Supreme, no smile at movement on his mouth Till Sokrates winked, whispered: out it broke! And Aristullos jotted down the jest, While Iophons or Ions, bay on brow, Looked queerly, and the foreigners--like you-- Asked o'er the border with a puzzled smile, --'And so, you value Ions, Iophons, Euphorions! How about Euripides?' (Eh, brave bard's-champion? Does the anger boil? Keep within bounds a moment,--eye and lip Shall loose their doom on me, their fiery worst!) What strangers? Archelaos heads the file! He sympathizes, he concerns himself, He pens epistle, each successless play: 'Athenai sinks effete; there 's younger blood In Makedonia. Visit where I rule! Do honor to me and take gratitude! Live the guest's life, or work the poet's way, Which also means the statesman's: he who wrote "Erechtheus" may seem rawly politic At home where Kleophon is ripe; but here My council-board permits him choice of seats.'

"Now, this was operating,--what should prove A poison-tree, had flowered far on to fruit For many a year,--when I was moved, first man, To dare the adventure, down with root and branch. So, from its sheath I drew my Comic steel, And dared what I am now to justify. A serious question first, though!

"Once again! Do you believe, when I aspired in youth, I made no estimate of power at all, Nor paused long, nor considered much, what class Of fighters I might claim to join, beside That class wherewith I cast in company? Say, you--profuse of praise no less than blame-- Could not I have competed--franker phrase Might trulier correspond to meaning--still, Competed with your Tragic paragon? Suppose me minded simply to make verse, To fabricate, parade resplendent arms, Flourish and sparkle out a Trilogy,-- Where was the hindrance? But my soul bade 'Fight! Leave flourishing for mock-foe, pleasure-time; Prove arms efficient on real heads and hearts!' How? With degeneracy sapping fast The Marathonian muscle, nerved of old To maul the Mede, now strung at best to help --How did I fable?--War and Hubbub mash To mincemeat Fatherland and Brotherhood, Pound in their mortar Hellas, State by State, That greed might gorge, the while frivolity Rubbed hands and smacked lips o'er the dainty dish! Authority, experience--pushed aside By any upstart who pleads throng and press, O' the people! 'Think, say, do thus!' Wherefore, pray? 'We are the people: who impugns our right Of choosing Kleon that tans hide so well, Huperbolos that turns out lamps so trim, Hemp-seller Eukrates or Lusikles Sheep-dealer, Kephalos the potter's son, Diitriphes who weaves the willow-work To go round bottles, and Nausikudes The meal-man? Such we choose and more, their mates, To think and say and do in our behalf!' While sophistry wagged tongue, emboldened still, Found matter to propose, contest, defend, 'Stablish, turn topsyturvy,--all the same, No matter what, provided the result Were something new in place of something old,-- Set wagging by pure insolence of soul Which needs must pry into, have warrant for Each right, each privilege good policy Protects from curious eye and prating mouth! Everywhere lust to shape the world anew, Spurn this Athenai as we find her, build A new impossible Cloudcuckooburg For feather-headed birds, once solid men, Where rules, discarding jolly habitude, Nourished on myrtle-berries and stray ants, King Tereus who, turned Hoopoe Triple-Crest, Shall terrify and bring the gods to terms!

"Where was I? Oh! Things ailing thus--I ask, What cure? Cut, thrust, hack, hew at heap-on-heaped Abomination with the exquisite Palaistra-tool of polished Tragedy? Erechtheus shall harangue Amphiktuon, And incidentally drop word of weight On justice, righteousness, so turn aside The audience from attacking Sicily!-- The more that Choros, after he recounts How Phrixos rode the ram, the far-famed Fleece, Shall add--at last fall of grave dancing-foot-- 'Aggression never yet was helped by Zeus!' That helps or hinders Alkibiades? As well expect, should Pheidias carve Zeus' self And set him up, some half a mile away, His frown would frighten sparrows from your field! Eagles may recognize their lord, belike, But as for vulgar sparrows,--change the god, And plant some big Priapos with a pole! I wield the Comic weapon rather--hate! Hate! honest, earnest, and directest hate-- Warfare wherein I close with enemy, Call him one name and fifty epithets, Remind you his great-grandfather sold bran, Describe the new exomion, sleeveless coat He knocked me down last night and robbed me of, Protest he voted for a tax on air! And all this hate--if I write Comedy-- Finds tolerance, most like--applause, perhaps True veneration; for I praise the god Present in person of his minister, And pay--the wilder my extravagance-- The more appropriate worship to the Power Adulterous, night-roaming, and the rest: Otherwise,--that originative force Of nature, impulse stirring death to life, Which, underlying law, seems lawlessness, Yet is the outbreak which, ere order be, Must thrill creation through, warm stocks and stones, Phales Iacchos.

"Comedy for me! Why not for you, my Tragic masters? Sneaks Whose art is mere desertion of a trust! Such weapons lay to hand, the ready club, The clay-ball, on the ground a stone to snatch,-- Arms fit to bruise the boar's neck, break the chine O' the wolf,--and you must impiously--despise? No, I 'll say, furtively let fall that trust Consigned you! 'T was not 'take or leave alone,' But 'take and, wielding, recognize your god In his prime attributes!' And though full soon You sneaked, subsided into poetry, Nor met your due reward, still,--heroize And speechify and sing-song and forego Far as you may your function,--still its pact Endures, one piece of early homage still Exacted of you; after your three bouts At hoitytoity, great men with long words, And so forth,--at the end, must tack itself The genuine sample, the Satyric Play, Concession, with its wood-boys' fun and freak, To the true taste of the mere multitude. Yet, there again! What does your Still-at-itch, Always-the-innovator? Shrugs and shirks! Out of his fifty Trilogies, some five Are somehow suited: Satyrs dance and sing, Try merriment, a grimly prank or two, Sour joke squeezed through pursed lips and teeth on edge, Then quick on top of toe to pastoral sport, Goat-tending and sheep-herding, cheese and cream, Soft grass and silver rillets, country-fare-- When throats were promised Thasian! Five such feats,-- Then frankly off he threw the yoke: next Droll, Next festive drama, covenanted fun, Decent reversion to indecency, Proved--your 'Alkestis'! There 's quite fun enough, Herakles drunk! From out fate's blackening wave Calamitous, just zigzags some shot star, Poor promise of faint joy, and turns the laugh On dupes whose fears and tears were all in waste!

"For which sufficient reasons, in truth's name, I closed with whom you count the Meaner Muse, Classed me with Comic Poets who should weld Dark with bright metal, show their blade may keep Its adamantine birthright though ablaze With poetry, the gold, and wit, the gem, And strike mere gold, unstiffened out by steel, Or gem, no iron joints its strength around, From hand of--posturer, not combatant!

"Such was my purpose: it succeeds, I say! Have not we beaten Kallikratidas, Not humbled Sparté? Peace awaits our word, Spite of Theramenes, and fools his like. Since my previsions--warranted too well By the long war now waged and worn to end-- Had spared such heritage of misery, My after-counsels scarce need fear repulse. Athenai, taught prosperity has wings, Cages the glad recapture. Demos, see, From folly's premature decrepitude Boiled young again, emerges from the stew Of twenty-five years' trouble, sits and sways, One brilliance and one balsam,--sways and sits Monarch of Hellas! ay, and, sage again, No longer jeopardizes chieftainship, No longer loves the brutish demagogue Appointed by a bestial multitude, But seeks out sound advisers. Who are they? Ourselves, of parentage proved wise and good! To such may hap strains thwarting quality, (As where shall want its flaw mere human stuff?) Still, the right grain is proper to right race; What 's contrary, call curious accident! Hold by the usual! Orchard-grafted tree, Not wilding, racehorse-sired, not rouncey-born, Aristocrat, no sausage-selling snob! Nay, why not Alkibiades, come back Filled by the Genius, freed of petulance, Frailty,--mere youthfulness that 's all at fault,-- Advanced to Perikles and something more? --Being at least our duly born and bred,-- Curse on what chaunoprockt first gained his ear And got his ... well, once true man in right place, Our commonalty soon content themselves With doing just what they are born to do, Eat, drink, make merry, mind their own affairs And leave state-business to the larger brain! I do not stickle for their punishment; But certain culprits have a cloak to twitch, A purse to pay the piper: flog, say I, Your fine fantastics, paragons of parts, Who choose to play the important! Far from side With us, their natural supports, allies,-- And, best by brain, help who are best by birth To fortify each weak point in the wall Built broad and wide and deep for permanence Between what 's high and low, what 's rare and vile,-- They cast their lot perversely in with low And vile, lay flat the barrier, lift the mob To dizzy heights where Privilege stood firm. And then, simplicity become conceit,-- Woman, slave, common soldier, artisan, Crazy with new-found worth, new-fangled claims,-- These must be taught next how to use their heads And hands in driving man's right to mob's rule! What fellows thus inflame the multitude? Your Sokrates, still crying 'Understand!' Your Aristullos,--'Argue!' Last and worst, Should, by good fortune, mob still hesitate, Remember there 's degree in heaven and earth, Cry 'Aischulos enjoined us fear the gods, And Sophokles advised respect the kings!' Why, your Euripides informs them--Gods? They are not! Kings? They are, but ... do not I, In 'Suppliants,' make my Theseus,--yours, no more,-- Fire up at insult of who styles him King? Play off that Herald, I despise the most, As patronizing kings' prerogative Against a Theseus proud to dare no step Till he consult the people?

"Such as these-- Ah, you expect I am for strangling straight? Nowise, Balaustion! All my roundabout Ends at beginning, with my own defence! I dose each culprit just with--Comedy. Let each be doctored in exact the mode Himself prescribes: by words, the word-monger-- My words to his words,--my lies, if you like, To his lies. Sokrates I nickname thief, Quack, necromancer; Aristullos,--say, Male Kirké who bewitches and bewrays And changes folk to swine; Euripides,-- Well, I acknowledge! Every word is false, Looked close at; but stand distant and stare through, All 's absolute indubitable truth Behind lies, truth which only lies declare! For come, concede me truth 's in thing not word, Meaning not manner! Love smiles 'rogue' and 'wretch' When 'sweet' and 'dear' seem vapid; Hate adopts Love's 'sweet' and 'dear,' when 'rogue' and 'wretch' fall flat; Love, Hate--are truths, then, each, in sense not sound. Further: if Love, remaining Love, fell back On 'sweet' and 'dear,'--if Hate, though Hate the same, Dropped down to 'rogue' and 'wretch,'--each phrase were false. Good! and now grant I hate no matter whom With reason: I must therefore fight my foe, Finish the mischief which made enmity. How? By employing means to most hurt him Who much harmed me. What way did he do harm? Through word or deed? Through word? with word, wage war! Word with myself directly? As direct Reply shall follow: word to you, the wise, Whence indirectly came the harm to me? What wisdom I can muster waits on such! Word to the populace which, misconceived By ignorance and incapacity, Ends in no such effect as follows cause When I, or you the wise, are reasoned with, So damages what I and you hold dear? In that event, I ply the populace With just such word as leavens their whole lump To the right ferment for my purpose. _They_ Arbitrate properly between us both? _They_ weigh my answer with his argument, Match quip with quibble, wit with eloquence? All they attain to understand is--blank! Two adversaries differ; which is right And which is wrong, none takes on him to say, Since both are unintelligible. Pooh! Swear my foe's mother vended herbs she stole, They fall a-laughing! Add,--his household drudge Of all-work justifies that office well, Kisses the wife, composing him the play,-- They grin at whom they gaped in wonderment, And go off--'Was he such a sorry scrub? This other seems to know! we praised too fast!' When then, my lies have done the work of truth, Since 'scrub,' improper designation, means Exactly what the proper argument --Had such been comprehensible--proposed To proper audience--were I graced with such-- Would properly result in; so your friend Gets an impartial verdict on his verse, 'The tongue swears, but the soul remains unsworn!'

"There, my Balaustion! All is summed and said. No other cause of quarrel with yourself! Euripides and Aristophanes Differ: he needs must round our difference Into the mob's ear; with the mob I plead. You angrily start forward 'This to me?' No speck of this on you the thrice refined! Could parley be restricted to us two, My first of duties were to clear up doubt As to our true divergence each from each. Does my opinion so diverge from yours? Probably less than little--not at all! To know a matter, for my very self And intimates--that 's one thing: to imply By 'knowledge'--loosing whatsoe'er I know Among the vulgar who, by mere mistake, May brain themselves and me in consequence,-- That 's quite another. 'O the daring flight! This only bard maintains the exalted brow, Nor grovels in the slime nor fears the gods!' Did _I_ fear--_I_ play superstitious fool, Who, with the due proviso, introduced,

## Active and passive, their whole company

As creatures too absurd for scorn itself? Zeus? I have styled him--'slave, mere thrashing-block!' I 'll tell you: in my very next of plays, At Bacchos' feast, in Bacchos' honor, full In front of Bacchos' representative. I mean to make main-actor--Bacchos' self! Forth shall he strut, apparent, first to last, A blockhead, coward, braggart, liar, thief, Demonstrated all these by his own mere Xanthias the man-slave: such man shows such god Shamed to brute-beastship by comparison! And when ears have their fill of his abuse, And eyes are sated with his pummelling,-- My Choros taking care, by, all the while Singing his glory, that men recognize A god in the abused and pummelled beast,-- Then, should one ear be stopped of auditor, Should one spectator shut revolted eye,-- Why, the Priest's self will first raise outraged voice: 'Back, thou barbarian, thou ineptitude! Does not most license hallow best our day, And least decorum prove its strictest rite? Since Bacchos bids his followers play the fool, And there 's no fooling like a majesty Mocked at,--who mocks the god, obeys the law-- Law which, impute but indiscretion to, And ... why, the spirit of Euripides Is evidently active in the world!' Do I stop here? No! feat of flightier force! See Hermes! what commotion raged,--reflect!-- When imaged god alone got injury By drunkards' frolic! How Athenai stared Aghast, then fell to frenzy, fit on fit,-- Ever the last, the longest! At this hour, The craze abates a little: so, my Play Shall have up Hermes: and a Karion, slave, (Since there 's no getting lower) calls our friend The profitable god, we honor so, Whatever contumely fouls the mouth-- Bids him go earn more honest livelihood By washing tripe in well-trough--wash he does, Duly obedient! Have I dared my best? Asklepios, answer!--deity in vogue, Who visits Sophokles familiarly, If you believe the old man,--at his age, Living is dreaming, and strange guests haunt door Of house, belike, peep through and tap at times When a friend yawns there, waiting to be fetched,-- At any rate, to memorize the fact, He has spent money, set an altar up In the god's temple, now in much repute. That temple-service trust me to describe-- Cheaters and choused, the god, his brace of girls, Their snake, and how they manage to snap gifts 'And consecrate the same into a bag,' For whimsies done away with in the dark! As if, a stone's throw from that theatre Whereon I thus unmask their dupery, The thing were not religious and august!

"Of Sophokles himself--nor word nor sign Beyond a harmless parody or so! He founds no anti-school, upsets no faith, But, living, lets live, the good easy soul Who,--if he saves his cash, unpoetlike, Loves wine and--never mind what other sport, Boasts for his father just a swordblade-smith, Proves but queer captain when the people claim, For one who conquered with 'Antigone,' The right to undertake a squadron's charge,-- And needs the son's help now to finish plays, Seeing his dotage calls for governance And Iophon to share his property,-- Why, of all this, reported true, I breathe Not one word--true or false, I like the man! Sophokles lives and lets live: long live he! Otherwise,--sharp the scourge and hard the blow!

"And what 's my teaching but--accept the old, Contest the strange! acknowledge work that 's done, Misdoubt men who have still their work to do! Religions, laws and customs, poetries, Are old? So much achieved victorious truth! Each work was product of a lifetime, wrung From each man by an adverse world: for why? He worked, destroying other older work Which the world loved and so was loth to lose. Whom the world beat in battle--dust and ash! Who beat the world, left work in evidence, And wears its crown till new men live new lives, And fight new fights, and triumph in their turn. I mean to show you on the stage! you 'll see My Just Judge only venture to decide Between two suitors, which is god, which man, By thrashing both of them as flesh can bear. You shall agree,--whichever bellows first, He 's human; who holds longest out, divine: That is the only equitable test! Cruelty? Pray, who pricked them on to court My thong's award? Must they needs dominate? Then I--rebel! Their instinct grasps the new? Mine bids retain the old: a fight must be, And which is stronger the event will show. Oh, but the pain! Your proved divinity Still smarts all reddened? And the rightlier served! Was not some man's-flesh in him, after all? Do let us lack no frank acknowledgment There 's nature common to both gods and men! All of them--spirit? What so winced was clay! Away pretence to some exclusive sphere Cloud-nourishing a sole selected few Fume-fed with self-superiority! I stand up for the common coarse-as-clay Existence,--stamp and ramp with heel and hoof On solid vulgar life, you fools disown! Make haste from your unreal eminence, And measure lengths with me upon that ground Whence this mud-pellet sings and summons you! I know the soul, too, how the spark ascends And how it drops apace and dies away. I am your poet-peer, man thrice your match! I too can lead an airy life when dead, Fly like Kinesias when I 'm cloud-ward bound; But here, no death shall mix with life it mars!

"So, my old enemy who caused the fight, Own I have beaten you, Euripides! Or,--if your advocate would contravene,-- Help him, Balaustion! Use the rosy strength! I have not done my utmost,--treated you As I might Aristullos, mint-perfumed,-- Still, let the whole rage burst in brave attack! Don't pay the poor ambiguous compliment Of fearing any pearl-white knuckled fist Will damage this broad buttress of a brow! Fancy yourself my Aristonumos, Ameipsias or Sannurion: punch and pound! Three cuckoos who cry 'cuckoo'! much I care! They boil a stone! _Neblaretai! Rattei!_"

* * * * *

Cannot your task have end here, Euthukles? Day by day glides our galley on its path: Still sunrise and still sunset, Rhodes half-reached, And still, my patient scribe! no sunset's peace Descends more punctual than that brow's incline O'er tablets which your serviceable hand Prepares to trace. Why treasure up, forsooth, These relics of a night that make me rich, But, half-remembered merely, leave so poor Each stranger to Athenai and her past? For--how remembered! As some greedy hind Persuades a honeycomb, beyond the due, To yield its hoarding,--heedless what alloy Of the poor bee's own substance taints the gold Which, unforced, yields few drops, but purity,-- So would you fain relieve of load this brain, Though the hived thoughts must bring away, with strength, What words and weakness, strength's receptacle-- Wax from the store! Yet,--aching soothed away,-- Accept the compound! No suspected scent But proves some rose was rifled, though its ghost Scarce lingers with what promised musk and myrrh. No need of farther squeezing! What remains Can only be Balaustion, just her speech!

Ah, but--because speech serves a purpose still!--

* * * * *

He ended with that flourish. I replied:

"Fancy myself your Aristonumos? Advise me, rather, to remain myself, Balaustion,--mindful what mere mouse confronts The forest-monarch Aristophanes! I who, a woman, claim no quality Beside the love of all things lovable Created by a power pre-eminent In knowledge, as in love I stand perchance, --You, the consummately-creative! How Should I, then, dare deny submissive trust To any process aiming at result Such as you say your songs are pregnant with? Result, all judge: means, let none scrutinize Save those aware how glory best is gained By daring means to end, ashamed of shame, Constant in faith that only good works good, While evil yields no fruit but impotence! Graced with such plain good, I accept the means! Nay, if result itself in turn become Means,--who shall say?--to ends still loftier yet,-- Though still the good prove hard to understand, The bad still seemingly predominate,-- Never may I forget which order bears The burden, toils to win the great reward, And finds, in failure, the grave punishment, So, meantime, claims of me a faith I yield! Moreover, a mere woman, I recoil From what may prove man's-work permissible, Imperative. Rough strokes surprise: what then? Some lusty armsweep needs must cause the crash Of thorn and bramble, ere those shrubs, those flowers, We fain would have earth yield exclusively, Are sown, matured and garlanded for boys And girls, who know not how the growth was gained. Finally, am I not a foreigner? No born and bred Athenian,--isled about, I scarce can drink, like you, at every breath, Just some particular doctrine which may best Explain the strange thing I revolt against-- How--by involvement, who may extricate?-- Religion perks up through impiety, Law leers with license, folly wise-like frowns, The seemly lurks inside the abominable. But opposites,--each neutralizes each Haply by mixture: what should promise death, May haply give the good ingredient force, Disperse in fume the antagonistic ill. This institution, therefore,--Comedy,-- By origin, a rite; by exercise, Proved an achievement tasking poet's power To utmost, eking legislation out Beyond the legislator's faculty, Playing the censor where the moralist Declines his function, far too dignified For dealing with minute absurdities; By efficacy,--virtue's guard, the scourge Of vice, each folly's fly-flap, arm in aid Of all that 's righteous, customary, sound And wholesome; sanctioned therefore,--better say, Prescribed for fit acceptance of this age By, not alone the long recorded roll Of earlier triumphs, but, success to-day-- (The multitude as prompt recipient still Of good gay teaching from that monitor They crowned this morning--Aristophanes-- As when Sousarion's car first traversed street)-- This product of Athenai--_I_ dispute, Impugn? There 's just one only circumstance Explains that! I, poor critic, see, hear, feel; But eyes, ears, senses prove me--foreigner! Who shall gainsay that the raw new-come guest Blames oft, too sensitive? On every side Of--larger than your stage--life's spectacle, Convention here permits and there forbids Impulse and action, nor alleges more Than some mysterious 'So do all, and so Does no one:' which the hasty stranger blames Because, who bends the head unquestioning, Transgresses, turns to wrong what else were right, By failure of a reference to law Beyond convention; blames unjustly, too-- As if, through that defect, all gained were lost And slave-brand set on brow indelibly;-- Blames unobservant or experienceless That men, like trees, if stout and sound and sane, Show stem no more affected at the root By bough's exceptional submissive dip Of leaf and bell, light danced at end of spray To windy fitfulness in wayward sport,-- No more lie prostrate,--than low files of flower Which, when the blast goes by, unruffled raise Each head again o'er ruder meadow-wreck Of thorn and thistle that refractory Demurred to cower at passing wind's caprice. Why shall not guest extend like charity, Conceive how,--even when astounded most That natives seem to acquiesce in muck Changed by prescription, they affirm, to gold,-- Such may still bring to test, still bear away Safely and surely much of good and true Though latent ore, themselves unspecked, unspoiled? Fresh bathed i' the icebrook, any hand may pass A placid moment through the lamp's fierce flame: And who has read your 'Lemnians,' seen 'The Hours,' Heard 'Female-Playhouse-seat-Preoccupants,' May feel no worse effect than, once a year, Those who leave decent vesture, dress in rags And play the mendicant, conform thereby To country's rite, and then, no beggar-taint Retained, don vesture due next morrow-day. What if I share the stranger's weakness then? Well, could I also show his strength, his sense Untutored, ay!--but then untampered with!

"I fancy, though the world seems old enough, Though Hellas be the sole unbarbarous land, Years may conduct to such extreme of age, And outside Hellas so isles new may lurk, That haply,--when and where remain a dream!-- In fresh days when no Hellas fills the world, In novel lands as strange where, all the same, Their men and women yet behold, as we, Blue heaven, black earth, and love, hate, hope and fear. Over again, unhelped by Attiké-- Haply some philanthropic god steers bark, Gift-laden, to the lonely ignorance Islanded, say, where mist and snow mass hard To metal--ay, those Kassiterides! Then asks: 'Ye apprehend the human form. What of this statue, made to Pheidias' mind, This picture, as it pleased our Zeuxis paint? Ye too feel truth, love beauty: judge of these!' Such strangers may judge feebly, stranger-like: 'Each hair too indistinct--for, see our own! Hands, not skin-colored as these hands we have, And lo, the want of due decorum here! A citizen, arrayed in civic garb, Just as he walked your streets apparently, Yet wears no sword by side, adventures thus, In thronged Athenai! foolish painter's-freak! While here 's his brother-sculptor found at fault Still more egregiously, who shames the world, Shows wrestler, wrestling at the public games, Atrociously exposed from head to foot!' Sure, the Immortal would impart at once Our slow-stored knowledge, how small truths suppressed Conduce to the far greater truth's display,-- Would replace simple by instructed sense, And teach them how Athenai first so tamed The natural fierceness that her progeny Discarded arms nor feared the beast in man: Wherefore at games, where earth's wise gratitude, Proved by responsive culture, claimed the prize For man's mind, body, each in excellence,-- When mind had bared itself, came body's turn, And only irreligion grudged the gods One naked glory of their master-work Where all is glorious rightly understood,-- The human frame; enough that man mistakes: Let him not think the gods mistaken too!

"But, peradventure, if the stranger's eye Detected ... Ah, too high my fancy-flight! Pheidias, forgive, and Zeuxis bear with me-- How on your faultless should I fasten fault Of my own framing, even? Only say,-- Suppose the impossible were realized, And some as patent incongruity, Unseemliness,--of no more warrant, there And then, than now and here, whate'er the time And place,--I say, the Immortal,--who can doubt?-- Would never shrink, but own, 'The blot escaped Our artist: thus he shows humanity!'

"May stranger tax one peccant part in thee, Poet, three-parts divine! May I proceed?

"'Comedy is prescription and a rite.' Since when? No growth of the blind antique time, 'It rose in Attiké with liberty; When freedom falls, it too will fall.' Scarce so! Your games,--the Olumpian, Zeus gave birth to these; Your Puthian,--these were Phoibos' institute. Isthmian, Nemeian,--Theseus, Herakles Appointed each, the boys and barbers say! Earth's day is growing late: where 's Comedy? 'Oh, that commenced an age since,--two, belike,-- In Megara, whence here they brought the thing!' Or I misunderstand, or here 's the fact-- Your grandsire could recall that rustic song, How such-an-one was thief, and miser such, And how,--immunity from chastisement Once promised to bold singers of the same By daylight on the drunkard's holiday,-- The clever fellow of the joyous troop Tried acting what before he sang about, Acted and stole, or hoarded, acting too: While his companions ranged a-row, closed up For Choros,--bade the general rabblement Sit, see, hear, laugh,--not join the dance themselves. Soon, the same clever fellow found a mate, And these two did the whole stage-mimicking, Still closer in approach to Tragedy,-- So led the way to Aristophanes, Whose grandsire saw Sousarion, and whose sire-- Chionides; yourself wrote 'Banqueters' When Aischulos had made 'Prometheus,' nay, All of the marvels; Sophokles,--I 'll cite, 'Oidipous'--and Euripides--I bend The head--'Medeia' henceforth awed the world! 'Banqueters,' 'Babylonians'--next come you! Surely the great days that left Hellas free Happened before such advent of huge help, Eighty-years-late assistance? Marathon, Plataia, Salamis were fought, I think, Before new educators stood reproved, Or foreign legates blushed, excepted to! Where did the helpful rite pretend its rise? Did it break forth, as gifts divine are wont, Plainly authentic, incontestably Adequate to the helpful ordinance? Founts, dowered with virtue, pulse out pure from source; 'T is there we taste the god's benign intent: Not when,--fatigued away by journey, foul With brutish trampling,--crystal sinks to slime, And lymph forgets the first salubriousness. Sprang Comedy to light thus crystal-pure? 'Nowise!' yourself protest with vehemence; 'Gross, bestial, did the clowns' diversion break; Every successor paddled in the slush; Nay, my contemporaries one and all Gay played the mudlark till I joined their game; Then was I first to change buffoonery For wit, and stupid filth for cleanly sense, Transforming pointless joke to purpose fine, Transfusing rude enforcement of home-law-- "Drop knave's-tricks, deal more neighbor-like, ye boors!"-- With such new glory of poetic breath As, lifting application far past use O' the present, launched it o'er men's lowly heads To future time, when high and low alike Are dead and done with, while my airy power Flies disengaged, as vapor from what stuff It--say not, dwelt in--fitlier, dallied with To forward work, which done,--deliverance brave,-- It soars away, and mud subsides to dust. Say then, myself invented Comedy!'

"So mouths full many a famed Parabasis! Agreed! No more, then, of prescriptive use, Authorization by antiquity, For what offends our judgment! 'T is your work, Performed your way: not work delivered you Intact, intact producible in turn. Everywhere have you altered old to new-- Your will, your warrant: therefore, work must stand Or stumble by intrinsic worth. What worth? Its aim and object! Peace you advocate, And war would fain abolish from the land: Support religion, lash irreverence, Yet laughingly administer rebuke To superstitious folly,--equal fault! While innovating rashness, lust of change, New laws, new habits, manners, men and things, Make your main quarry,--'oldest' meaning 'best.' You check the fretful litigation-itch, Withstand mob-rule, expose mob-flattery, Punish mob-favorites; most of all press hard On sophists who assist the demagogue, And poets their accomplices in crime. Such your main quarry,--by the way, you strike Ignobler game, mere miscreants, snob or scamp, Cowardly, gluttonous, effeminate: Still with a bolt to spare when dramatist Proves haply unproficient in his art, Such aims--alone, no matter for the means-- Declare the unexampled excellence Of their first author--Aristophanes!

"Whereat--Euripides, oh, not thyself-- Augustlier than the need!--thy century Of subjects dreamed and dared and done, before 'Banqueters' gave dark earth enlightenment, Or 'Babylonians' played Prometheus here,-- These let me summon to defend thy cause! Lo, as indignantly took life and shape Labor by labor, all of Herakles,-- Palpably fronting some o'erbold pretence 'Eurustheus slew the monsters, purged the world!' So shall each poem pass you and imprint Shame on the strange assurance. _You_ praised Peace? Sing him full-face, Kresphontes! 'Peace' the theme? 'Peace, in whom depths of wealth lie,--of the blest Immortals beauteousest,-- Come! for the heart within me dies away, So long dost thou delay! Oh, I have feared lest old age, much annoy, Conquer me, quite outstrip the tardy joy, Thy gracious triumph-season I would see, The song, the dance, the sport, profuse of crowns to be. But come! for my sake, goddess great and dear. Come to the city here! Hateful Sedition drive thou from our homes, With Her who madly roams Rejoicing in the steel against the life That 's whetted--banish Strife!'

"Shall I proceed? No need of next and next! That were too easy, play so presses play, Trooping tumultuous, each with instance apt, Each eager to confute the idle boast! What virtue but stands forth panegyrized, What vice, unburned by stigma, in the books Which bettered Hellas,--beyond graven gold Or gem-indenture, sung by Phoibos' self And saved in Kunthia's mountain treasure-house-- Ere you, man, moralist, were youth or boy? --Not praise which, in the proffer, mocks the praised By sly admixture of the blameworthy And enforced coupling of base fellowship,-- Not blame which gloats the while it frowning laughs, 'Allow one glance on horrors--laughable!'-- This man's entire of heart and soul, discharged Its love or hate, each unalloyed by each, On objects worthy either; earnestness, Attribute him, and power! but novelty? Nor his nor yours a doctrine--all the world's! What man of full-grown sense and sanity Holds other than the truth,--wide Hellas through,-- Though truth he acts discredit truth he holds? What imbecile has dared to formulate 'Love war, hate peace, become a litigant!'-- And so preach on, reverse each rule of right Because he quarrels, combats, goes to law? No, for his comment runs, with smile or sigh According to heart's temper, 'Peace were best, Except occasions when we put aside Peace, and bid all the blessings in her gift Quick join the crows, for sake of Marathon!'

"'Nay,' you reply; for one, whose mind withstands His heart, and, loving peace, for conscience' sake Wants war,--you find a crowd of hypocrites Whose conscience means ambition, grudge and greed. On such, reproof, sonorous doctrine, melts Distilled like universal but thin dew Which all too sparsely covers country: dear, No doubt, to universal crop and clown, Still, each bedewed keeps his own head-gear dry With upthrust _skiadeion_, shakes adroit The droppings to his neighbor. No! collect All of the moisture, leave unhurt the heads Which nowise need a washing, save and store And dash the whole condensed to one fierce spout On some one evil-doer, sheltered close,-- The fool supposed,--till you beat guard away, And showed your audience, not that war was wrong, But Lamachos absurd,--case, crests and all,-- Not that democracy was blind of choice, But Kleon and Huperbolos were shams: Not superstition vile, but Nikias crazed,-- The concrete for the abstract; that 's the way! What matters Choros crying 'Hence, impure!' You cried 'Ariphrades does thus and thus!' Now, earnestness seems never earnest more Than when it dons for garb--indifference; So, there 's much laughing: but, compensative, When frowning follows laughter, then indeed Scout innuendo, sarcasm, irony!-- Wit's polished warfare glancing at first graze From off hard headpiece, coarsely-coated brain O' the commonalty--whom, unless you prick To purpose, what avails that finer pates Succumb to simple scratching? Those--not these-- 'T is Multitude, which, moved, fines Lamachos, Banishes Kleon and burns Sokrates, House over head, or, better, poisons him. Therefore in dealing with King Multitude, Club-drub the callous numskulls! In and in Beat this essential consequential fact That here they have a hater of the three, Who hates in word, phrase, nickname, epithet And illustration, beyond doubt at all! And similarly, would you win assent To--Peace, suppose? You tickle the tough hide With good plain pleasure her concomitant-- And, past mistake again, exhibit Peace-- Peace, vintager and festive, cheesecake-time, Hare-slice-and-peasoup-season, household-joy; Theoria's beautiful belongings match Opora's lavish condescendings: brief, Since here the people are to judge, you press Such argument as people understand: If with exaggeration--what care you?

"Have I misunderstood you in the main? No! then must answer be, such argument, Such policy, no matter what good love Or hate it help, in practice proves absurd, Useless and null: henceforward intercepts Sober effective blow at what you blame, And renders nugatory rightful praise Of thing or person. The coarse brush has daubed-- What room for the finer limner's pencil-mark? Blame? You curse, rather, till who blames must blush-- Lean to apology or praise, more like! Does garment, simpered o'er as white, prove gray? 'Black, blacker than Acharnian charcoal, black Beyond Kimmerian, Stugian blackness black,' You bawl, till men sigh 'nearer snowiness!' What follows? What one faint-rewarding fall Of foe belabored ne'er so lustily? Laugh Lamachos from out the people's heart? He died, commanding, 'hero,' say yourself! Gibe Nikias into privacy?--nay, shake Kleon a little from his arrogance By cutting him to shoe-sole-shreds? I think, He ruled his life long, and, when time was ripe, Died fighting for amusement,--good tough hide! Sokrates still goes up and down the streets, And Aristullos puts his speech in book, When both should be abolished long ago. Nay, wretchedest of rags, Ariphrades-- You have been fouling that redoubtable Harp-player, twenty years, with what effect? Still he strums on, strums ever cheerily, And earns his wage,--'Who minds a joke?' men say. No, friend! The statues stand--mud-stained at most-- Titan or pygmy: what achieves their fall Will be, long after mud is flung and spent, Some clear thin spirit-thrust of lightning--truth!

"Your praise, then--honey-smearing helps your friend, More than blame's ordure-smirch hurts foe, perhaps? Peace, now, misunderstood, ne'er prized enough, You have interpreted to ignorance Till ignorance opes eye, bat-blind before, And for the first time knows Peace means the power On maw of pancake, cheese-cake, barley-cake, No stop nor stint to stuffing. While, in camp, Who fights chews rancid tunny, onions raw, Peace sits at cosy feast with lamp and fire, Complaisant smooth-sleeked flute-girls giggling gay. How thick and fast the snow falls, freezing War Who shrugs, campaigns it, and may break a shin Or twist an ankle! come, who hesitates To give Peace, over War, the preference? Ah, friend--had this indubitable fact Haply occurred to poor Leonidas, How had he turned tail on Thermopulai! It cannot be that even his few wits Were addled to the point that, so advised, Preposterous he had answered--'Cakes are prime, Hearth-sides are snug, sleek dancing-girls have worth, And yet--for country's sake, to save our gods Their temples, save our ancestors their tombs, Save wife and child and home and liberty,-- I would chew sliced salt-fish, bear snow--nay, starve, If need were,--and by much prefer the choice!' Why, friend, your genuine hero, all the while, Has been--who served precisely for your butt-- Kleonumos that, wise, cast shield away On battle-ground; cried 'Cake my buckler be, Embossed with cream-clot! peace, not war, I choose, Holding with Dikaiopolis!' Comedy Shall triumph, Dikaiopolis win assent, When Miltiades shall next shirk Marathon, Themistokles swap Salamis for--cake, And Kimon grunt 'Peace, grant me dancing-girls!' But sooner, hardly! twenty-five years since, The war began,--such pleas for Peace have reached A reasonable age. The end shows all! And so with all the rest you advocate! 'Wise folk leave litigation! 'ware the wasps! Whoso loves law and lawyers, heliast-like, Wants hemlock!' None shows that so funnily. But, once cure madness, how comports himself Your sane exemplar, what 's our gain thereby? Philokleon turns Bdelukleon! just this change,-- New sanity gets straightway drunk as sow, Cheats baker-wives, brawls, kicks, cuffs, curses folk, Parades a shameless flute-girl, bandies filth With his own son who cured his father's cold By making him catch fever--funnily! But as for curing love of lawsuits--faugh!

"And how does new improve upon the old --Your boast--in even abusing? Rough, may be-- Still, honest was the old mode. 'Call thief--thief!' But never call thief even--murderer! Much less call fop and fribble, worse one whit Than fribble and fop! Spare neither! beat your brains For adequate invective,--cut the life Clean out each quality,--but load your lash With no least lie, or we pluck scourge from hand! Does poet want a whipping, write bad verse, Inculcate foul deeds? There 's the fault to flog! You vow, 'The rascal cannot read nor write, Spends more in buying fish than Morsimos, Somebody helps his Muse and courts his wife, His uncle deals in crockery, and last-- Himself 's a stranger!' That 's the cap and crown Of stinging-nettle, that 's the master-stroke! What poet-rival,--after 'housebreaker,' 'Fish-gorging,' 'midnight footpad,' and so forth,-- Proves not, beside, 'a stranger'? Chased from charge To charge, and, lie by lie, laughed out of court,-- Lo, wit's sure refuge, satire's grand resource-- All, from Kratinos downward--'strangers' they! Pity the trick's too facile! None so raw Among your playmates but have caught the ball And sent it back as briskly to--yourself! You too, my Attic, are styled 'stranger'--Rhodes, Aigina, Lindos or Kameiros,--nay, 'T was Egypt reared (if Eupolis be right) Who wrote the comedy (Kratinos vows) Kratinos helped a little! Kleon's self Was nigh promoted Comic, when he haled My poet into court, and o'er the coals Hauled and re-hauled 'the stranger,--insolent, Who brought out plays, usurped our privilege!' Why must you Comics one and all take stand On lower ground than truth from first to last? Why all agree to let folk disbelieve, So laughter but reward a funny lie? Repel such onslaughts--answer, sad and grave, Your fancy-fleerings--who would stoop so low? Your own adherents whisper,--when disgust Too menacingly thrills Logeion through At--Perikles invents this present war Because men robbed his mistress of three maids-- Or--Sokrates wants burning, house o'er head,-- 'What, so obtuse, not read between the lines? Our poet means no mischief! All should know-- Ribaldry here implies a compliment! He deals with things, not men,--his men are things-- Each represents a class, plays figure-head And names the ship: no meaner than the first Would serve; he styles a trireme "Sokrates"-- Fears "Sokrates" may prove unseaworthy, (That's merely--"Sophists are the bane of boys") Rat-riddled ("they are capable of theft") Rotten or whatsoe'er shows ship-disease, ("They war with gods and worship whirligig.") You never took the joke for earnest? scarce Supposed mere figure-head meant entire ship, And Sokrates--the whole fraternity?'

"This then is Comedy, our sacred song, Censor of vice, and virtue's guard as sure: Manners-instructing, morals' stop-estray, Which, born a twin with public liberty, Thrives with its welfare, dwindles with its wane! Liberty? what so exquisitely framed And fitted to suck dry its life of life To last faint fibre?--since that life is truth. You who profess your indignation swells At sophistry, when specious words confuse Deeds right and wrong, distinct before, you say-- (Though all that 's done is--dare veracity, Show that the true conception of each deed Affirmed, in vulgar parlance, 'wrong' or 'right,' Proves to be neither, as the hasty hold, But, change your side, shoots light, where dark alone Was apprehended by the vulgar sense)-- You who put sophistry to shame, and shout 'There 's but a single side to man and thing; A side so much more big than thing or man Possibly can be, that--believe 't is true? Such were too marvellous simplicity!'-- Confess, those sophists whom yourself depict, (--Abide by your own painting!) what they teach, They wish at least their pupil to believe, And, what believe, to practise! Did _you_ wish Hellas should haste, as taught, with torch in hand, And fire the horrid Speculation-shop? Straight the shop's master rose and showed the mob What man was your so monstrous Sokrates; Himself received amusement, why not they? Just as did Kleon first play magistrate And bid you put your birth in evidence-- Since no unbadged buffoon is licensed here To shame us all when foreign guests may mock-- Then,--birth established, fooling licensed you,-- He, duty done, resumed mere auditor, Laughed with the loudest at his Lamia-shape, Kukloboros-roaring, and the camel-rest. Nay, Aristullos,--once your volley spent On the male-Kirké and her swinish crew,-- PLATON,--so others call the youth we love,-- Sends your performance to the curious king-- 'Do you desire to know Athenai's knack At turning seriousness to pleasantry? Read this! One Aristullos means myself. The author is indeed a merry grig!' Nay, it would seem as if yourself were bent On laying down the law, 'Tell lies I must-- Aforethought and of purpose, no mistake!' When forth yourself step, tell us from the stage, 'Here you behold the King of Comedy-- Me, who, the first, have purged my every piece From each and all my predecessors' filth, Abjured those satyr-adjuncts sewn to bid The boys laugh, satyr-jokes whereof not one Least sample but would make my hair turn gray Beyond a twelvemonth's ravage! I renounce Mountebank-claptrap, such as firework-fizz And torchflare, or else nuts and barleycorns Scattered among the crowd, to scramble for And stop their mouths with; no such stuff shames me! Who--what's more serious--know both when to strike And when to stay my hand: once dead, my foe, Why, done, my fighting! _I_ attack a corpse? I spare the corpse-like even! punish age? I pity from my soul that sad effete Toothless old mumbler called Kratinos! once My rival,--now, alack, the dotard slinks Ragged and hungry to what hole 's his home; Ay, slinks through byways where no passenger Flings him a bone to pick. You formerly Adored the Muses' darling: dotard now, Why, he may starve! O mob most mutable!' So you harangued in person; while,--to point Precisely out, these were but lies you launched,-- Prompt, a play followed primed with satyr-frisks, No spice spared of the stomach-turning stew, Full-fraught with torch-display, and barley-throw, And Kleon, dead enough, bedaubed afresh; While daft Kratinos--home to hole trudged he, Wrung dry his wit to the last vinous dregs, Decanted them to 'Bottle,'--beat, next year,-- 'Bottle' and dregs--your best of 'Clouds' and dew! Where, Comic King, may keenest eye detect Improvement on your predecessors' work Except in lying more audaciously?

"Why--genius! That's the grandeur, that 's the gold-- That 's _you_--superlatively true to touch-- Gold, leaf or lump--gold, anyhow the mass Takes manufacture and proves Pallas' casque Or, at your choice, simply a cask to keep Corruption from decay. Your rivals' hoard May ooze forth, lacking such preservative: Yours cannot--gold plays guardian far too well! Genius, I call _you:_ dross, your rivals share; Ay, share and share alike, too! says the world, However you pretend supremacy In aught beside that gold, your very own. Satire? 'Kratinos for our satirist!' The world cries. Elegance? 'Who elegant As Eupolis?' resounds as noisily. Artistic fancy? Choros-creatures quaint? Magnes invented 'Birds' and 'Frogs' enough, Archippos punned, Hegemon parodied, To heart's content, before you stepped on stage. Moral invective? Eupolis exposed 'That prating beggar, he who stole the cup,' Before your 'Clouds' rained grime on Sokrates; Nay, what beat 'Clouds' but 'Konnos,' muck for mud? Courage? How long before, well-masked, you poured Abuse on Eukrates and Lusikles, Did Telekleides and Hermippos pelt Their Perikles and Kumon? standing forth, Bareheaded, not safe crouched behind a name,-- Philonides or else Kallistratos, Put forth, when danger threatened,--mask for face, To bear the brunt,--if blame fell, take the blame,-- If praise ... why, frank laughed Aristophanes 'They write such rare stuff? No, I promise you!' Rather, I see all true improvements, made Or making, go against you--tooth and nail Contended with; 't is still Moruchides, 'T is Euthumenes, Surakosios, nay, Argurrhios and Kinesias,--common sense And public shame, these only cleanse your sty! Coerced, prohibited,--you grin and bear, And, soon as may be, hug to heart again The banished nastiness too dear to drop! Krates could teach and practise festive song Yet scorn scurrility; as gay and good, Pherekrates could follow. _Who_ loosed hold, Must let fall rose-wreath, stoop to muck once more? Did your particular self advance in aught, Task the sad genius--steady slave the while-- To further--say, the patriotic aim? No, there 's deterioration manifest Year by year, play by play! survey them all, From that boy's-triumph when 'Acharnes' dawned, To 'Thesmophoriazousai,'--this man's-shame! There, truly, patriot zeal so prominent Allowed friends' plea perhaps: the baser stuff Was but the nobler spirit's vehicle. Who would imprison, unvolatilize A violet's perfume, blends with fatty oils Essence too fugitive in flower alone; So, calling unguent--violet, call the play-- Obscenity impregnated with 'Peace'! But here 's the boy grown bald, and here 's the play With twenty years' experience: where 's one spice Of odor in the hogs'-lard? what pretends To aught except a grease-pot's quality? Friend, sophist-hating! know,--worst sophistry Is when man's own soul plays its own self false, Reasons a vice into a virtue, pleads 'I detail sin to shame its author'--not 'I shame Ariphrades for sin's display!' 'I show Opora to commend Sweet Home'-- Not 'I show Bacchis for the striplings' sake!'

"Yet all the same--O genius and O gold-- Had genius ne'er diverted gold from use Worthy the temple, to do copper's work And coat a swine's trough--which abundantly Might furnish Phoibos' tripod, Pallas' throne! Had you, I dream, discarding all the base, The brutish, spurned alone convention's watch And ward against invading decency Disguised as license, law in lawlessness, And so, re-ordinating outworn rule, Made Comedy and Tragedy combine, Prove some new Both-yet-neither, all one bard, Euripides with Aristophanes Co-operant! this, reproducing Now As that gave Then existence: Life to-day, This, as that other--Life dead long ago! The mob decrees such feat no crown, perchance, But--why call crowning the reward of quest? Tell him, my other poet,--where thou walk'st Some rarer world than e'er Ilissos washed!

"But dream goes idly in the air. To earth! Earth's question just amounts to--which succeeds, Which fails of two life-long antagonists? Suppose my charges all mistake! assume Your end, despite ambiguous means, the best-- The only! you and he, a patriot-pair, Have striven alike for one result--say, Peace! You spoke your best straight to the arbiters-- Our people: have you made them end this war By dint of laughter and abuse and lies And postures of Opora? Sadly--No! This war, despite your twenty-five years' work, May yet endure until Athenai falls, And freedom falls with her. So much for you! Now, the antagonist Euripides-- Has he succeeded better? Who shall say? He spoke quite o'er the heads of Kleon's crowd To a dim future, and if there he fail, Why, you are fellows in adversity. But that 's unlike the fate of wise words launched By music on their voyage. Hail, Depart, Arrive, Glad Welcome! Not my single wish-- Yours also wafts the white sail on its way, Your nature too is kingly. All beside I call pretension,--no true potentate, Whatever intermediary be crowned, Zeus or Poseidon, where the vulgar sky Lacks not Triballos to complete the group. I recognize--behind such phantom-crew-- Necessity, Creation, Poet's Power, Else never had I dared approach, appeal To poetry, power, Aristophanes! But I trust truth's inherent kingliness, Trust who, by reason of much truth, shall reign More or less royally--may prayer but push His sway past limit, purge the false from true! Nor, even so, had boldness nerved my tongue But that the other king stands suddenly, In all the grand investiture of death, Bowing your knee beside my lowly head-- Equals one moment!

"Now, arise and go! Both have done homage to Euripides!"

Silence pursued the words: till he broke out--

"Scarce so! This constitutes, I may believe, Sufficient homage done by who defames Your poet's foe, since you account me such; But homage-proper,--pay it by defence Of him, direct defence and not oblique, Not by mere mild admonishment of me!"

"Defence? The best, the only!" I replied. "A story goes--When Sophokles, last year, Cited before tribunal by his son (A poet--to complete the parallel), Was certified unsound of intellect, And claimed as only fit for tutelage, Since old and doting and incompetent To carry on this world's work,--the defence Consisted just in his reciting (calm As the verse bore, which sets our heart a-swell And voice a-heaving too tempestuously) That choros-chant 'The station of the steed, Stranger! thou comest to,--Kolonos white!' Then he looked round and all revolt was dead. You know the one adventure of my life-- What made Euripides Balaustion's friend. When I last saw him, as he bade farewell, 'I sang another "Herakles,"' smiled he; 'It gained no prize: your love be prize I gain! Take it--the tablets also where I traced The story first with stulos pendent still-- Nay, the psalterion may complete the gift, So, should you croon the ode bewailing Age, Yourself shall modulate--same notes, same strings-- With the old friend who loved Balaustion once.' There they lie! When you broke our solitude, We were about to honor him once more By reading the consummate Tragedy. Night is advanced; I have small mind to sleep; May I go on, and read,--so make defence, So test true godship? You affirm, not I, --Beating the god, affords such test: _I_ hold That when rash hands but touch divinity, The chains drop off, the prison-walls dispart, And--fire--he fronts mad Pentheus! Dare we try?"

Accordingly I read the perfect piece.

HERAKLES

_Amphitruon._ Zeus' Couchmate,--who of mortals knows not me, Argive Amphitruon whom Alkaios sired Of old, as Perseus him, I--Herakles? My home, this Thebai where the earth-born spike Of Sown-ones burgeoned: Ares saved from these A handful of their seed that stocks to-day With children's children Thebai, Kadmos built. Of these had Kreon birth, Menoikeus' child, King of the country,--Kreon that became The father of this woman, Megara, Whom, when time was, Kadmeians one and all Pealed praise to, marriage-songs with fluted help, While to my dwelling that grand Herakles Bore her, his bride. But, leaving Thebes--where I Abode perforce--this Megara and those Her kinsmen, the desire possessed my son Rather to dwell in Argos, that walled work, Kuklopian city, which I fly, myself, Because I slew Elektruon. Seeking so To ease away my hardships and once more Inhabit his own land, for my return Heavy the price he pays Eurustheus there-- The letting in of light on this choked world! Either he promised, vanquished by the goad Of Heré, or because fate willed it thus. The other labors--why, he toiled them through; But for this last one--down by Tainaros, Its mouth, to Haides' realm descended he To drag into the light the three-shaped hound Of Hell: whence Herakles returns no more. Now, there 's an old-world tale, Kadmeians have, How Dirké's husband was a Lukos once, Holding the seven-towered city here in sway Before they ruled the land, white-steeded pair, The twins Amphion, Zethos, born to Zeus. This Lukos' son,--named like his father too, No born Kadmeian but Euboia's gift,-- Comes and kills Kreon, lords it o'er the land, Falling upon our town sedition-sick. To us, akin to Kreon, just that bond Becomes the worst of evils, seemingly; For, since my son in the earth's abysms, This man of valor, Lukos, lord and king, Seeks now to slay these sons of Herakles, And slay his wife as well,--by murder thus Thinking to stamp out murder,--slay too me, (If me 't is fit you count among men still,-- Useless old age,) and all for fear lest these, Grown men one day, exact due punishment Of bloodshed and their mother's father's fate. I therefore, since he leaves me in these domes, The children's household guardian,--left, when earth's Dark dread he underwent, that son of mine,-- I, with their mother, lest his boys should die, Sit at this altar of the savior Zeus Which, glory of triumphant spear, he raised Conquering--my nobly-born!--the Minuai. Here do we guard our station, destitute Of all things, drink, food, raiment, on bare ground Couched side by side: sealed out of house and home Sit we in a resourcelessness of help. Our friends--why, some are no true friends, I see! The rest, that are true, want the means to aid. So operates in man adversity: Whereof may never anybody--no, Though half of him should really wish me well,-- Happen to taste! a friend-test faultless, that!

_Megara._ Old man, who erst did raze the Taphian town, Illustriously, the army-leader, thou, Of speared Kadmeians--how gods play men false! I, now, missed nowise fortune in my sire, Who, for his wealth, was boasted mighty once, Having supreme rule,--for the love of which Leap the long lances forth at favored breasts,-- And having children too: and me he gave Thy son, his house with that of Herakles Uniting by the far-famed marriage-bed. And now these things are dead and flown away. While thou and I await our death, old man, These Herakleian boys too, whom--my chicks-- I save beneath my wings like brooding bird. But one or other falls to questioning. "O mother," cries he, "where in all the world Is father gone to? What 's he doing? when Will he come back?" At fault through tender years, They seek their sire. For me, I put them off, Telling them stories; at each creak of doors, All wonder "Does he come?"--and all a-foot Make for the fall before the parent knee. Now then, what hope, what method of escape Facilitatest thou?--for, thee, old man, I look to,--since we may not leave by stealth The limits of the land, and guards, more strong Than we, are at the outlets: nor in friends Remain to us the hopes of safety more. Therefore, whatever thy decision be. Impart it for the common good of all! Lest now should prove the proper time to die, Though, being weak, we spin it out and live.

_Amph._ Daughter, it scarce is easy, do one's best, To blurt out counsel, things at such a pass.

_Meg._ You want some sorrow more, or so love life?

_Amph._ I both enjoy life, and love hopes beside.

_Meg._ And I; but hope against hope--no, old man!

_Amph._ In these delayings of an ill lurks cure.

_Meg._ But bitter is the meantime, and it bites.

_Amph._ Oh, there may be a run before the wind From out these present ills, for me and thee, Daughter, and yet may come my son, thy spouse! But hush! and from the children take away Their founts aflow with tears, and talk them calm, Steal them by stories--sad theft, all the same! For, human troubles--they grow weary too; Neither the wind-blasts always have their strength, Nor happy men keep happy to the end: Since all things change--their natures part in twain; And that man's bravest therefore, who hopes on, Hopes ever: to despair is coward-like.

_Choros._ These domes that overroof, This long-used couch, I come to, having made A staff my prop, that song may put to proof The swan-like power, age-whitened,--poet's aid Of sobbed-forth dirges--words that stand aloof From action now: such am I--just a shade With night for all its face, a mere night-dream-- And words that tremble too: howe'er they seem, Devoted words, I deem.

O of a father ye unfathered ones, O thou old man, and thou whose groaning stuns-- Unhappy mother--only us above, Nor reaches him below in Haides' realm, thy love! --(Faint not too soon, urge forward foot and limb Way-weary, nor lose courage--as some horse Yoked to the car whose weight recoils on him Just at the rock-ridge that concludes his course! Take by the hand, the peplos, any one Whose foothold fails him, printless and fordone! Aged, assist along me aged too, Who,--mate with thee in toils when life was new, And shields and spears first made acquaintanceship,-- Stood by thyself and proved no bastard-slip Of fatherland when loftiest glory grew.)-- See now, how like the sire's Each eyeball fiercely fires! What though ill-fortune have not left his race? Neither is gone the grand paternal grace! Hellas! O what--what combatants, destroyed In these, wilt thou one day seek--seek, and find all void!

Pause! for I see the ruler of this land, Lukos, now passing through the palace-gate.

_Lukos._ The Herakleian couple--father, wife-- If needs I must, I question: "must" forsooth? Being your master--all I please, I ask. To what time do you seek to spin out life? What hope, what help see, so as not to die? Is it you trust the sire of these, that 's sunk In Haides, will return? How past the pitch, Suppose you have to die, you pile the woe-- Thou, casting, Hellas through, thy empty vaunts As though Zeus helped thee to a god for son; And thou, that thou wast styled our best man's wife! Where was the awful in his work wound up, If he did quell and quench the marshy snake Or the Nemeian monster whom he snared And--says, by throttlings of his arm, he slew? With these do you outwrestle me? Such feats Shall save from death the sons of Herakles Who got praise, being naught, for bravery In wild-beast-battle, otherwise a blank? No man to throw on left arm buckler's weight, Not he, nor get in spear's reach! bow he bore-- True coward's-weapon: shoot first and then fly! No bow-and-arrow proves a man is brave, But who keeps rank,--stands, one unwinking stare As, ploughing up, the darts come,--brave is he. My action has no impudence, old man! Providence, rather: for I own I slew Kreon, this woman's sire, and have his seat. Nowise I wish, then, to leave, these grown up, Avengers on me, payment for my deeds.

_Amph._ As to the part of Zeus in his own child, Let Zeus defend that! As to mine, 't is me The care concerns to show by argument The folly of this fellow,--Herakles, Whom I stand up for! since to hear thee styled-- Cowardly--that is unendurable. First then, the infamous (for I account Amongst the words denied to human speech, Timidity ascribed thee, Herakles!) This I must put from thee, with gods in proof. Zeus' thunder I appeal to, those four steeds Whereof he also was the charioteer When, having shut down the earth's Giant-growth-- (Never shaft flew but found and fitted flank)-- Triumph he sang in common with the gods. The Kentaur-race, four-footed insolence-- Go ask at Pholoé, vilest thou of kings, _Whom_ they would pick out and pronounce best man, If not my son, "the seeming-brave," say'st thou! But Dirphus, thy Abantid mother-town, Question her, and she would not praise, I think! For there 's no spot, where having done some good, Thy country thou might'st call to witness worth. Now, that allwise invention, archer's-gear, Thou blamest: hear my teaching and grow sage! A man in armor is his armor's slave, And, mixed with rank and file that want to run, He dies because his neighbors have lost heart. Then, should he break his spear, no way remains Of warding death off,--gone that body-guard, His one and only; while, whatever folk Have the true bow-hand,--here 's the one main good,-- Though he have sent ten thousand shafts abroad, Others remain wherewith the archer saves His limbs and life, too,--stands afar and wards Away from flesh the foe that vainly stares Hurt by the viewless arrow, while himself Offers no full front to those opposite, But keeps in thorough cover: there 's the point That 's capital in combat--damage foe, Yet keep a safe skin--foe not out of reach As you are! Thus my words contrast with thine, And such, in judging facts, our difference. These children, now, why dost thou seek to slay? What have they done thee? In a single point I count thee wise--if, being base thyself, Thou dread'st the progeny of nobleness. Yet this bears hard upon us, all the same, If we must die--because of fear in thee-- A death 't were fit thou suffer at our hands, Thy betters, did Zeus rightly judge us all. If therefore thou art bent on sceptre-sway, Thyself, here--suffer us to leave the land, Fugitives! nothing do by violence, Or violence thyself shalt undergo When the gods' gale may chance to change for thee! Alas, O land of Kadmos,--for 't is thee I mean to close with, dealing out the due Revilement,--in such sort dost thou defend Herakles and his children? Herakles Who, coming, one to all the world, against The Minuai, fought them and left Thebes an eye Unblinded henceforth to front freedom with! Neither do I praise Hellas, nor shall brook Ever to keep in silence that I count Towards my son, craven of cravens--her Whom it behooved go bring the young ones here Fire, spears, arms--in exchange for seas made safe, And cleansings of the land, his labor's price. But fire, spears, arms,--O children, neither Thebes Nor Hellas has them for you! 'T is myself, A feeble friend, ye look to: nothing now But a tongue's murmur, for the strength is gone We had once, and with age are limbs a-shake And force a-flicker! Were I only young, Still with the mastery o'er bone and thew, Grasping first spear that came, the yellow locks Of this insulter would I bloody so-- Should send him skipping o'er the Atlantic bounds Out of my arm's reach through poltroonery!

_Cho._ Have not the really good folk starting-points For speech to purpose,--though rare talkers they?

_Luk._ Say thou against us words thou towerest with! I, for thy words, will deal thee blows, their due. Go, some to Helikon, to Parnasos Some, and the clefts there! Bid the woodmen fell Oak-trunks, and, when the same are brought inside The city, pile the altar round with logs, Then fire it, burn the bodies of them all, That they may learn thereby, no dead man rules The land here, but 't is I, by acts like these! As for you, old sirs, who are set against My judgments, you shall groan for--not alone The Herakleian children, but the fate Of your own house beside, when faring ill By any chance: and you shall recollect Slaves are you of a tyranny that 's mine!

_Cho._ O progeny of earth,--whom Ares sowed When he laid waste the dragon's greedy jaw-- Will ye not lift the staves, right-hand supports, And bloody this man's irreligious head? Who, being no Kadmeian, rules,--the wretch,-- Our easy youth: an interloper too! But not of me, at least, shalt thou enjoy Thy lordship ever; nor my labor's fruit-- Hand worked so hard for--have! A curse with thee, Whence thou didst come, there go and tyrannize! For never while I live shalt thou destroy The Herakleian children: not so deep Hides he below ground, leaving thee their lord! But we bear both of you in mind,--that thou, The land's destroyer, dost possess the land, While he who saved it, loses every right. _I_ play the busybody--for I serve My dead friends when they need friends' service most? O right-hand, how thou yearnest to snatch spear And serve indeed! in weakness dies the wish, Or I had stayed thee calling me a slave, And nobly drawn my breath at home in Thebes Where thou exultest!--city that's insane, Sick through sedition and bad government, Else never had she gained for master--thee!

_Meg._ Old friends, I praise you: since a righteous wrath For friend's sake well becomes a friend. But no! On our account in anger with your lord, Suffer no injury! Hear my advice, Amphitruon, if I seem to speak aright. Oh, yes, I love my children! how not love What I brought forth, what toiled for? and to die-- Sad I esteem too; still, the fated way Who stiffens him against, that man I count Poor creature; us, who are of other mood, Since we must die, behooves us meet our death Not burnt to cinders, giving foes the laugh-- To me, worse ill than dying, that! we owe Our houses many a brave deed, now to pay. Thee, indeed, gloriously men estimate For spear-work, so that unendurable Were it that thou shouldst die a death of shame. And for my glorious husband, where wants he A witness that he would not save his boys If touched in their good fame thereby? since birth Bears ill with baseness done for children's sake, My husband needs must be my pattern here. See now thy hope--how much I count thereon! Thou thinkest that thy son will come to light: And, of the dead, who came from Haides back? But we with talk this man might mollify: Never! Of all foes, fly the foolish one! Wise, well-bred people, make concession to! Sooner you meet respect by speaking soft. Already it was in my mind--perchance We might beg off these children's banishment; But even that is sad, involving them In safety, ay--and piteous poverty! Since the host's visage for the flying friend Has, only one day, the sweet look, 'tis said. Dare with us death, which waits thee, dared or no! We call on thine ancestral worth, old man! For who out-labors what the gods appoint Shows energy, but energy gone mad. Since what must--none e'er makes what must not be!

_Cho._ Had any one, while yet my arms were strong, Been scorning thee, he easily had ceased. But we are naught, now; thine henceforth to see-- Amphitruon, how to push aside these fates!

_Amph._ Nor cowardice nor a desire of life Stops me from dying: but I seek to save My son his children. Vain! I set my heart, It seems, upon impossibility. See, it is ready for the sword, this throat To pierce, divide, dash down from precipice! But one grace grant us, king, we supplicate! Slay me and this unhappy one before The children, lest we see them--impious sight!-- Gasping the soul forth, calling all the while On mother and on father's father! Else, Do as thy heart inclines thee! No resource Have we from death, and we resign ourselves.

_Meg._ And I too supplicate: add grace to grace, And, though but one man, doubly serve us both! Let me bestow adornment of the dead Upon these children! Throw the palace wide! For now we are shut out. Thence these shall share At least so much of wealth was once their sire's!

_Luk._ These things shall be. Withdraw the bolts, I bid My servants! Enter and adorn yourselves! I grudge no peploi; but when these ye wind About your bodies,--that adornment done,-- Then I shall come and give you to the grave.

_Meg._ O children, follow this unhappy foot, Your mother's, into your ancestral home, Where others have the power, are lords in truth, Although the empty name is left us yet!

_Amph._ O Zeus, in vain I had thee marriage-mate, In vain I called thee father of my child! Thou wast less friendly far than thou didst seem. I, the mere man, o'ermatch in virtue thee The mighty god: for I have not betrayed The Herakleian children,--whereas thou Hadst wit enough to come clandestinely Into the chamber, take what no man gave, Another's place; and when it comes to help Thy loved ones, there thou lackest wit indeed! Thou art some stupid god or born unjust.

_Cho._ Even a dirge, can Phoibos suit In song to music jubilant For all its sorrow: making shoot His golden plectron o'er the lute, Melodious ministrant. And I, too, am of mind to raise, Despite the imminence of doom, A song of joy, outpour my praise To him--what is it rumor says?-- Whether--now buried in the ghostly gloom Below ground--he was child of Zeus indeed, Or mere Amphitruon's mortal seed-- To him I weave the wreath of song, his labor's meed. For, is my hero perished in the feat? The virtues of brave toils, in death complete, These save the dead in song,--their glory-garland meet!

First, then, he made the wood Of Zeus a solitude, Slaying its lion-tenant; and he spread The tawniness behind--his yellow head Enmuffled by the brute's, backed by that grin of dread. The mountain-roving savage Kentaur-race He strewed with deadly bow about their place, Slaying with wingèd shafts: Peneios knew, Beauteously-eddying, and the long tracts too Of pasture trampled fruitless, and as well Those desolated haunts Mount Pelion under, And, grassy up to Homolé, each dell Whence, having filled their hands with pine-tree plunder, Horse-like was wont to prance from, and subdue The land of Thessaly, that bestial crew. The golden-headed spot-back'd stag he slew, That robber of the rustics: glorified Therewith the goddess who in hunter's pride Slaughters the game along Oinoé's side. And, yoked abreast, he brought the chariot-breed To pace submissive to the bit, each steed That in the bloody cribs of Diomede Champed and, unbridled, hurried down that gore For grain, exultant the dread feast before-- Of man's flesh: hideous feeders they of yore! All as he crossed the Hebros' silver-flow Accomplished he such labor, toiling so For Mukenaian tyrant; ay, and more-- He crossed the Melian shore And, by the sources of Amauros, shot To death that strangers'-pest Kuknos, who dwelt in Amphanaia: not Of fame for good to guest!

And next, to the melodious maids he came, Inside the Hesperian court-yard: hand must aim At plucking gold fruit from the appled leaves, Now he had killed the dragon, backed like flame, Who guards the unapproachable he weaves Himself all round, one spire about the same. And into those sea-troughs of ocean dived The hero, and for mortals calm contrived, Whatever oars should follow in his wake. And under heaven's mid-seat his hands thrust he, At home with Atlas: and, for valor's sake, Held the gods up their star-faced mansionry. Also, the rider-host of Amazons About Maiotis many-streamed, he went To conquer through the billowy Euxin once, Having collected what an armament Of friends from Hellas, all on conquest bent Of that gold-garnished cloak, dread girdle-chase! So Hellas gained the girl's barbarian grace And at Mukenai saves the trophy still-- Go wonder there, who will!

And the ten-thousand-headed hound Of many a murder, the Lernaian snake He burned out, head by head, and cast around His darts a poison thence,--darts soon to slake Their rage in that three-bodied herdsman's gore Of Erutheia. Many a running more He made for triumph and felicity, And, last of toils, to Haides, never dry Of tears, he sailed: and there he, luckless, ends His life completely, nor returns again. The house and home are desolate of friends, And where the children's life-path leads them, plain I see,--no step retraceable, no god Availing, and no law to help the lost! The oar of Charon marks their period, Waits to end all. Thy hands, these roofs accost!-- To thee, though absent, look their uttermost!

But if in youth and strength I flourished still, Still shook the spear in fight, did power match will In these Kadmeian co-mates of my age, They would,--and I,--when warfare was to wage, Stand by these children; but I am bereft Of youth now, lone of that good genius left!

But hist, desist! for here come these,-- Draped as the dead go, under and over,-- Children long since--now hard to discover-- Of the once so potent Herakles! And the loved wife dragging, in one tether About her feet, the boys together; And the hero's aged sire comes last! Unhappy that I am! Of tears which rise,-- How am I all unable to hold fast, Longer, the aged fountains of these eyes!

_Meg._ Be it so! Who is priest, who butcher here Of these ill-fated ones, or stops the breath Of me, the miserable? Ready, see, The sacrifice--to lead where Haides lives! O children, we are led--no lovely team Of corpses--age, youth, motherhood, all mixed! O sad fate of myself and these my sons Whom with these eyes I look at, this last time! I, indeed, bore you: but for enemies I brought you up to be a laughing-stock, Matter for merriment, destruction-stuff! Woe's me! Strangely indeed my hopes have struck me down From what I used to hope about you once-- The expectation from your father's talk! For thee, now, thy dead sire dealt Argos to: Thou wast to have Eurustheus' house one day, And rule Pelasgia where the fine fruits grow; And, for a stole of state, he wrapped about Thy head with that the lion-monster bore, That which himself went wearing armor-wise. And thou wast King of Thebes--such chariots there! Those plains I had for portion--all for thee, As thou hadst coaxed them out of who gave birth To thee, his boy: and into thy right hand He thrust the guardian-club of Daidalos,-- Poor guardian proves the gift that plays thee false! And upon thee he promised to bestow Oichalia--what, with those far-shooting shafts, He ravaged once; and so, since three you were, With threefold kingdoms did he build you up To very towers, your father,--proud enough, Prognosticating, from your manliness In boyhood, what the manhood's self would be. For my part, I was picking out for you Brides, suiting each with his alliance--this From Athens, this from Sparté, this from Thebes-- Whence, suited--as stern-cables steady ship-- You might have hold on life gods bless. All gone! Fortune turns round and gives us--you, the Fates Instead of brides--me, tears for nuptial baths, Unhappy in my hoping! And the sire Of your sire--he prepares the marriage-feast Befitting Haides who plays father now-- Bitter relationship! Oh me! which first-- Which last of you shall I to bosom fold? To whom shall I fit close, his mouth to mine? Of whom shall I lay hold and ne'er let go? How would I gather, like the brown-winged bee, The groans from all, and, gathered into one, Give them you back again, a crowded tear! Dearest, if any voice be heard of men Dungeoned in Haides, thee--to thee I speak! Here is thy father dying, and thy boys! And I too perish, famed as fortunate By mortals once, through thee! Assist them! Come! But come! though just a shade, appear to me! For, coming, thy ghost-grandeur would suffice, Such cowards are they in thy presence, these Who kill thy children now thy back is turned!

_Amph._ Ay, daughter, bid the powers below assist! But I will rather, raising hand to heaven, Call thee to help, O Zeus, if thy intent Be, to these children, helpful anyway, Since soon thou wilt be valueless enough! And yet thou hast been called and called; in vain I labor: for we needs must die, it seems. Well, aged brothers--life's a little thing! Such as it is, then, pass life pleasantly From day to night, nor once grieve all the while! Since Time concerns him not about our hopes,-- To save them,--but his own work done, flies off. Witness myself, looked up to among men, Doing noteworthy deeds: when here comes fate Lifts me away, like feather skyward borne, In one day! Riches then and glory,--whom These are found constant to, I know not. Friends, Farewell! the man who loved you all so much, Now, this last time, my mates, ye look upon!

_Meg._ Ha! O father, do I see my dearest? Speak!

_Amph._ No more than thou canst, daughter--dumb like thee!

_Meg._ Is this he whom we heard was under ground?

_Amph._ Unless at least some dream in day we see!

_Meg._ What do I say? what dreams insanely view? This is no other than thy son, old sire! Here, children! hang to these paternal robes, Quick, haste, hold hard on him, since here's your true Zeus that can save--and every whit as well!

_Herakles._ Oh, hail, my palace, my hearth's propula,-- How glad I see thee as I come to light! Ha, what means this? My children I behold Before the house in garments of the grave, Chapleted, and, amid a crowd of men, My very wife--my father weeping too, Whatever the misfortune! Come, best take My station nearer these and learn it all! Wife, what new sorrow has approached our home?

_Meg._ O dearest! light flashed on thy father now! Art thou come? art thou saved and dost thou fall On friends in their supreme extremity?

_Her._ How say'st thou? Father! what's the trouble here?

_Meg._ Undone are we!--but thou, old man, forgive If first I snatch what thou shouldst say to him! For somehow womanhood wakes pity more. Here are my children killed and I undone!

_Her._ Apollon, with what preludes speech begins!

_Meg._ Dead are my brothers and old father too.

_Her._ How say'st thou?--doing what?--by spear-stroke whence?

_Meg._ Lukos destroyed them--the land's noble king!

_Her._ Met them in arms? or through the land's disease?

_Meg._ Sedition: and he sways seven-gated Thebes.

_Her._ Why then came fear on the old man and thee?

_Meg._ He meant to kill thy father, me, our boys.

_Her._ How say'st thou? Fearing what from orphanage?

_Meg._ Lest they should some day pay back Kreon's death.

_Her._ And why trick out the boys corpse-fashion thus?

_Meg._ These wraps of death we have already donned.

_Her._ And you had died through violence? Woe's me!

_Meg._ Left bare of friends: and thou wast dead, we heard.

_Her._ And whence came on you this faintheartedness?

_Meg._ The heralds of Eurustheus brought the news.

_Her._ And why was it you left my house and hearth?

_Meg._ Forced thence: thy father--from his very couch!

_Her._ And no shame at insulting the old man?

_Meg._ Shame, truly! no near neighbors _he_ and Shame!

_Her._ And so much, in my absence, lacked I friends?

_Meg._ Friends,--are there any to a luckless man?

_Her._ The Minuai-war I waged,--they spat forth these?

_Meg._ Friendless--again I tell thee--is ill-luck.

_Her._ Will not you cast these hell-wraps from your hair And look on light again, and with your eyes Taste the sweet change from nether dark to day? While I--for now there needs my handiwork-- First I shall go, demolish the abodes Of these new lordships; next hew off the head Accurst and toss it for the dogs to trail. Then, such of the Kadmeians as I find Were craven though they owed me gratitude,-- Some I intend to handle with this club Renowned for conquest; and with wingèd shafts Scatter the others, fill Ismenos full With bloody corpses,--Dirké's flow so white Shall be incarnadined. For, whom, I pray, Behooves me rather help than wife and child And aged father? Farewell, "Labors" mine! Vainly I wrought them: my true work lay here! My business is to die defending these,-- If for their father's sake they meant to die. Or how shall we call brave the battling it With snake and lion, as Eurustheus bade, If yet I must not labor death away From my own children? "Conquering Herakles" Folk will not call me as they used, I think! The right thing is for parents to assist Children, old age, the partner of the couch.

_Amph._ True, son! thy duty is--be friend to friends And foe to foes: yet--no more haste than needs!

_Her._ Why, father, what is over-hasty here?

_Amph._ Many a pauper--seeming to be rich, As the word goes--the king calls partisan. Such made a riot, ruined Thebes to rob Their neighbor: for, what good they had at home Was spent and gone,--flew off through idleness. You came to trouble Thebes, they saw: since seen, Beware lest, raising foes, a multitude, You stumble where you apprehend no harm.

_Her._ If all Thebes saw me, not a whit care I. But seeing as I did a certain bird Not in the lucky seats, I knew some woe Was fallen upon the house: so, purposely, By stealth I made my way into the land.

_Amph._ And now, advancing, hail the hearth with praise And give the ancestral home thine eye to see! For he himself will come, thy wife and sons The drag-forth--slaughter--slay me too,--this king! But, here remaining, all succeeds with thee-- Gain lost by no false step. So, this thy town Disturb not, son, ere thou right matters here!

_Her._ Thus will I do, for thou say'st well; my home Let me first enter! Since at the due time Returning from the unsunned depths where dwells Haides' wife Koré, let me not affront Those gods beneath my roof, I first should hail!

_Amph._ For didst thou really visit Haides, son?

_Her._ Ay--dragged to light, too, his three-headed beast.

_Amph._ By fight didst conquer--or through Koré's gift?

_Her._ Fight: well for me, I saw the Orgies first!

_Amph._ And is he in Eurustheus' house, the brute?

_Her._ Chthonia's grove, Hermion's city, holds him now.

_Amph._ Does not Eurustheus know thee back on earth?

_Her._ No: I would come first and see matters here.

_Amph._ But how wast thou below ground such a time?

_Her._ I stopped, from Haides, bringing Theseus up.

_Amph._ And where is he?--bound o'er the plain for home?

_Her._ Gone glad to Athens--Haides' fugitive! But, up, boys! follow father into house! There's a far better going-in for you Truly, than going-out was! Nay, take heart, And let the eyes no longer run and run! And thou, O wife, my own, collect thy soul Nor tremble now! Leave grasping, all of you, My garments! I'm not winged, nor fly from friends! Ah,-- No letting go for these, who all the more Hang to my garments! Did you foot indeed The razor's edge? Why, then I'll carry them-- Take with my hands these small craft up, and tow Just as a ship would. There! don't fear I shirk My children's service! this way, men are men, No difference! best and worst, they love their boys After one fashion: wealth they differ in-- Some have it, others not; but each and all Combine to form the children-loving race.

_Cho._ Youth is a pleasant burden to me; But age on my head, more heavily Than the crags of Aitna, weighs and weighs, And darkening cloaks the lids and intercepts the rays. Never be mine the preference Of an Asian empire's wealth, nor yet Of a house all gold, to youth, to youth That's beauty, whatever the gods dispense! Whether in wealth we joy, or fret Paupers,--of all God's gifts most beautiful, in truth!

But miserable murderous age I hate! Let it go to wreck, the waves adown, Nor ever by rights plague tower or town Where mortals bide, but still elate With wings, on ether, precipitate, Wander them round--nor wait!

But if the gods, to man's degree, Had wit and wisdom, they would bring Mankind a twofold youth, to be Their virtue's sign-mark, all should see, In those with whom life's winter thus grew spring. For when they died, into the sun once more Would they have traversed twice life's race-course o'er; While ignobility had simply run Existence through, nor second life begun, And so might we discern both bad and good As surely as the starry multitude Is numbered by the sailors, one and one. But now the gods by no apparent line Limit the worthy and the base define; Only, a certain period rounds, and so Brings man more wealth,--but youthful vigor, no!

Well! I am not to pause Mingling together--wine and wine in cup-- The Graces with the Muses up-- Most dulcet marriage: loosed from music's laws, No life for me! But where the wreaths abound, there ever may I be! And still, an aged bard, I shout Mnemosuné-- Still chant of Herakles the triumph-chant, Companioned by the seven-stringed tortoise-shell And Libuan flute, and Bromios' self as well, God of the grape, with man participant! Not yet will we arrest their glad advance-- The Muses who so long have led me forth to dance! A paian--hymn the Delian girls indeed, Weaving a beauteous measure in and out His temple-gates, Latona's goodly seed; And paians--I too, these thy domes about, From these gray cheeks, my king, will swan-like shout-- Old songster! Ay, in song it starts off brave-- "Zeus' son is he!" and yet, such grace of birth Surpassing far, to man his labors gave Existence, one calm flow without a wave, Having destroyed the beasts, the terrors of the earth.

_Luk._ From out the house Amphitruon comes--in time! For 'tis a long while now since ye bedecked Your bodies with the dead-folks' finery. But quick! the boys and wife of Herakles-- Bid them appear outside this house, keep pact To die, and need no bidding but your own!

_Amph._ King! you press hard on me sore-pressed enough, And give me scorn--beside my dead ones here. Meet in such matters were it, though you reign, To temper zeal with moderation. Since You do impose on us the need to die-- Needs must we love our lot, obey your will.

_Luk._ Where's Megara, then? Alkmené's grandsons, where?

_Amph._ She, I think,--as one figures from outside,--

_Luk._ Well, this same thinking,--what affords its ground?

_Amph._ --Sits suppliant on the holy altar-steps,--

_Luk._ Idly indeed a suppliant to save life!

_Amph._ --And calls on her dead husband, vainly too!

_Luk._ For he's not come, nor ever will arrive.

_Amph._ Never--at least, if no god raise him up.

_Luk._ Go to her, and conduct her from the house!

_Amph._ I should partake the murder, doing that.

_Luk._ We,--since thou hast a scruple in the case,-- Outside of fears, we shall march forth these lads, Mother and all. Here, follow me, my folk-- And gladly so remove what stops our toils!

_Amph._ Thou--go then! March where needs must! What remains-- Perhaps concerns another. Doing ill, Expect some ill be done thee! Ha, old friends! On he strides beautifully! in the toils O' the net, where swords spring forth, will he be fast-- Minded to kill his neighbors--the arch-knave! I go, too--I must see the falling corpse! For he has sweets to give--a dying man, Your foe, that pays the price of deeds he did.

_Cho._ Troubles are over! He the great king once, Turns the point, tends for Haides, goal of life! O justice, and the gods' back-flowing fate!

_Amph._ Thou art come, late indeed, where death pays crime-- These insults heaped on better than thyself!

_Cho._ Joy gives this outburst to my tears! Again Come round those deeds, his doing, which of old He never dreamed himself was to endure-- King of the country! But enough, old man! Indoors, now, let us see how matters stand-- If somebody be faring as I wish!

_Luk._ Ah me--me!

_Cho._ This strikes the keynote--music to my mind, Merry i' the household! Death takes up the tune! The king gives voice, groans murder's prelude well!

_Luk._ O all the land of Kadmos! slain by guile!

_Cho._ Ay, for who slew first? Paying back thy due, Resign thee! make, for deeds done, mere amends! Who was it grazed the gods through lawlessness-- Mortal himself, threw up his fools'-conceit Against the blessed heavenly ones--as though Gods had no power? Old friends, the impious man Exists not any more! The house is mute. Turn we to song and dance! For, those I love, Those I wish well to, well fare they, to wish!

Dances, dances and banqueting To Thebes, the sacred city through, Are a care! for, change and change Of tears to laughter, old to new, Our lays, glad birth, they bring, they bring! He is gone and past, the mighty king! And the old one reigns, returned--Oh, strange! From the Acherontian harbor too! Advent of hope, beyond thought's widest range! To the gods, the gods, are crimes a care, And they watch our virtue, well aware That gold and that prosperity drive man Out of his mind--those charioteers who hale Might-without-right behind them: face who can Fortune's reverse which time prepares, nor quail? --He who evades law and in lawlessness Delights him,--he has broken down his trust-- The chariot, riches haled--now blackening in the dust!

Ismenos, go thou garlanded! Break into dance, ye ways, the polished bed O' the seven-gated city! Dirké, thou Fair-flowing, with the Asopiad sisters all, Leave your sire's stream, attend the festival Of Herakles, one choir of nymphs, sing triumph now! O woody rock of Puthios and each home O the Helikonian Muses, ye shall come With joyous shouting to my walls, my town Where saw the light that Spartan race, those "Sown," Brazen-shield-bearing chiefs, whereof the band With children's children renovates our land, To Thebes a sacred light! O combination of the marriage rite-- Bed of the mortal-born and Zeus, who couched Beside the nymph of Perseus' progeny! For credible, past hope, becomes to me That nuptial story long ago avouched, O Zeus! and time has turned the dark to bright, And made one blaze of truth the Herakleidan might-- His, who emerged from earth's pavilion, left Plouton's abode, the nether palace-cleft, Thou wast the lord that nature gave me--not That baseness born and bred--my king, by lot! --Baseness made plain to all, who now regard The match of sword with sword in fight,-- If to the gods the Just and Right Still pleasing be, still claim the palm's award.

Horror! Are we come to the selfsame passion of fear, Old friends?--such a phantasm fronts me here Visible over the palace-roof! In flight, in flight, the laggard limb Bestir! and haste aloof From that on the roof there--grand and grim! O Paian, king! Be thou my safeguard from the woeful thing!

_Iris._ Courage, old men! beholding here--Night's birth-- Madness, and me the handmaid of the gods, Iris: since to your town we come, no plague-- Wage war against the house of but one man From Zeus and from Alkmené sprung, they say. Now, till he made an end of bitter toils, Fate kept him safe, nor did his father Zeus Let us once hurt him, Heré nor myself. But, since he has toiled through Eurustheus' task, Heré desires to fix fresh blood on him-- Slaying his children: I desire it too.

Up then, collecting the unsoftened heart, Unwedded virgin of black Night! Drive, drag Frenzy upon the man here--whirls of brain Big with child-murder, while his feet leap gay! Let go the bloody cable its whole length! So that,--when o'er the Acherousian ford He has sent floating, by self-homicide, His beautiful boy-garland,--he may know First, Heré's anger, what it is to him, And then learn mine. The gods are vile indeed And mortal matters vast, if he 'scape free!

_Madness._ Certes, from well-born sire and mother too Had I my birth, whose blood is Night's and Heaven's; But here's my glory,--not to grudge the good! Nor love I raids against the friends of man. I wish, then, to persuade,--before I see You stumbling, you and Heré! trust my words! This man, the house of whom ye hound me to, Is not unfamed on earth nor gods among; Since, having quelled waste land and savage sea, He alone raised again the falling rights Of gods--gone ruinous through impious men. Desire no mighty mischief, I advise!

_Iris._ Give thou no thought to Heré's faulty schemes!

_Mad._ Changing her step from faulty to fault-free!

_Iris._ Not to be wise, did Zeus' wife send thee here!

_Mad._ Sun, thee I cite to witness--doing what I loathe to do! But since indeed to Heré and thyself I must subserve. And follow you quick, with a whiz, as the hounds a-hunt with the huntsman, --Go I will! and neither the sea, as it groans with its waves so furiously, Nor earthquake, no, nor the bolt of thunder gasping out heaven's labor-throe, Shall cover the ground as I, at a bound, rush into the bosom of Herakles! And home I scatter, and house I batter, Having first of all made the children fall,-- And he who felled them is never to know He gave birth to each child that received the blow, Till the Madness, I am, have let him go!

Ha, behold, already he rocks his head--he is off from the starting-place! Not a word, as he rolls his frightful orbs, from their sockets wrenched in the ghastly race! And the breathings of him he tempers and times no more than a bull in act to toss, And hideously he bellows invoking the Keres, daughters of Tartaros. Ay, and I soon will dance thee madder, and pipe thee quite out of thy mind with fear! So, up with the famous foot, thou Iris, march to Olumpos, leave me here! Me and mine, who now combine, in the dreadful shape no mortal sees, And now are about to pass, from without, inside of the home of Herakles!

_Cho._ Otototoi,--groan! Away is mown Thy flower, Zeus' offspring, City! Unhappy Hellas, who dost cast (the pity!) Who worked thee all the good, Away from thee,--destroyest in a mood Of madness him, to death whom pipings dance! There goes she, in her chariot--groans, her brood-- And gives her team the goad, as though adrift For doom, Night's Gorgon, Madness, she whose glance Turns man to marble! with what hissings lift Their hundred heads the snakes, her head's inheritance! Quick has the god changed fortune: through their sire Quick will the children, that he saved, expire! O miserable me! O Zeus! thy child-- Childless himself--soon vengeance, hunger-wild, Craving for punishment, will lay how low-- Loaded with many a woe!

O palace-roofs! your courts about, A measure begins all unrejoiced By the tympanies and the thyrsos hoist Of the Bromian revel-rout! O ye domes! and the measure proceeds For blood, not such as the cluster bleeds Of the Dionusian pouring-out!

Break forth, fly, children! fatal this-- Fatal the lay that is piped, I wis! Ay, for he hunts a children-chase-- Never shall Madness lead her revel And leave no trace in the dwelling-place! Ai ai, because of the evil! Ai ai, the old man--how I groan For the father, and not the father alone! She who was nurse of his children,--small Her gain that they ever were born at all!

See! See! A whirlwind shakes hither and thither The house--the roof falls in together! Ha, ha! what dost thou, son of Zeus? A trouble of Tartaros broke loose, Such as once Pallas on the Titan thundered, Thou sendest on thy domes, roof-shattered and wall-sundered!

_Messenger._ O bodies white with age!--

_Cho._ What cry, to me-- _What_, dost thou call with?

_Mes._ There 's a curse indoors!

_Cho._ I shall not bring a prophet: you suffice!

_Mes._ Dead are the children!

_Cho._ Ai ai!

_Mes._ Groan! for, groans Suit well the subject! Dire the children's death, Dire too the parent's hands that dealt the fate. No one could tell worse woe than we have borne!

_Cho._ How dost thou that same curse--curse, cause for groan The father's on the children, make appear? Tell in what matter they were hurled from heaven Against the house--these evils; and recount The children's hapless fate, O Messenger!

_Mes._ The victims were before the hearth of Zeus A household-expiation: since the king O' the country, Herakles had killed and cast From out the dwelling; and a beauteous choir Of boys stood by his sire, too, and his wife. And now the basket had been carried round The altar in a circle, and we used The consecrated speech. Alkmené's son-- Just as he was about, in his right hand, To bear the torch, that he might dip into The cleansing-water--came to a stand-still; And, as their father yet delayed, his boys Had their eyes on him. But he was himself No longer: lost in rollings of the eyes; Out-thrusting eyes--their very roots--like blood! Froth he dropped down his bushy-bearded cheek, And said--together with a madman's laugh-- "Father! why sacrifice, before I slay Eurustheus? why have twice the lustral fire, And double pains, when 't is permitted me To end, with one good hand-sweep, matters here? Then,--when I hither bring Eurustheus' head,-- Then for these just slain, wash hands once for all! Now,--cast drink-offerings forth, throw baskets down! Who gives me bow and arrows, who my club? I go to that Mukenai! One must match Crowbars and mattocks, so that--those sunk stones The Kuklops squared with picks and plumb-line red. I, with my bent steel, may o'ertumble town!" Which said, he goes and--with no car to have-- Affirms he has one! mounts the chariot-board, And strikes, as having really goad in hand! And two ways laughed the servants--laugh with awe; And one said, as each met the other's stare, "Playing us boys' tricks? or is master mad?" But up he climbs, and down along the roof, And, dropping into the men's place, maintains He 's come to Nisos city, when he 's come Only inside his own house! then reclines On floor, for couch, and, as arrived indeed, Makes himself supper; goes through some brief stay, Then says he 's traversing the forest-flats Of Isthmos; thereupon lays body bare Of bucklings, and begins a contest with --No one! and is proclaimed the conqueror-- He by himself--having called out to hear --Nobody! Then, if you will take his word, Blaring against Eurustheus horribly, He 's at Mukenai. But his father laid Hold of the strong hand and addressed him thus: "O son, what ails thee? Of what sort is this Extravagance? Has not some murder-craze, Bred of those corpses thou didst just dispatch, Danced thee drunk?" But he,--taking him to crouch, Eurustheus' sire, that apprehensive touched His hand, a suppliant,--pushes him aside, Gets ready quiver, and bends low against His children--thinking them Eurustheus' boys He means to slay. They, horrified with fear, Rushed here and there,--this child, into the robes O' the wretched mother,--this, beneath the shade O' the column,--and this other, like a bird, Cowered at the altar-foot. The mother shrieks, "Parent--what dost thou?--kill thy children?" So Shriek the old sire and crowd of servitors. But he, outwinding him, as round about The column ran the boy,--a horrid whirl O' the lathe his foot described!--stands opposite, Strikes through the liver! and supine the boy Bedews the stone shafts, breathing out his life. But "Victory" he shouted! boasted thus: "Well, this one nestling of Eurustheus--dead-- Falls by me, pays back the paternal hate!" Then bends bow on another who was crouched At base of altar--overlooked, he thought-- And now prevents him, falls at father's knee, Throwing up hand to beard and cheek above. "O dearest!" cries he, "father, kill me not! Yours, I am--your boy: not Eurustheus' boy You kill now!" But he, rolling the wild eye Of Gorgon,--as the boy stood all too close For deadly bowshot,--mimicry of smith Who batters red-hot iron,--hand o'er head Heaving his club, on the boy's yellow hair Hurls it and breaks the bone. This second caught,-- He goes, would slay the third, one sacrifice He and the couple; but, beforehand here, The miserable mother catches up, Carries him inside house and bars the gate. Then he, as he were at those Kuklops' work, Digs at, heaves doors up, wrenches doorposts out, Lays wife and child low with the selfsame shaft. And this done, at the old man's death he drives; But there came, as it seemed to us who saw, A statue--Pallas with the crested head, Swinging her spear--and threw a stone which smote Herakles' breast and stayed his slaughter-rage, And sent him safe to sleep. He falls to ground-- Striking against the column with his back-- Column which, with the falling of the roof, Broken in two, lay by the altar-base. And we, foot-free now from our several flights, Along with the old man, we fastened bonds Of rope-noose to the column, so that he, Ceasing from sleep, might not go adding deeds To deeds done. And he sleeps a sleep, poor wretch, No gift of any god! since he has slain Children and wife. For me, I do not know What mortal has more misery to bear.

_Cho._ A murder there was which Argolis Holds in remembrance, Hellas through, As, at that time, best and famousest: Of those, the daughters of Danaos slew. A murder indeed was that! but this Outstrips it, straight to the goal has pressed. I am able to speak of a murder done To the hapless Zeus-born offspring, too-- Proknè's son, who had but one-- Or a sacrifice to the Muses, say Rather, who Itus sing alway, Her single child! But thou, the sire Of children three--O thou consuming fire!-- In one outrageous fate hast made them all expire! And this outrageous fate-- What groan, or wail, or deadmen's dirge, Or choric dance of Haides shall I urge The Muse to celebrate?

Woe! woe! behold! The portalled palace lies unrolled, This way and that way, each prodigious fold! Alas for me! these children, see, Stretched, hapless group, before their father--he The all-unhappy, who lies sleeping out The murder of his sons, a dreadful sleep! And bonds, see, all about,-- Rope-tangle, ties and tether,--these Tightenings around the body of Herakles To the stone columns of the house made fast!

But--like a bird that grieves For callow nestlings some rude hand bereaves-- See, here, a bitter journey overpast, The old man--all too late--is here at last!

_Amph._ Silently, silently, aged Kadmeians! Will ye not suffer my son, diffused Yonder, to slide from his sorrows in sleep?

_Cho._ And thee, old man, do I, groaning, weep, And the children too, and the head there--used Of old to the wreaths and paians!

_Amph._ Farther away! Nor beat the breast, Nor wail aloud, nor rouse from rest The slumberer--asleep, so best!

_Cho._ Ah me--what a slaughter!

_Amph._ Refrain--refrain! Ye will prove my perdition!

_Cho._ Unlike water, Bloodshed rises from earth again!

_Amph._ Do I bid you bate your breath, in vain-- Ye elders? Lament in a softer strain! Lest he rouse himself, burst every chain, And bury the city in ravage--bray Father and house to dust away!

_Cho._ I cannot forbear--I cannot forbear!

_Amph._ Hush! I will learn his breathings: there! I will lay my ears close.

_Cho._ What, he sleeps?

_Amph._ Ay,--sleeps! A horror of slumber keeps The man who has piled On wife and child Death and death, as he shot them down With clang o'the bow.

_Cho._ Wail--

_Amph._ Even so!

_Cho._ --The fate of the children--

_Amph._ Triple woe!

_Cho._ --Old man, the fate of thy son!

_Amph._ Hush, hush! Have done! He is turning about! He is breaking out! Away! I steal And my body conceal, Before he arouse, In the depths of the house!

_Cho._ Courage! The Night Maintains her right On the lids of thy son there, sealed from sight!

_Amph._ See, see! To leave the light And, wretch that I am, bear one last ill, I do not avoid; but if he kill Me, his own father, and devise Beyond the present miseries A misery more ghastly still-- And to haunt him, over and above Those here who, as they used to love, Now hate him, what if he have with these My murder, the worst of Erinues?

_Cho._ Then was the time to die, for thee, When ready to wreak in the full degree Vengeance on those Thy consort's foes Who murdered her brothers! glad, life's close, With the Taphioi down, And sacked their town Clustered about with a wash of sea!

_Amph._ Tonight--to flight! Away from the house, troop off, old men! Save yourselves out of the maniac's sight! He is rousing himself right up: and then, Murder on murder heaping anew, He will revel in blood your city through!

_Cho._ O Zeus, why hast, with such unmeasured hate, Hated thy son, whelmed in this sea of woes?

_Her._ Ha,-- In breath indeed I am--see things I ought-- Æther, and earth, and these the sunbeam-shafts! But then--some billow and strange whirl of sense I have fallen into! and breathings hot I breathe-- Smoked upwards, not the steady work from lungs. See now! Why, bound--at moorings like a ship,-- About my young breast and young arm, to this Stone piece of carved work broke in half, do I Sit, have my rest in corpses' neighborhood? Strewn on the ground are wingèd darts, and bow Which played, my brother-shieldman, held in hand,-- Guarded my side, and got my guardianship! I cannot have gone back to Haides--twice. Begun Eurustheus' race I ended thence? But I nor see the Sisupheian stone, Nor Plouton, nor Demeter's sceptred maid! I am struck witless sure! Where can I be? Ho there! what friend of mine is near or far-- Some one to cure me of bewilderment? For naught familiar do I recognize.

_Amph._ Old friends, shall I go close to these my woes?

_Cho._ Ay, and let me too,--nor desert your ills!

_Her._ Father, why weepest thou, and buriest up Thine eyes, aloof so from thy much-loved son?

_Amph._ O child!--for, faring badly, mine thou art!

_Her._ Do I fare somehow ill, that tears should flow?

_Amph._ Ill,--would cause any god who bore to groan!

_Her._ That's boasting, truly! still, you state no hap.

_Amph._ For, thyself seest--if in thy wits again.

_Her._ Heyday! How riddlingly that hint returns!

_Amph._ Well, I am trying--art thou sane and sound!

_Her._ Say if thou lay'st aught strange to my life's charge!

_Amph._ If thou no more art Haides-drunk,--I tell!

_Her._ I bring to mind no drunkenness of soul.

_Amph._ Shall I unbind my son, old men, or what?

_Her._ And who was binder, tell!--not _that_, my deed!

_Amph._ Mind that much of misfortune--pass the rest!

_Her._ Enough! from silence, I nor learn nor wish.

_Amph._ O Zeus, dost witness here throned Heré's work?

_Her._ But have I had to bear aught hostile thence?

_Amph._ Let be the goddess--bury thine own guilt!

_Her._ Undone! What is the sorrow thou wilt say?

_Amph._ Look! See the ruins of thy children here!

_Her._ Ah me! What sight do wretched I behold?

_Amph._ Unfair fight, son, this fight thou fastenedst On thine own children!

_Her._ What fight? Who slew these?

_Amph._ Thou and thy bow, and who of gods was cause.

_Her._ How say'st? What did I? Ill-announcing sire!

_Amph._ --Go mad! Thou askest a sad clearing up!

_Her._ And am I also murderer of my wife?

_Amph._ All the work here was just one hand's work--thine!

_Her._ Ai ai--for groans encompass me--a cloud!

_Amph._ For these deeds' sake do I begroan thy fate!

_Her._ Did I break up my house or dance it down?

_Amph._ I know just one thing--all 's a woe with thee!

_Her._ But where did the craze catch me, where destroy?

_Amph._ When thou didst cleanse hands at the altar-flame.

_Her._ Ah me! why is it then I save my life-- Proved murderer of my dearest ones, my boys? Shall not I rush to the rock-level's leap, Or, darting sword through breast and all, become My children's blood-avenger? or, this flesh Burning away with fire, so thrust away The infamy, which waits me there, from life? Ah, but,--a hindrance to my purposed death, Theseus arrives, my friend and kinsman, here! Eyes will be on me! my child-murder-plague In evidence before friends loved so much! O me, what shall I do? Where, taking wing Or gliding underground, shall I seek out A solitariness from misery? I will pull night upon my muffled head! Let this wretch here content him with his curse Of blood: I would pollute no innocents!

_Theseus._ I come,--with others who await beside Asopos' stream, the armed Athenian youth,-- Bring thy son, old man, spear's fight-fellowship! For a bruit reached the Erechtheidai's town That, having seized the sceptre of this realm, Lukos prepares you battle-violence. So, paying good back,--Herakles began, Saving me down there,--I have come, old man, If aught, of my hand or my friends', you want. What 's here? Why all these corpses on the ground? Am I perhaps behindhand--come too late For newer ill? Who killed these children now? Whose wife was she, this woman I behold? Boys, at least, take no stand in reach of spear! Some other woe than war, I chance upon!

_Amph._ O thou, who sway'st the olive-bearing height!--

_Thes._ Why hail'st thou me with woeful prelude thus?

_Amph._ Dire sufferings have we suffered from the gods.

_Thes._ These boys,--who are they, thou art weeping o'er?

_Amph._ He gave them birth, indeed, my hapless son! Begot, but killed them--dared their bloody death.

_Thes._ Speak no such horror!

_Amph._ Would I might obey!

_Thes._ O teller of dread tidings!

_Amph._ Lost are we-- Lost--flown away from life!

_Thes._ What sayest thou? What did he?

_Amph._ Erring through a frenzy-fit, He did all, with the arrows dipt in dye Of hundred-headed Hudra.

_Thes._ Heré 's strife! But who is this among the dead, old man?

_Amph._ Mine, mine, this progeny--the labor-plagued, Who went with gods once to Phlegruia's plain. And in the giant-slaying war bore shield!

_Thes._ Woe--woe! What man was born mischanceful thus!

_Amph._ Thou couldst not know another mortal man Toil-weary, more outworn by wanderings.

_Thes._ And why i' the peploi hides he his sad head?

_Amph._ Not daring meet thine eye, thy friendliness And kinship,--nor that children's--blood about!

_Thes._ But _I_ come to who shared my woe with me! Uncover him!

_Amph._ O child, put from thine eyes The peplos, throw it off, show face to sun! Woe's weight well matched contends with tears in thee. I supplicate thee, falling at thy cheek And knee and hand, and shedding this old tear! O son, remit the savage lion's mood, Since to a bloody, an unholy race Art thou led forth, if thou be resolute To go on adding ill to ill, my child!

_Thes._ Let me speak! Thee, who sittest--seated woe-- I call upon to show thy friends thine eye! For there 's no darkness has a cloud so black May hide thy misery thus absolute. Why, waving hand, dost sign me--murder 's done? Lest a pollution strike me, from thy speech? Naught care I to--with thee, at least--fare ill: For I had joy once! _Then_,--soul rises to,-- When thou didst save me from the dead to light! Friends' gratitude that tastes old age, I loathe, And him who likes to share when things look fine, But, sail along with friends in trouble--no! Arise, uncover thine unhappy head! Look on us! Every man of the right race Bears what, at least, the gods inflict, nor shrinks.

_Her._ Theseus, hast seen this match--my boys with me?

_Thes._ I heard of, now I see the ills thou sign'st.

_Her._ Why then hast thou displayed my head to sun?

_Thes._ Why? mortals bring no plague on aught divine!

_Her._ Fly, O unhappy, this my impious plague!

_Thes._ No plague of vengeance flits to friends from friends.

_Her._ I praise thee! But I helped thee,--that is truth.

_Thes._ And I, advantaged then, now pity thee.

_Her._ --The pitiable,--my children's murderer!

_Thes._ I mourn for thy sake, in this altered lot.

_Her._ Hast thou found others in still greater woe?

_Thes._ Thou, from earth, touchest heaven, one huge distress!

_Her._ Accordingly, I am prepared to die.

_Thes._ Think'st thou thy threats at all import the gods?

_Her._ Gods please themselves: to gods I give their like.

_Thes._ Shut thy mouth, lest big words bring bigger woe!

_Her._ I am full fraught with ills--no stowing more!

_Thes._ Thou wilt do--what, then? Whither moody borne?

_Her._ Dying, I go below earth whence I came.

_Thes._ Thou hast used words of--what man turns up first!

_Her._ While thou, being outside sorrow, schoolest me.

_Thes._ The much-enduring Herakles talks thus?--

_Her._ Not the so much-enduring: measure's past!

_Thes._ --Mainstay to mortals, and their mighty friend?

_Her._ They nowise profit me: but Heré rules.

_Thes._ Hellas forbids thou shouldst ineptly die.

_Her._ But hear, then, how I strive by arguments Against thy teachings! I will ope thee out My life--past, present--as unlivable. First, I was born of this man, who had slain His mother's aged sire, and, sullied so, Married Alkmené, she who gave me birth. Now, when the basis of a family Is not laid right, what follows needs must fall; And Zeus, whoever Zeus is, formed me foe To Heré (take not thou offence, old man! Since father, in Zeus' stead, account I thee) And, while I was at suck yet, frightful snakes She introduced among my swaddling-clothes,-- That bedfellow of Zeus!--to end me so. But when I gained the youthful garb of flesh, The labors I endured--what need to tell? What lions ever, or three-bodied brutes, Tuphons or giants, or the four-legg'd swarms Of Kentaur-battle, did not I end out? And that hound, headed all about with heads Which cropped up twice, the Hudra, having slain-- I both went through a myriad other toils In full drove, and arrived among the dead To convoy, as Eurustheus bade, to light Haides' three-headed dog and doorkeeper. But then I,--wretch,--dared this last labor--see! Slew my sons, keystone-coped my house with ills, To such a strait I come! nor my dear Thebes Dare I inhabit,--and, suppose I stay? Into what fane or festival of friends Am I to go? My curse scarce courts accost! Shall I seek Argos? How, if fled from home? But say,--I hurry to some other town! And there they eye me, as notorious now,-- Kept by sharp tongue-taunts under lock and key-- "Is not this he, Zeus' son, who murdered once Children and wife? Let him go rot elsewhere!" To any man renowned as happy once, Reverses are a grave thing; but to whom Evil is old acquaintance, there 's no hurt To speak of, he and misery are twins. To this degree of woe I think to come: For earth will utter voice forbidding me To touch the ground, and sea--to pierce the wave, The river-springs--to drink, and I shall play Ixion's part quite out, the chained and wheeled! And best of all will be, if so I 'scape Sight from one man of those Hellenes,--once I lived among, felicitous and rich! Why ought I then to live? What gain accrues From good-for-nothing, wicked life I lead? In fine, let Zeus' brave consort dance and sing, Stamp foot, the Olumpian Zeus' own sandal-trick! What she has willed, that brings her will to pass-- The foremost man of Hellas pedestalled, Up, over, and down whirling! Who would pray To such a goddess?--that, begrudging Zeus Because he loved a woman, ruins me-- Lover of Hellas, faultless of the wrong!

_Thes._ This strife is from no other of the gods Than Zeus' wife; rightly apprehend, as well, Why, to no death--thou meditatest now-- I would persuade thee, but to bear thy woes! None, none of mortals boasts a fate unmixed, Nor gods--if poets' teaching be not false. Have not they joined in wedlock against law With one another? not, for sake of rule, Branded their sires in bondage? Yet they house, All the same, in Olumpos, carry heads High there, notorious sinners though they be! What wilt thou say, then, if thou, mortal-born, Bearest outrageously fate gods endure? Leave Thebes, now, pay obedience to the law, And follow me to Pallas' citadel! There, when thy hands are purified from stain, House will I give thee, and goods shared alike. What gifts I hold too from the citizens For saving twice seven children, when I slew The Knosian bull, these also give I thee. And everywhere about the land are plots Apportioned me: these, named by thine own name, Shall be henceforward styled by all men--thine, Thy life-long; but at death, when Haides-bound, All Athens shall uphold the honored one With sacrifices, and huge marble heaps: For that's a fair crown our Hellenes grant Their people--glory, should they help the brave! And I repay thee back this grace for thine That saved me, now that thou art lorn of friends-- Since, when the gods give honor, friends may flit: For, a god's help suffices, if he please.

_Her._ Ah me, these words are foreign to my woes! I neither fancy gods love lawless beds, Nor, that with chains they bind each other's hands, Have I judged worthy faith, at any time; Nor shall I be persuaded--one is born His fellows' master! since God stands in need-- If he is really God--of naught at all. These are the poets' pitiful conceits! But this it was I pondered, though woe-whelmed-- "Take heed lest thou be taxed with cowardice Somehow in leaving thus the light of day!" For whoso cannot make a stand against These same misfortunes, neither could withstand A mere man's dart, oppose death, strength to strength. Therefore unto thy city I will go And have the grace of thy ten thousand gifts. There! I have tasted of ten thousand toils As truly--never waived a single one, Nor let these runnings drop from out my eyes! Nor ever thought it would have come to this-- That I from out my eyes do drop tears! Well! At present, as it seems, one bows to fate. So be it! Old man, thou seest my exile-- Seest, too, me--my children's murderer! These give thou to the tomb, and deck the dead, Doing them honor with thy tears--since me Law does not sanction! Propping on her breast, And giving them into their mother's arms, --Reinstitute the sad community Which I, unhappy, brought to nothingness-- Not by my will! And, when earth hides the dead, Live in this city!--sad, but, all the same, Force thy soul to bear woe along with me! O children, who begat and gave you birth-- Your father--has destroyed you! naught you gain By those fair deeds of mine I laid you up, As by main-force I labored glory out To give you,--that fine gift of fatherhood! And thee, too, O my poor one, I destroyed. Not rendering like for like, as when thou kept'st My marriage-bed inviolate,--those long Household-seclusions draining to the dregs Inside my house! O me, my wife, my boys-- And--O myself, how, miserably moved. Am I disyoked now from both boys and wife! Oh, bitter those delights of kisses now-- And bitter these my weapons' fellowship! For I am doubtful whether shall I keep Or cast away these arrows which will clang Ever such words out, as they knock my side-- "Us--thou didst murder wife and children with! Us--child--destroyers--still thou keepest thine!" Ha, shall I bear them in my arms, then? What Say for excuse? Yet, naked of my darts Wherewith I did my bravest, Hellas through, Throwing myself beneath foot to my foes, Shall I die basely? No! relinquishment Of these must never be,--companions once, We sorrowfully must observe the pact! In just one thing, co-operate with me Thy sad friend, Theseus! Go along with him To Argos, and in concert get arranged The price my due for bringing there the Hound! O land of Kadmos, Theban people all, Shear off your locks, lament one wide lament, Go to my children's grave and, in one strain, Lament the whole of us--my dead and me-- Since all together are foredone and lost, Smitten by Herd's single stroke of fate!

_Thes._ Rise up now from thy dead ones! Tears enough, Poor friend!

_Her._ I cannot: for my limbs are fixed.

_Thes._ Ay: even these strong men fate overthrows!

_Her._ Woe! Here might I grow a stone, nor mind woes more!

_Thes._ Cease! Give thy hand to friendly helpmate now!

_Her._ Nay, but I wipe off blood upon thy robes!

_Thes._ Squeeze out and spare no drop! I take it all!

_Her._ Of sons bereaved, I have thee like my son!

_Thes._ Give to my neck thy hand! 'tis I will lead.

_Her._ Yoke-fellows friendly--one heartbroken, though! O father! such a man we need for friend!

_Amph._ Certes, the land that bred him boasts good sons!

_Her._ Turn me round, Theseus--to behold my boys!

_Thes._ What? will the having such a love-charm soothe?

_Her._ I want it; and to press my father's breast.

_Amph._ See here, O son! for, what I love thou seek'st!

_Thes._ Strange! Of thy labors no more memory?

_Her._ All those were less than these, those ills I bore!

_Thes._ Who sees thee grow a woman,--will not praise!

_Her._ I live low to thee? Not so once, I think!

_Thes._ Too low by far! "Famed Herakles"--where 's he?

_Her._ Down amid evils, of what kind wast _thou?_

_Thes._ As far as courage--least of all mankind!

_Her._ How say'st, then, _I_ in evils shrink to naught?

_Thes._ Forward!

_Her._ Farewell, old father!

_Amph._ Thou too, son!

_Her._ Bury the boys as I enjoined!

_Amph._ And _me_-- Who will be found to bury now, my child?

_Her._ Myself!

_Amph._ When, coming?

_Her._ When thy task is done.

_Amph._ How?

_Her._ I will have thee carried forth from Thebes To Athens. But bear in the children, earth Is burdened by! Myself,--who with these shames Have cast away my house,--a ruined hulk, I follow--trailed by Theseus--on my way; And whoso rather would have wealth and strength Than good friends, reasons foolishly therein!

_Cho._ And we depart, with sorrow at heart, Sobs that increase with tears that start; The greatest of all our friends of yore We have lost forevermore!

* * * * *

When the long silence ended,--"Our best friend-- Lost, our best friend!" he muttered musingly. Then, "Lachares the sculptor" (half aloud) "Sinned he or sinned he not? 'Outrageous sin!' Shuddered our elders, 'Pallas should be clothed: He carved her naked.' 'But more beautiful!' Answers this generation: 'Wisdom formed For love not fear!' And there the statue stands, Entraps the eye severer art repels. Moreover, Pallas wields the thunderbolt, Yet has not struck the artist all this while. Pheidias and Aischulos? Euripides And Lachares? But youth will have its way! The ripe man ought to be as old as young-- As young as old. I too have youth at need. Much may be said for stripping wisdom bare!

"And who 's 'our best friend'? You play kottabos; Here 's the last mode of playing. Take a sphere With orifices at due interval, Through topmost one of which, a throw adroit Sends wine from cup, clean passage, from outside To where, in hollow midst, a manikin Suspended ever bobs with head erect Right underneath whatever hole 's a-top When you set orb a-rolling: plumb, he gets Ever this benediction of the splash. An other-fashioned orb presents him fixed: Of all the outlets, he fronts only one, And only when that one--and rare the chance-- Comes uppermost, does he turn upward too: He can't turn all sides with the turning orb. Inside this sphere of life--all objects, sense And soul perceive--Euripides hangs fixed, Gets knowledge through the single aperture Of High and Right: with visage fronting these He waits the wine thence ere he operate, Work in the world and write a tragedy. When that hole happens to revolve to point, In drops the knowledge, waiting meets reward. But, duly in rotation, Low and Wrong-- When these enjoy the moment's altitude, His heels are found just where his head should be! No knowledge that way! _I_ am movable,-- To slightest shift of orb make prompt response, Face Low and Wrong and Weak and all the rest, And still drink knowledge, wine-drenched every turn,-- Equally favored by their opposites. Little and Bad exist, are natural: Then let me know them, and be twice as great As he who only knows one phase of life! So doubly shall I prove 'best friend of man,' If I report the whole truth--Vice, perceived While he shut eyes to all but Virtue there. Man 's made of both: and both must be of use To somebody: if not to him, to me. While, as to your imaginary Third, Who,--stationed (by mechanics past my guess) So as to take in every side at once, And not successively,--may reconcile The High and Low in tragicomic verse,-- He shall be hailed superior to us both When born--in the Tin-islands! Meantime, here In bright Athenai, I contest the claim, Call myself Iostephanos' 'best friend,' Who took my own course, worked as I descried Ordainment, stuck to my first faculty!

"For, listen! There 's no failure breaks the heart, Whate'er be man's endeavor in this world, Like the rash poet's when he--nowise fails By poetizing badly,--Zeus or makes Or mars a man, so--at it, merrily! But when,--made man,--much like myself,--equipt For such and such achievement,--rash he turns Out of the straight path, bent on snatch of feat From--who 's the appointed fellow born thereto,-- Crows take him!--in your Kassiterides? Half-doing his work, leaving mine untouched, That were the failure! Here I stand, heart-whole, No Thamuris!

"Well thought of, Thamuris! Has zeal, pray, for 'best friend' Euripides Allowed you to observe the honor done His elder rival, in our Poikilé? You don't know? Once and only once, trod stage, Sang and touched lyre in person, in his youth, Our Sophokles,--youth, beauty, dedicate To Thamuris who named the tragedy. The voice of him was weak; face, limbs and lyre, These were worth saving: Thamuris stands yet Perfect as painting helps in such a case. At least you know the story, for 'best friend' Enriched his 'Rhesos' from the Blind Bard's store; So haste and see the work, and lay to heart What it was struck me when I eyed the piece! Here stands a poet punished for rash strife With Powers above his power, who see with sight Beyond his vision, sing accordingly A song, which he must needs dare emulate! Poet, remain the man nor ape the Muse!

"But--lend me the psalterion! Nay, for once-- Once let my hand fall where the other's lay! I see it, just as I were Sophokles, That sunrise and combustion of the east!"

And then he sang--are these unlike the words?

Thamuris marching,--lyre and song of Thrace-- (Perpend the first, the worst of woes that were, Allotted lyre and song, ye poet-race!)

Thamuris from Oichalia, feasted there By kingly Eurutos of late, now bound For Dorion at the uprise broad and bare

Of Mount Pangaios (ore with earth enwound Glittered beneath his footstep)--marching gay And glad, Thessalia through, came, robed and crowned,

From triumph on to triumph, 'mid a ray Of early morn,--came, saw and knew the spot Assigned him for his worst of woes, that day.

Balura--happier while its name was not-- Met him, but nowise menaced; slipt aside, Obsequious river, to pursue its lot

Of solacing the valley--say, some wide Thick busy human cluster, house and home, Embanked for peace, or thrift that thanks the tide.

Thamuris, marching, laughed "Each flake of foam" (As sparklingly the ripple raced him by) "Mocks slower clouds adrift in the blue dome!"

For Autumn was the season: red the sky Held morn's conclusive signet of the sun To break the mists up, bid them blaze and die.

Morn had the mastery as, one by one, All pomps produced themselves along the tract From earth's far ending to near heaven begun.

Was there a ravaged tree? it laughed compact With gold, a leaf-ball crisp, high-brandished now, Tempting to onset frost which late attacked.

Was there a wizened shrub, a starveling bough, A fleecy thistle filched from by the wind, A weed, Pan's trampling hoof would disallow?

Each, with a glory and a rapture twined About it, joined the rush of air and light And force: the world was of one joyous mind.

Say not the birds flew! they forebore their right-- Swam, revelling onward in the roll of things. Say not the beasts' mirth bounded! that was flight--

How could the creatures leap, no lift of wings? Such earth's community of purpose, such The ease of earth's fulfilled imaginings,--

So did the near and far appear to touch I' the moment's transport,--that an interchange Of function, far with near, seemed scarce too much;

And had the rooted plant aspired to range With the snake's license, while the insect yearned To glow fixed as the flower it were not strange--

No more than if the fluttery tree-top turned To actual music, sang itself aloft; Or if the wind, impassioned chantress, earned

The right to soar embodied in some soft Fine form all fit for cloud-companionship, And, blissful, once touch beauty chased so oft.

Thamuris, marching, let no fancy slip Born of the fiery transport; lyre and song Were his, to smite with hand and launch from lip--

Peerless recorded, since the list grew long Of poets (saith Homeros) free to stand Pedestalled 'mid the Muses' temple-throng,

A statued service, laurelled, lyre in hand, (Ay, for we see them)--Thamuris of Thrace Predominating foremost of the band.

Therefore the morn-ray that enriched his face, If it gave lambent chill, took flame again From flush of pride; he saw, he knew the place.

What wind arrived with all the rhythms from plain, Hill, dale, and that rough wildwood interspersed? Compounding these to one consummate strain,

It reached him, music; but his own outburst Of victory concluded the account, And that grew song which was mere music erst.

"Be my Parnassos, thou Pangaian mount! And turn thee, river, nameless hitherto! Famed shalt thou vie with famed Pieria's fount!

Here I await the end of this ado: Which wins--Earth's poet or the Heavenly Muse." ...

But song broke up in laughter. "Tell the rest, Who may! _I_ have not spurned the common life, Nor vaunted mine a lyre to match the Muse Who sings for gods, not men! Accordingly, I shall not decorate her vestibule-- Mute marble, blind the eyes and quenched the brain, Loose in the hand a bright, a broken lyre! --Not Thamuris but Aristophanes!

"There! I have sung content back to myself, And started subject for a play beside. My next performance shall content you both. Did 'Prelude-Battle' maul 'best friend' too much? Then 'Main-Fight' be my next song, fairness' self! Its subject--Contest for the Tragic Crown. Ay, you shall hear none else but Aischulos Lay down the law of Tragedy, and prove 'Best friend' a stray-away,--no praise denied His manifold deservings, never fear-- Nor word more of the old fun! Death defends! Sound admonition has its due effect. Oh, you have uttered weighty words, believe! Such as shall bear abundant fruit, next year, In judgment, regular, legitimate. Let Bacchos' self preside in person! Ay-- For there 's a buzz about those 'Bacchanals' Rumor attributes to your great and dead For final effort: just the prodigy Great dead men leave, to lay survivors low! --Until we make acquaintance with our fate And find, fate's worst done, we, the same, survive Perchance to honor more the patron-god, Fitlier inaugurate a festal year. Now that the cloud has broken, sky laughs blue, Earth blossoms youthfully! Athenai breathes! After a twenty-six years' wintry blank Struck from her life,--war-madness, one long swoon, She wakes up: Arginousai bids good cheer! We have disposed of Kallikratidas; Once more will Sparté sue for terms,--who knows? Cede Dekeleia, as the rumor runs: Terms which Athenai, of right mind again, Accepts--she can no other! Peace declared, Have my long labors borne their fruit or no? Grinned coarse buffoonery so oft in vain? Enough--it simply saved you. Saved ones, praise Theoria's beauty and Opora's breadth! Nor, when Peace realizes promised bliss, Forget the Bald Bard, Envy! but go burst _As the cup goes round, and the cates abound,_ _Collops of hare, with roast spinks rare!_ Confess my pipings, dancings, posings served A purpose: guttlings, guzzlings, had their use! Say whether light Muse, Rosy-finger-tips, Or, 'best friend's' Heavy-hand, Melpomené, Touched lyre to purpose, played Amphion's part, And built Athenai to the skies once more! Farewell, brave couple! Next year, welcome me!"

* * * * *

No doubt, in what he said that night, sincere! One story he referred to, false or fact, Was not without adaptability. They do say--Laïs the Corinthian once Chancing to see Euripides (who paced Composing in a garden, tablet-book In left hand, with appended stulos prompt)-- "Answer me," she began, "O Poet,--this! What didst intend by writing in thy play, _Go hang, thou filthy doer?_" Struck on heap, Euripides, at the audacious speech-- "Well now," quoth he, "thyself art just the one I should imagine fit for deeds of filth!" She laughingly retorted his own line "What 's filth,--unless who does it, thinks it so?"

So might he doubtless think. "Farewell," said we.

And he was gone, lost in the morning-gray, Rose-streaked and gold to eastward. Did we dream? Could the poor twelve-hours hold this argument We render durable from fugitive, As duly at each sunset's droop of sail, Delay of oar, submission to sea-might, I still remember, you as duly dint Remembrance, with the punctual rapid style, Into--what calm cold page!

Thus soul escapes From eloquence made captive: thus mere words --Ah, would the lifeless body stay! But no: Change upon change till,--who may recognize What did soul service, in the dusty heap? What energy of Aristophanes Inflames the wreck Balaustion saves to show? Ashes be evidence how fire--with smoke-- All night went lamping on! But morn must rise. The poet--I shall say--burned up and, blank, Smouldered this ash, now white and cold enough.

Nay, Euthukles! for best, though mine it be, Comes yet! Write on, write ever, wrong no word!

Add, first,--he gone, if jollity went too, Some of the graver mood, which mixed and marred, Departed likewise. Sight of narrow scope Has this meek consolation: neither ills We dread, nor joys we dare anticipate, Perform to promise. Each soul sows a seed-- Euripides and Aristophanes; Seed bears crop, scarce within our little lives; But germinates--perhaps enough to judge-- Next year?

Whereas, next year brought harvest-time! For, next year came, and went not, but is now, Still now, while you and I are bound for Rhodes That 's all but reached!--and harvest has it brought, Dire as the homicidal dragon-crop! Sophokles had dismissal ere it dawned, Happy as ever; though men mournfully Plausive,--when only soul could triumph now, And Iophon produced his father's play,-- Crowned the consummate song where Oidipous Dared the descent 'mid earthquake-thundering, And hardly Theseus' hands availed to guard Eyes from the horror, as their grove disgorged Its dread ones, while each daughter sank to ground.

Then Aristophanes, on heel of that, Triumphant also, followed with his "Frogs:" Produced at next Lenaia,--three months since,-- The promised Main-Fight, loyal, license-free! As if the poet, primed with Thasian juice, (Himself swore--wine that conquers every kind For long abiding in the head) could fix Thenceforward any object in its truth, Through eyeballs bathed by mere Castalian dew, Nor miss the borrowed medium,--vinous drop That colors all to the right crimson pitch When mirth grows mockery, censure takes the tinge Of malice!

All was Aristophanes: There blazed the glory, there shot black the shame! Ay, Bacchos did stand forth, the Tragic God In person! and when duly dragged through mire,-- Having lied, filched, played fool, proved coward, flung The boys their dose of fit indecency, And finally got trounced to heart's content, At his own feast, in his own theatre (--Oh, never fear! 'T was consecrated sport, Exact tradition, warranted no whit Offensive to instructed taste,--indeed, Essential to Athenai's liberty, Could the poor stranger understand!) why, then-- He was pronounced the rarely-qualified To rate the work, adjust the claims to worth, Of Aischulos (of whom, in other mood, This same appreciative poet pleased To say, "He 's all one stiff and gluey piece Of back of swine's-neck!")--and of Chatterbox Who, "twisting words like wool," usurped his seat In Plouton's realm: "the arch-rogue, liar, scamp That lives by snatching-up of altar-orts," --Who failed to recognize Euripides?

Then came a contest for supremacy-- Crammed full of genius, wit and fun and freak. No spice of undue spite to spoil the dish Of all sorts,--for the Mystics matched the Frogs In poetry, no Seiren sang so sweet!-- Till, pressed into the service (how dispense With Phaps-Elaphion and free foot-display?) The Muse of dead Euripides danced frank, Rattled her bits of tile, made all too plain How baby-work like "Herakles" had birth! Last, Bacchos--candidly disclaiming brains Able to follow finer argument-- Confessed himself much moved by three main facts: First,--if you stick a "Lost his flask of oil" At pause of period, you perplex the sense,-- Were it the Elegy for Marathon! Next, if you weigh two verses, "car"--the word, Will outweigh "club"--the word, in each packed line! And--last, worst fact of all! in rivalry The younger poet dared to improvise Laudation less distinct of--Triphales? (Nay, that served when ourself abused the youth!) Pheidippides--(nor that's appropriate now!) Then,--Alkibiades, our city's hope, Since times change and we Comics should change too! These three main facts, well weighed, drew judgment down, Conclusively assigned the wretch his fate-- "Fate due," admonished the sage Mystic choir, "To sitting, prate-apace, with Sokrates, Neglecting music and each tragic aid!" --All wound-up by a wish "We soon may cease From certain griefs, and warfare, worst of them!" --Since, deaf to Comedy's persistent voice, War still raged, still was like to rage. In vain Had Sparté cried once more, "But grant us Peace, We give you Dekeleia back!" Too shrewd Was Kleophon to let escape, forsooth, The enemy--at final gasp, besides!

So, Aristophanes obtained the prize, And so Athenai felt she had a friend Far better than her "best friend," lost last year; And so, such fame had "Frogs" that, when came round This present year, those Frogs croaked gay again At the great Feast, Elaphebolion-month. Only--there happened Aigispotamoi!

And, in the midst of the frog-merriment, Plump o' the sudden, pounces stern King Stork On the light-hearted people of the marsh! Spartan Lusandros swooped precipitate, Ended Athenai, rowed her sacred bay With oars which brought a hundred triremes back Captive!

And first word of the conqueror Was "Down with those Long Walls, Peiraios' pride! Destroy, yourselves, your bulwarks! Peace needs none!" And "We obey" they shuddered in their dream.

But, at next quick imposure of decree-- "No longer democratic government! Henceforth such oligarchy as ourselves Please to appoint you!"--then the horror-stung Dreamers awake; they started up a-stare At the half-helot captain and his crew --Spartans, "men used to let their hair grow long, To fast, be dirty, and just--Sokratize"-- Whose word was "Trample on Themistokles!"

So, as the way is with much misery, The heads swam, hands refused their office, hearts Sunk as they stood in stupor. "Wreck the Walls? Ruin Peiraios?--with our Pallas armed For interference?--Herakles apprised, And Theseus hasting? Lay the Long Walls low?"

Three days they stood, stared,--stonier than their walls.

Whereupon, sleep who might, Lusandros woke: Saw the prostration of his enemy, Utter and absolute beyond belief, Past hope of hatred even. I surmise He also probably saw fade in fume Certain fears, bred of Bakis-prophecy, Nor apprehended any more that gods And heroes,--fire, must glow forth, guard the ground Where prone, by sober day-dawn, corpse-like lay Powerless Athenai, late predominant Lady of Hellas,--Sparté's slave-prize now! Where should a menace lurk in those slack limbs? What was to move his circumspection? Why Demolish just Peiraios?

"Stay!" bade he: "Already promise-breakers? True to type, Athenians! past, and present, and to come,-- The fickle and the false! No stone dislodged, No implement applied, yet three days' grace Expire! Forbearance is no longer-lived. By breaking promise, terms of peace you break-- Too gently framed for falsehood, fickleness! All must be reconsidered--yours the fault!"

Wherewith, he called a council of allies. Pent-up resentment used its privilege,-- Outburst at ending: this the summed result.

"Because we would avenge no transient wrong But an eternity of insolence, Aggression,--folly, no disasters mend, Pride, no reverses teach humility,-- Because too plainly were all punishment, Such as comports with less obdurate crime, Evadable by falsehood, fickleness-- Experience proves the true Athenian type,-- Therefore, 't is need we dig deep down into The root of evil; lop nor bole nor branch. Look up, look round and see, on every side, What nurtured the rank tree to noisome fruit! We who live hutted (so they laugh) not housed, Build barns for temples, prize mud-monuments, Nor show the sneering stranger aught but--men,-- Spartans take insult of Athenians just Because they boast Akropolis to mount, And Propulaia to make entry by, Through a mad maze of marble arrogance Such as you see--such as let none see more! Abolish the detested luxury! Leave not one stone upon another, raze Athenai to the rock! Let hill and plain Become a waste, a grassy pasture-ground Where sheep may wander, grazing goats depend From shapeless crags once columns! so at last Shall peace inhabit there, and peace enough."

Whereon, a shout approved "Such peace bestow!"

Then did a Man of Phokis rise--O heart! Rise--when no bolt of Zeus disparted sky, No omen-bird from Pallas scared the crew, Rise--when mere human argument could stem No foam-fringe of the passion surging fierce, Baffle no wrath-wave that o'er barrier broke-- _Who_ was the Man of Phokis rose and flung A flower i' the way of that fierce foot's advance, Which--stop for?--nay, had stamped down sword's assault! Could it be _He_ stayed Sparté with the snatch-- "Daughter of Agamemnon, late my liege, Elektra, palaced, once a visitant To thy poor rustic dwelling, now I come?"

Ay, facing fury of revenge, and lust Of hate, and malice moaning to appease Hunger on prey presumptuous, prostrate now-- Full in the hideous faces--last resource, You flung that choric flower, my Euthukles!

And see, as through some pinhole, should the wind Wedgingly pierce but once, in with a rush Hurries the whole wild weather, rends to rags The weak sail stretched against the outside storm-- So did the power of that triumphant play Pour in, and oversweep the assembled foe! Triumphant play, wherein our poet first Dared bring the grandeur of the Tragic Two Down to the level of our common life, Close to the beating of our common heart. Elektra? 'T was Athenai, Sparté's ice Thawed to, while that sad portraiture appealed-- Agamemnonian lady, lost by fault Of her own kindred, cast from house and home, Despoiled of all the brave inheritance, Dowered humbly as befits a herdsman's mate, Partaker of his cottage, clothed in rags, Patient performer of the poorest chares, Yet mindful, all the while, of glory past When she walked darling of Mukenai, dear Beyond Orestes to the King of Men!

So, because Greeks are Greeks, though Sparté's brood, And hearts are hearts, though in Lusandros' breast, And poetry is power, and Euthukles Had faith therein to, full-face, fling the same-- Sudden, the ice-thaw! The assembled foe, Heaving and swaying with strange friendliness, Cried, "Reverence Elektra!"--cried, "Abstain Like that chaste Herdsman, nor dare violate The sanctity of such reverse! Let stand Athenai!"

Mindful of that story's close, Perchance, and how,--when he, the Herdsman chaste, Needs apprehend no break of tranquil sleep,-- All in due time, a stranger, dark, disguised, Knocks at the door: with searching glance, notes keen, Knows quick, through mean attire and disrespect, The ravaged princess! Ay, right on, the clutch Of guiding retribution has in charge The author of the outrage! While one hand, Elektra's, pulls the door behind, made fast On fate,--the other strains, prepared to push The victim-queen, should she make frightened pause Before that serpentining blood which steals Out of the darkness where, a pace beyond, Above the slain Aigisthos, bides his blow Dreadful Orestes!

Klutaimnestra, wise This time, forebore; Elektra held her own; Saved was Athenai through Euripides, Through Euthukles, through--more than ever--me, Balaustion, me, who, Wild-pomegranate-flower, Felt my fruit triumph, and fade proudly so!

But next day, as ungracious minds are wont, The Spartan, late surprised into a grace, Grew sudden sober at the enormity, And grudged, by daybreak, midnight's easy gift; Splenetically must repay its cost By due increase of rigor, doglike snatch At aught still left dog to concede like man. Rough sea, at flow of tide, may lip, perchance, Smoothly the land-line reached as for repose-- Lie indolent in all unquestioned sway; But ebbing, when needs must, all thwart and loth, Sea claws at sand relinquished strugglingly. So, harsh Lusandros--pinioned to inflict The lesser penalty alone--spoke harsh, As minded to embitter scathe by scorn.

"Athenai's self be saved then, thank the Lyre! If Tragedy withdraws her presence--quick, If Comedy replace her,--what more just? Let Comedy do service, frisk away, Dance off stage these indomitable stones, Long Walls, Peiraian bulwarks! Hew and heave, Pick at, pound into dust each dear defence! Not to the Kommos--_eleleleleu_ With breast bethumped, as Tragic lyre prefers, But Comedy shall sound the flute, and crow At kordax-end--the hearty slapping-dance! Collect those flute-girls--trash who flattered ear With whistlings, and fed eye with caper-cuts, While we Lakonians supped black broth or crunched Sea-urchin, conchs and all, unpricked--coarse brutes! Command they lead off step, time steady stroke To spade and pickaxe, till demolished lie Athenai's pride in powder!"

Done that day-- That sixteenth famed day of Munuchion-month! The day when Hellas fought at Salamis, The very day Euripides was born, Those flute-girls--Phaps-Elaphion at their head-- Did blow their best, did dance their worst, the while Sparté pulled down the walls, wrecked wide the works, Laid low each merest molehill of defence, And so the Power, Athenai, passed away!

We would not see its passing! Ere I knew The issue of their counsels,--crouching low And shrouded by my peplos,--I conceived, Despite the shut eyes, the stopped ears,--by count Only of heart-beats, telling the slow time,-- Athenai's doom was signed and signified In that assembly,--ay, but knew there watched One who would dare and do, nor bate at all The stranger's licensed duty,--speak the word Allowed the Man from Phokis! Naught remained But urge departure, flee the sights and sounds, Hideous exultings, wailings worth contempt, And pressed to other earth, new heaven, by sea That somehow ever prompts to 'scape despair.

Help rose to heart's wish; at the harbor-side, The old gray mariner did reverence To who had saved his ship, still weather-tight As when with prow gay-garlanded she praised The hospitable port and pushed to sea. "Convoy Balaustion back to Rhodes, for sake Of her and her Euripides!" laughed he.

Rhodes,--shall it not be there, my Euthukles, Till this brief trouble of a lifetime end, That solitude--two make so populous!-- For food finds memories of the past suffice, Maybe, anticipations,--hope so swells,-- Of some great future we, familiar once With who so taught, should hail and entertain? He lies now in the little valley, laughed And moaned about by those mysterious streams, Boiling and freezing, like the love and hate Which helped or harmed him through his earthly course. They mix in Arethousa by his grave. The warm spring, traveller, dip thine arms into, Brighten thy brow with! Life detests black cold!

I sent the tablets, the psalterion, so Rewarded Sicily; the tyrant there Bestowed them worthily in Phoibos' shrine. A gold-graved writing tells--"I also loved The poet, Free Athenai cheaply prized-- King Dionusios,--Archelaos-like!"

And see if young Philemon,--sure one day To do good service and be loved himself,-- If he too have not made a votive verse! "Grant, in good sooth, our great dead, all the same, Retain their sense, as certain wise men say, I 'd hang myself--to see Euripides!" Hands off, Philemon! nowise hang thyself, But pen the prime plays, labor the right life, And die at good old age as grand men use,-- Keeping thee, with that great thought, warm the while,-- That he does live, Philemon! Ay, most sure! "He lives!" hark,--waves say, winds sing out the same, And yonder dares the citied ridge of Rhodes Its headlong plunge from sky to sea, disparts North bay from south,--each guarded calm, that guest May enter gladly, blow what wind there will,-- Boiled round with breakers, to no other cry! All in one choros,--what the master-word They take up?--hark! "There are no gods, no gods! Glory to God--who saves Euripides!"

PRINCE HOHENSTIEL-SCHWANGAU

SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY

Ὕδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ' ἄλλον πόνων διῆλφον ἀγέλας ... τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τονδ' ἔτλην τάλας πόνον, ... ~δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς~.

I slew the Hydra, and from labor pass'd To labor--tribes of labors! Till, at last, Attempting one more labor, in a trice, Alack, with ills I _crowned the edifice_.

This poem, written in Scotland in 1871, shortly after the downfall of Napoleon III., was published in December of the same year. The suggestion of the emperor is transparent, and Browning writing in January, 1872, to Miss Isa Blagden, says of it: "I am glad you have got my little book, and seen for yourself whether I make the best or the worst of the case. I think, in the main, he meant to do what I say, and, but for weakness--grown more apparent in his last years than formerly--would have done what I say he did not. I thought badly of him at the beginning of his career, _et pour cause:_ better afterward, on the strength of the promises he made, and gave indications of intending to redeem. I think him very weak in the last miserable year. At his worst I prefer him to Thiers's best. I am told my little thing is succeeding--sold 1400 in the first five days, and before any notice appeared." And again, to the same correspondent: "I am glad you like what the editor of the _Edinburgh_ calls my eulogium on the second empire--which it is not, any more than what another wiseacre affirms it to be, 'a scandalous attack on the old constant friend of England'--it is just what I imagine the man might, if he pleased, say for himself." Mrs. Browning's well-known enthusiasm for Napoleon III. as instanced in her poems unquestionably gave distinctness to Browning's own reflections. The motto is from the _Hercules Furens_ of Euripides, vv. 1276-1280, and the translation is presumably by Browning. There is a palace Hohen-Schwangau, built by the Bavarian mad king Ludwig.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I-- And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well, Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same, And wished and had their trouble for their pains. Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline, And, latish, pounce on Sphinx in Leicester Square? Or likelier, what if Sphinx in wise old age, Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads, And jealous for her riddle's proper rede,-- Jealous that the good trick which served the turn Have justice rendered it, nor class one day With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,-- What if the once redoubted Sphinx, I say, (Because night draws on, and the sands increase, And desert-whispers grow a prophecy,) Tell all to Corinth of her own accord, Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Laïs' sake, Who finds me hardly gray, and likes my nose, And thinks a man of sixty at the prime? Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself! But listen, for we must co-operate; I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!

First, how to make the matter plain, of course-- What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see: Ay, we must take one instant of my life Spent sitting by your side in this neat room: Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh! Here 's paper on the table, pen and ink: Give me the soiled bit--not the pretty rose! See! having sat an hour, I 'm rested now, Therefore want work: and spy no better work For eye and hand and mind that guides them both, During this instant, than to draw my pen From blot One--thus--up, up to blot Two--thus-- Which I at last reach, thus, and here 's my line Five inches long and tolerably straight: Better to draw than leave undrawn, I think, Fitter to do than let alone, I hold, Though better, fitter, by but one degree. Therefore it was that, rather than sit still Simply, my right-hand drew it while my left Pulled smooth and pinched the moustache to a point.

Now I permit your plump lips to unpurse: "So far, one possibly may understand Without recourse to witchcraft!" True, my dear. Thus folks begin with Euclid,--finish, how? Trying to square the circle!--at any rate, Solving abstruser problems than this first, "How find the nearest way 'twixt point and point." Deal but with moral mathematics so-- Master one merest moment's work of mine, Even this practising with pen and ink,-- Demonstrate why I rather plied the quill Than left the space a blank,--you gain a fact, And God knows what a fact 's worth! So proceed By inference from just this moral fact --I don't say, to that plaguy quadrature, "What the whole man meant, whom you wish you knew," But, what meant certain things he did of old, Which puzzled Europe,--why, you 'll find them plain, This way, not otherwise: I guarantee, Understand one, you comprehend the rest. Rays from all round converge to any point: Study the point then ere you track the rays! The size o' the circle 's nothing; subdivide Earth, and earth's smallest grain of mustard-seed, You count as many parts, small matching large If you can use the mind's eye: otherwise, Material optics, being gross at best, Prefer the large and leave our mind the small-- And pray how many folk have minds can see? Certainly you--and somebody in Thrace Whose name escapes me at the moment. You-- Lend me your mind then! Analyze with me This instance of the line 'twixt blot and blot I rather chose to draw than leave a blank, Things else being equal. You are taught thereby That 't is my nature, when I am at ease, Rather than idle out my life too long, To want to do a thing--to put a thought, Whether a great thought or a little one, Into an act, as nearly as may be. Make what is absolutely new--I can't, Mar what is made already well enough-- I won't: but turn to best account the thing That 's half-made--that I can. Two blots, you saw I knew how to extend into a line Symmetric on the sheet they blurred before-- Such little act sufficed, this time, such thought.

Now, we 'll extend rays, widen out the verge, Describe a larger circle; leave this first Clod of an instance we began with, rise To the complete world many clods effect. Only continue patient while I throw, Delver-like, spadeful after spadeful up, Just as truths come, the subsoil of me, mould Whence spring my moods: your object,--just to find, Alike from handlift and from barrow-load, What salts and silts may constitute the earth-- If it be proper stuff to blow man glass, Or bake him pottery, bear him oaks or wheat-- What 's born of me, in brief; which found, all 's known. If it were genius did the digging-job, Logic would speedily sift its product smooth And leave the crude truths bare for poetry; But I 'm no poet, and am stiff i' the back. What one spread fails to bring, another may. In goes the shovel and out comes scoop--as here!

I live to please myself. I recognize Power passing mine, immeasurable, God-- Above me, whom he made, as heaven beyond Earth--to use figures which assist our sense. I know that he is there as I am here, By the same proof, which seems no proof at all, It so exceeds familiar forms of proof. Why "there," not "here"? Because, when I say "there" I treat the feeling with distincter shape That space exists between us: I,--not he,-- Live, think, do human work here--no machine, His will moves, but a being by myself, His, and not he who made me for a work, Watches my working, judges its effect, But does not interpose. He did so once, And probably will again some time--not now, Life being the minute of mankind, not God's, In a certain sense, like time before and time After man's earthly life, so far as man Needs apprehend the matter. Am I clear? Suppose I bid a courier take to-night-- (... Once for all, let me talk as if I smoked Yet in the Residenz, a personage: I must still represent the thing I was, Galvanically make dead muscle play, Or how shall I illustrate muscle's use?) I could then, last July, bid courier take Message for me, post-haste, a thousand miles. I bid him, since I have the right to bid, And, my part done so far, his part begins; He starts with due equipment, will and power, Means he may use, misuse, not use at all, At his discretion, at his peril too. I leave him to himself: but, journey done, I count the minutes, call for the result In quickness and the courier quality, Weigh its worth, and then punish or reward According to proved service; not before. Meantime, he sleeps through noontide, rides till dawn, Sticks to the straight road, tries the crooked path, Measures and manages resource, trusts, doubts Advisers by the wayside, does his best At his discretion, lags or launches forth, (He knows and I know) at his peril too. You see? Exactly thus men stand to God: I with my courier, God with me. Just so I have his bidding to perform; but mind And body, all of me, though made and meant For that sole service, must consult, concert With my own self and nobody beside, How to effect the same: God helps not else. 'T is I who, with my stock of craft and strength, Choose the directer cut across the hedge, Or keep the foot-track that respects a crop. Lie down and rest, rise up and ran,--live spare, Feed free,--all that 's my business: but, arrive, Deliver message, bring the answer back, And make my bow, I must: then God will speak, Praise me or haply blame as service proves. To other men, to each and every one, Another law! what likelier? God, perchance, Grants each new man, by some as new a mode, Intercommunication with himself, Wreaking on finiteness infinitude; By such a series of effects, gives each Last his own imprint: old yet ever new The process: 't is the way of Deity. How it succeeds, he knows: I only know That varied modes of creatureship abound, Implying just as varied intercourse For each with the creator of them all. Each has his own mind and no other's mode. What mode may yours be? I shall sympathize! No doubt, you, good young lady that you are, Despite a natural naughtiness or two, Turn eyes up like a Pradier Magdalen And see an outspread providential hand Above the owl's-wing aigrette--guard and guide-- Visibly o'er your path, about your bed, Through all your practisings with London-town. It points, you go; it stays fixed, and you stop; You quicken its procedure by a word Spoken, a thought in silence, prayer and praise. Well, I believe that such a hand may stoop, And such appeals to it may stave off harm, Pacify the grim guardian of this Square, And stand you in good stead on quarter-day: Quite possible in your case; not in mine. "Ah, but I choose to make the difference, Find the emancipation?" No, I hope! If I deceive myself, take noon for night, Please to become determinedly blind To the true ordinance of human life, Through mere presumption--that is my affair, And truly a grave one; but as grave I think Your affair, yours, the specially observed,-- Each favored person that perceives his path Pointed him, inch by inch, and looks above For guidance, through the mazes of this world, In what we call its meanest life-career --Not how to manage Europe properly, But how keep open shop, and yet pay rent, Rear household, and make both ends meet, the same. I say, such man is no less tasked than I To duly take the path appointed him By whatsoever sign he recognize. Our insincerity on both our heads! No matter what the object of a life, Small work or large,--the making thrive a shop, Or seeing that an empire take no harm,-- There are known fruits to judge obedience by. You 've read a ton's weight, now, of newspaper-- Lives of me, gabble about the kind of prince-- You know my work i' the rough; I ask you, then, Do I appear subordinated less To hand-impulsion, one prime push for all, Than little lives of men, the multitude That cried out, every quarter of an hour, For fresh instructions, did or did not work, And praised in the odd minutes?

Eh, my dear? Such is the reason why I acquiesced In doing what seemed best for me to do, So as to please myself on the great scale, Having regard to immortality No less than life--did that which head and heart Prescribed my hand, in measure with its means Of doing--used my special stock of power-- Not from the aforesaid head and heart alone, But every sort of helpful circumstance, Some problematic and some nondescript: All regulated by the single care I' the last resort--that I made thoroughly serve The when and how, toiled where was need, reposed As resolutely at the proper point, Braved sorrow, courted joy, to just one end: Namely, that just the creature I was bound To be, I should become, nor thwart at all God's purpose in creation. I conceive No other duty possible to man,-- Highest mind, lowest mind,--no other law By which to judge life failure or success: What folk call being saved or cast away.

Such was my rule of life; I worked my best, Subject to ultimate judgment, God's not man's. Well then, this settled,--take your tea, I beg, And meditate the fact, 'twixt sip and sip,-- This settled--why I pleased myself, you saw, By turning blot and blot into a line, O' the little scale,--we 'll try now (as your tongue Tries the concluding sugar-drop) what 's meant To please me most o' the great scale. Why, just now, With nothing else to do within my reach, Did I prefer making two blots one line To making yet another separate Third blot, and leaving those I found unlinked? It meant, I like to use the thing I find, Rather than strive at unfound novelty: I make the best of the old, nor try for new. Such will to act, such choice of action's way, Constitute--when at work on the great scale, Driven to their farthest natural consequence By all the help from all the means--my own

## Particular faculty of serving God,

Instinct for putting power to exercise Upon some wish and want o' the time, I prove Possible to mankind as best I may. This constitutes my mission,--grant the phrase,-- Namely, to rule men--men within my reach, To order, influence and dispose them so As render solid and stabilify Mankind in particles, the light and loose, For their good and my pleasure in the act. Such good accomplished proves twice good to me-- Good for its own sake, as the just and right, And, in the effecting also, good again To me its agent, tasked as suits my taste.

Is this much easy to be understood At first glance? Now begin the steady gaze!

My rank--(if I must tell you simple truth-- Telling were else not worth the whiff o' the weed I lose for the tale's sake)--dear, my rank i' the world Is hard to know and name precisely: err I may, but scarcely overestimate My style and title. Do I class with men Most useful to their fellows? Possibly,-- Therefore, in some sort, best; but, greatest mind And rarest nature? Evidently no. A conservator, call me, if you please, Not a creator nor destroyer: one Who keeps the world safe. I profess to trace The broken circle of society, Dim actual order, I can redescribe Not only where some segment silver-true Stays clear, but where the breaks of black commence Baffling you all who want the eye to probe-- As I make out yon problematic thin White paring of your thumb-nail outside there, Above the plaster-monarch on his steed-- See an inch, name an ell, and prophesy O' the rest that ought to follow, the round moon Now hiding in the night of things: that round, I labor to demonstrate moon enough For the month's purpose,--that society, Render efficient for the age's need: Preserving you in either case the old, Nor aiming at a new and greater thing, A sun for moon, a future to be made By first abolishing the present law: No such proud task for me by any means! History shows you men whose master-touch Not so much modifies as makes anew: Minds that transmute nor need restore at all. A breath of God made manifest in flesh Subjects the world to change, from time to time, Alters the whole conditions of our race Abruptly, not by unperceived degrees Nor play of elements already there, But quite new leaven, leavening the lump, And liker, so, the natural process. See! Where winter reigned for ages--by a turn I' the time, some star-change, (ask geologists,) The ice-tracts split, clash, splinter and disperse, And there 's an end of immobility, Silence, and all that tinted pageant, base To pinnacle, one flush from fairy-land Dead-asleep and deserted somewhere,--see!-- As a fresh sun, wave, spring and joy outburst. Or else the earth it is, time starts from trance, Her mountains tremble into fire, her plains Heave blinded by confusion: what result? New teeming growth, surprises of strange life Impossible before, a world, broke up And re-made, order gained by law destroyed. Not otherwise, in our society Follow like portents, all as absolute Regenerations: they have birth at rare Uncertain unexpected intervals O' the world, by ministry impossible Before and after fulness of the days: Some dervish desert-spectre, swordsman, saint, Lawgiver, lyrist,--oh, we know the names! Quite other these than I. Our time requires No such strange potentate,--who else would dawn,-- No fresh force till the old have spent itself. Such seems the natural economy. To shoot a beam into the dark, assists: To make that beam do fuller service, spread And utilize such bounty to the height, That assists also,--and that work is mine. I recognize, contemplate, and approve The general compact of society, Not simply as I see effected good, But good i' the germ, each chance that 's possible I' the plan traced so far: all results, in short, For better or worse of the operation due To those exceptional natures, unlike mine, Who, helping, thwarting, conscious, unaware, Did somehow manage to so far describe This diagram left ready to my hand, Waiting my turn of trial. I see success, See failure, see what makes or mars throughout. How shall I else but help complete this plan Of which I know the purpose and approve, By letting stay therein what seems to stand, And adding good thereto of easier reach To-day than yesterday?

So much, no more! Whereon, "No more than that?"--inquire aggrieved Half of my critics: "nothing new at all? The old plan saved, instead of a sponged slate And fresh-drawn figure?"--while, "So much as that?" Object their fellows of the other faith: "Leave uneffaced the crazy labyrinth Of alteration and amendment, lines Which every dabster felt in duty bound To signalize his power of pen and ink By adding to a plan once plain enough? Why keep each fool's bequeathment, scratch and blur Which overscrawl and underscore the piece-- Nay, strengthen them by touches of your own?"

Well, that 's my mission, so I serve the world, Figure as man o' the moment,--in default Of somebody inspired to strike such change Into society--from round to square, The ellipsis to the rhomboid, how you please, As suits the size and shape o' the world he finds. But this I can,--and nobody my peer,-- Do the best with the least change possible: Carry the incompleteness on, a stage, Make what was crooked straight, and roughness smooth, And weakness strong: wherein if I succeed, It will not prove the worst achievement, sure, In the eyes at least of one man, one I look Nowise to catch in critic company: To wit, the man inspired, the genius' self Destined to come and change things thoroughly. He, at least, finds his business simplified, Distinguishes the done from undone, reads Plainly what meant and did not mean this time We live in, and I work on, and transmit To such successor: he will operate On good hard substance, not mere shade and shine. Let all my critics, born to idleness And impotency, get their good, and have Their hooting at the giver: I am deaf-- Who find great good in this society, Great gain, the purchase of great labor. Touch The work I may and must, but--reverent In every fall o' the finger-tip, no doubt. Perhaps I find all good there 's warrant for I' the world as yet: nay, to the end of time,-- Since evil never means part company With mankind, only shift side and change shape. I find advance i' the main, and notably The Present an improvement on the Past, And promise for the Future--which shall prove Only the Present with its rough made smooth, Its indistinctness emphasized; I hope No better, nothing newer for mankind, But something equably smoothed everywhere, Good, reconciled with hardly-quite-as-good, Instead of good and bad each jostling each. "And that 's all?" Ay, and quite enough for me! We have toiled so long to gain what gain I find I' the Present,--let us keep it! We shall toil So long before we gain--if gain God grant-- A Future with one touch of difference I' the heart of things, and not their outside face,-- Let us not risk the whiff of my cigar For Fourier, Comte, and all that ends in smoke!

This I see clearest probably of men With power to act and influence, now alive: Juster than they to the true state of things; In consequence, more tolerant that, side By side, shall co-exist and thrive alike In the age, the various sorts of happiness Moral, mark!--not material--moods o' the mind Suited to man and man his opposite: Say, minor modes of movement--hence to there, Or thence to here, or simply round about-- So long as each toe spares its neighbor's kibe, Nor spoils the major march and main advance. The love of peace, care for the family, Contentment with what 's bad but might be worse-- Good movements these! and good, too, discontent, So long as that spurs good, which might be best, Into becoming better, anyhow: Good--pride of country, putting hearth and home I' the background, out of undue prominence: Good--yearning after change, strife, victory, And triumph. Each shall have its orbit marked, But no more,--none impede the other's path In this wide world,--though each and all alike, Save for me, fain would spread itself through space And leave its fellow not an inch of way. I rule and regulate the course, excite, Restrain: because the whole machine should march Impelled by those diversely-moving parts, Each blind to aught beside its little bent. Out of the turnings round and round inside, Comes that straightforward world-advance, I want, And none of them supposes God wants too And gets through just their hindrance and my help. I think that to have held the balance straight For twenty years, say, weighing claim and claim And giving each its due, no less no more, This was good service to humanity, Right usage of my power in head and heart, And reasonable piety beside. Keep those three points in mind while judging me! You stand, perhaps, for some one man, not men,-- Represent this or the other interest, Nor mind the general welfare,--so, impugn My practice and dispute my value: why? You man of faith, I did not tread the world Into a paste, and thereof make a smooth Uniform mound whereon to plant your flag, The lily-white, above the blood and brains! Nor yet did I, you man of faithlessness, So roll things to the level which you love, That you could stand at ease there and survey The universal Nothing undisgraced By pert obtrusion of some old church-spire I' the distance! Neither friend would I content, Nor, as the world were simply meant for him, Thrust out his fellow and mend God's mistake. Why, you two fools,--my dear friends all the same,-- Is it some change o' the world and nothing else Contents you? Should whatever was, not be? How thanklessly you view things! There 's the root Of the evil, source of the entire mistake: You see no worth i' the world, nature and life, Unless we change what is to what may be, Which means,--may be, i' the brain of one of you! "Reject what is?"--all capabilities-- Nay, you may style them chances if you choose-- All chances, then, of happiness that lie Open to anybody that is born, Tumbles into this life and out again,-- All that may happen, good and evil too, I' the space between, to each adventurer Upon this 'sixty, Anno Domini: A life to live--and such a life! a world To learn, one's lifetime in,--and such a world! How did the foolish ever pass for wise By calling life a burden, man a fly Or worm or what 's most insignificant? "O littleness of man!" deplores the bard; And then, for fear the Powers should punish him, "O grandeur of the visible universe Our human littleness contrasts withal! O sun, O moon, ye mountains and thou sea, Thou emblem of immensity, thou this, That and the other,--what impertinence In man to eat and drink and walk about And have his little notions of his own, The while some wave sheds foam upon the shore!" First of all, 't is a lie some three-times thick: The bard,--this sort of speech being poetry,-- The bard puts mankind well outside himself And then begins instructing them: "This way I and my friend the sea conceive of you! What would you give to think such thoughts as ours Of you and the sea together?" Down they go On the humbled knees of them: at once they draw Distinction, recognize no mate of theirs In one, despite his mock humility, So plain a match for what he plays with. Next, The turn of the great ocean-playfellow, When the bard, leaving Bond Street very far From ear-shot, cares not to ventriloquize, But tells the sea its home-truths: "You, my match? You, all this terror and immensity And what not? Shall I tell you what you are? Just fit to hitch into a stanza, so Wake up and set in motion who 's asleep O' the other side of you in England, else Unaware, as folk pace their Bond Street now, Somebody here despises them so much! Between us,--they are the ultimate! to them And their perception go these lordly thoughts: Since what were ocean--mane and tail, to boot-- Mused I not here, how make thoughts thinkable? Start forth my stanza and astound the world! Back, billows, to your insignificance! Deep, you are done with!"

Learn, my gifted friend, There are two things i' the world, still wiser folk Accept--intelligence and sympathy. You pant about unutterable power I' the ocean, all you feel but cannot speak? Why, that 's the plainest speech about it all. You did not feel what was not to be felt. Well, then, all else but what man feels is naught-- The wash o' the liquor that o'erbrims the cup Called man, and runs to waste adown his side, Perhaps to feed a cataract,--who cares? I 'll tell you: all the more I know mankind, The more I thank God, like my grandmother, For making me a little lower than The angels, honor-clothed and glory-crowned: This is the honor,--that no thing I know, Feel or conceive, but I can make my own Somehow, by use of hand or head or heart: This is the glory,--that in all conceived, Or felt or known, I recognize a mind Not mine but like mine,--for the double joy,-- Making all things for me and me for Him. There 's folly for you at this time of day! So think it! and enjoy your ignorance Of what--no matter for the worthy's name-- Wisdom set working in a noble heart, When he, who was earth's best geometer Up to that time of day, consigned his life With its results into one matchless book, The triumph of the human mind so far, All in geometry man yet could do: And then wrote on the dedication-page In place of name the universe applauds, "But, God, what a geometer art Thou!" I suppose Heaven is, through Eternity, The equalizing, ever and anon, In momentary rapture, great with small, Omniscience with intelligency, God With man,--the thunder-glow from pole to pole Abolishing, a blissful moment-space, Great cloud alike and small cloud, in one fire-- As sure to ebb as sure again to flow When the new receptivity deserves The new completion. There 's the Heaven for me. And I say, therefore, to live out one's life I' the world here, with the chance,--whether by pain Or pleasure be the process, long or short The time, august or mean the circumstance To human eye,--of learning how set foot Decidedly on some one path to Heaven, Touch segment in the circle whence all lines Lead to the centre equally, red lines Or black lines, so they but produce themselves-- This, I do say,--and here my sermon ends,-- This makes it worth our while to tenderly Handle a state of things which mend we might, Mar we may, but which meanwhile helps so far. Therefore my end is--save society!

"And that 's all?" twangs the never-failing taunt O' the foe--"No novelty, creativeness, Mark of the master that renews the age?" "Nay, all that?" rather will demur my judge I look to hear some day, nor friend nor foe-- "Did you attain, then, to perceive that God Knew what he undertook when he made things?" Ay: that my task was to co-operate Rather than play the rival, chop and change The order whence comes all the good we know, With this,--good's last expression to our sense,-- That there 's a further good conceivable Beyond the utmost earth can realize: And, therefore, that to change the agency, The evil whereby good is brought about-- Try to make good do good as evil does-- Were just as if a chemist, wanting white, And knowing black ingredients bred the dye, Insisted these too should be white forsooth! Correct the evil, mitigate your best, Blend mild with harsh, and soften black to gray If gray may follow with no detriment To the eventual perfect purity! But as for hazarding the main result By hoping to anticipate one half In the intermediate process,--no, my friends! This bad world, I experience and approve; Your good world,--with no pity, courage, hope, Fear, sorrow, joy,--devotedness, in short, Which I account the ultimate of man, Of which there 's not one day nor hour but brings, In flower or fruit, some sample of success, Out of this same society I save-- None of it for me! That I might have none, I rapped your tampering knuckles twenty years, Such was the task imposed me, such my end.

Now for the means thereto. Ah, confidence-- Keep we together or part company? This is the critical minute! "Such my end?" Certainly; how could it be otherwise? Can there be question which was the right task-- To save or to destroy society? Why, even prove that, by some miracle, Destruction were the proper work to choose, And that a torch best remedies what 's wrong I' the temple, whence the long procession wound Of powers and beauties, earth's achievements all, The human strength that strove and overthrew,-- The human love that, weak itself, crowned strength,-- The instinct crying, "God is whence I came!"-- The reason laying down the law, "And such His will i' the world must be!"--the leap and shout Of genius, "For I hold his very thoughts, The meaning of the mind of him!"--nay, more The ingenuities, each active force That turning in a circle on itself Looks neither up nor down but keeps the spot, Mere creature-like and, for religion, works, Works only and works ever, makes and shapes And changes, still wrings more of good from less, Still stamps some bad out, where was worst before, So leaves the handiwork, the act and deed, Were it but house and land and wealth, to show Here was a creature perfect in the kind-- Whether as bee, beaver, or behemoth, What 's the importance? he has done his work For work's sake, worked well, earned a creature's praise;-- I say, concede that same fane, whence deploys Age after age, all this humanity, Diverse but ever dear, out of the dark Behind the altar into the broad day By the portal--enter, and, concede there mocks Each lover of free motion and much space A perplexed length of apse and aisle and nave,-- Pillared roof and carved screen, and what care I?-- Which irk the movement and impede the march,-- Nay, possibly, bring flat upon his nose At some odd breakneck angle, by some freak Of old-world artistry, that personage Who, could he but have kept his skirts from grief And catching at the hooks and crooks about, Had stepped out on the daylight of our time Plainly the man of the age,--still, still, I bar Excessive conflagration in the case. "Shake the flame freely!" shout the multitude: The architect approves I stuck my torch Inside a good stout lantern, hung its light Above the hooks and crooks, and ended so. To save society was well: the means Whereby to save it,--there begins the doubt Permitted you, imperative on me; Were mine the best means? Did I work aright With powers appointed me?--since powers denied Concern me nothing.

Well, my work reviewed Fairly, leaves more hope than discouragement. First, there 's the deed done: what I found, I leave,-- What tottered, I kept stable: if it stand One month, without sustainment, still thank me The twenty years' sustainer! Now, observe, Sustaining is no brilliant self-display Like knocking down or even setting up: Much bustle these necessitate; and still To vulgar eye, the mightier of the myth Is Hercules, who substitutes his own For Atlas' shoulder and supports the globe A whole day,--not the passive and obscure Atlas who bore, ere Hercules was born, And is to go on bearing that same load When Hercules turns ash on Œta's top. 'T is the transition-stage, the tug and strain. That strike men: standing still is stupid-like, My pressure was too constant on the whole For any part's eruption into space 'Mid sparkles, crackling, and much praise of me. I saw that, in the ordinary life, Many of the little make a mass of men Important beyond greatness here and there; As certainly as, in life exceptional, When old things terminate and new commence, A solitary great man 's worth the world. God takes the business into his own hands At such time: who creates the novel flower Contrives to guard and give it breathing-room: I merely tend the cornfield, care for crop, And weed no acre thin to let emerge What prodigy may stifle there perchance, --No, though my eye have noted where he lurks. Oh those mute myriads that spoke loud to me-- The eyes that craved to see the light, the mouths That sought the daily bread and nothing more, The hands that supplicated exercise, Men that had wives, and women that had babes, And all these making suit to only live! Was I to turn aside from husbandry, Leave hope of harvest for the corn, my care, To play at horticulture, rear some rose Or poppy into perfect leaf and bloom When, 'mid the furrows, up was pleased to sprout Some man, cause, system, special interest I ought to study, stop the world meanwhile? "But I am Liberty, Philanthropy, Enlightenment, or Patriotism, the power Whereby you are to stand or fall!" cries each: "Mine and mine only be the flag you flaunt!" And, when I venture to object, "Meantime, What of yon myriads with no flag at all-- My crop which, who flaunts flag must tread across?" "Now, this it is to have a puny mind!" Admire my mental prodigies: "down--down-- Ever at home o' the level and the low, There hides he brooding! Could he look above, With less of the owl and more of the eagle eye, He 'd see there 's no way helps the little cause Like the attainment of the great. Dare first The chief emprise; dispel yon cloud between The sun and us; nor fear that, though our heads Find earlier warmth and comfort from his ray, What lies about our feet, the multitude, Will fail of benefaction presently. Come now, let each of us awhile cry truce To special interests, make common cause Against the adversary--or perchance Mere dullard to his own plain interest! Which of us will you choose?--since needs must be Some one o' the warring causes you incline To hold, i' the main, has right and should prevail: Why not adopt and give it prevalence? Choose strict Faith or lax Incredulity,-- King, Caste, and Cultus--or the Rights of Man, Sovereignty of each Proudhon o'er himself, And all that follows in just consequence! Go free the stranger from a foreign yoke; Or stay, concentrate energy at home; Succeed!--when he deserves, the stranger will. Comply with the Great Nation's impulse, print By force of arms,--since reason pleads in vain, And, 'mid the sweet compulsion, pity weeps,-- Hohenstiel-Schwangau on the universe! Snub the Great Nation, cure the impulsive itch With smartest fillip on a restless nose Was ever launched by thumb and finger! Bid Hohenstiel-Schwangau first repeal the tax On pig-tails and pomatum, and then mind Abstruser matters for next century! Is your choice made? Why then, act up to choice! Leave the illogical touch now here now there I' the way of work, the tantalizing help First to this, then the other opposite: The blowing hot and cold, sham policy, Sure ague of the mind and nothing more, Disease of the perception or the will, That fain would hide in a fine name! Your choice, Speak it out and condemn yourself thereby!"

Well, Leicester Square is not the Residenz: Instead of shrugging shoulder, turning friend The deaf ear, with a wink to the police-- I 'll answer--by a question, wisdom's mode. How many years, o' the average, do men Live in this world? Some score, say computists. Quintuple me that term and give mankind The likely hundred, and with all my heart I 'll take your task upon me, work your way, Concentrate energy on some one cause: Since, counseller, I also have my cause, My flag, my faith in its effect, my hope In its eventual triumph for the good O' the world. And once upon a time, when I Was like all you, mere voice and nothing more, Myself took wings, soared sunward, and thence sang, "Look where I live i' the loft, come up to me, Groundlings, nor grovel longer! gain this height, And prove you breathe here better than below! Why, what emancipation far and wide Will follow in a trice! They too can soar, Each tenant of the earth's circumference Claiming to elevate humanity, They also must attain such altitude, Live in the luminous circle that surrounds The planet, not the leaden orb itself. Press out, each point, from surface to yon verge Which one has gained and guaranteed your realm!" Ay, still my fragments wander, music-fraught, Sighs of the soul, mine once, mine now, and mine Forever! Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct. Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs there Imparting exultation to the hills! Sweep of the swathe when only the winds walk And waft my words above the grassy sea Under the blinding blue that basks o'er Rome,-- Hear ye not still--"Be Italy again"? And ye, what strikes the panic to your heart? Decrepit council-chambers,--where some lamp Drives the unbroken black three paces off From where the graybeards huddle in debate, Dim cowls and capes, and midmost glimmers one Like tarnished gold, and what they say is doubt, And what they think is fear, and what suspends The breath in them is not the plaster-patch Time disengages from the painted wall Where Rafael moulderingly bids adieu, Nor tick of the insect turning tapestry Which a queen's finger traced of old, to dust; But some word, resonant, redoubtable, Of who once felt upon his head a hand Whereof the head now apprehends his foot. "Light in Rome, Law in Rome, and Liberty O' the soul in Rome--the free Church, the free State! Stamp out the nature that's best typified By its embodiment in Peter's Dome, The scorpion-body with the greedy pair Of outstretched nippers, either colonnade Agape for the advance of heads and hearts!" There 's one cause for you! one and only one, For I am vocal through the universe, I' the workshop, manufactory, exchange And market-place, seaport and custom-house O' the frontier: listen if the echoes die-- "Unfettered commerce! Power to speak and hear, And print and read! The universal vote! Its rights for labor!" This, with much beside, I spoke when I was voice and nothing more, But altogether such an one as you My censors. "Voice, and nothing more, indeed!" Re-echoes round me: "that 's the censure, there 's Involved the ruin of you soon or late! Voice,--when its promise beat the empty air: And nothing more,--when solid earth's your stage, And we desiderate performance, deed For word, the realizing all you dreamed In the old days: now, for deed, we find at door O' the council-chamber posted, mute as mouse, Hohenstiel-Schwangau, sentry and safeguard O' the graybeards all a-chuckle, cowl to cape, Who challenge Judas,--that 's endearment's style,-- To stop their mouths or let escape grimace, While they keep cursing Italy and him. The power to speak, hear, print and read is ours? Ay, we learn where and how, when clapped inside A convict-transport bound for cool Cayenne! The universal vote we have: its urn, We also have where votes drop, fingered-o'er By the universal Prefect. Say, Trade 's free And Toil turned master out o' the slave it was: What then? These feed man's stomach, but his soul Craves finer fare, nor lives by bread alone, As somebody says somewhere. Hence you stand Proved and recorded either false or weak, Faulty in promise or performance: which?" Neither, I hope. Once pedestalled on earth, To act not speak, I found earth was not air. I saw that multitude of mine, and not The nakedness and nullity of air Fit only for a voice to float in free. Such eyes I saw that craved the light alone, Such mouths that wanted bread and nothing else, Such hands that supplicated handiwork, Men with the wives, and women with the babes, Yet all these pleading just to live, not die! Did I believe one whit less in belief, Take truth for falsehood, wish the voice revoked That told the truth to heaven for earth to hear? No, this should be, and shall; but when and how? At what expense to these who average Your twenty years of life, my computists? "Not bread alone," but bread before all else For these: the bodily want serve first, said I; If earth-space and the lifetime help not here, Where is the good of body having been? But, helping body, if we somewhat balk The soul of finer fare, such food 's to find Elsewhere and afterward--all indicates, Even this selfsame fact that soul can starve Yet body still exist its twenty years: While, stint the body, there 's an end at once O' the revel in the fancy that Rome 's free, And superstition's fettered, and one prints Whate'er one pleases, and who pleases reads The same, and speaks out and is spoken to, And divers hundred thousand fools may vote A vote untampered with by one wise man, And so elect Barabbas deputy In lieu of his concurrent. I who trace The purpose written on the face of things, For my behoof and guidance--(whoso needs No such sustainment, sees beneath my signs, Proves, what I take for writing, penmanship, Scribble and flourish with no sense for me O' the sort I solemnly go spelling out,-- Let him! there 's certain work of mine to show Alongside his work: which gives warranty Of shrewder vision in the workman--judge!) I who trace Providence without a break I' the plan of things, drop plumb on this plain print Of an intention with a view to good, That man is made in sympathy with man At outset of existence, so to speak; But in dissociation, more and more, Man from his fellow, as their lives advance In culture; still humanity, that 's born A mass, keeps flying off, fining away Ever into a multitude of points, And ends in isolation, each from each: Peerless above i' the sky, the pinnacle,-- Absolute contact, fusion, all below At the base of being. How comes this about? This stamp of God characterizing man And nothing else but man in the universe-- That, while he feels with man (to use man's speech) I' the little things of life, its fleshly wants Of food and rest and health and happiness, Its simplest spirit-motions, loves and hates, Hopes, fears, soul-cravings on the ignoblest scale, O' the fellow-creature,--owns the bond at base,-- He tends to freedom and divergency In the upward progress, plays the pinnacle When life 's at greatest (grant again the phrase! Because there 's neither great nor small in life). "Consult thou for thy kind that have the eyes To see, the mouths to eat, the hands to work, Men with the wives, and women with the babes!" Prompts Nature. "Care thou for thyself alone I' the conduct of the mind God made thee with! Think, as if man had never thought before! Act, as if all creation hung attent On the acting of such faculty as thine, To take prime pattern from thy masterpiece!" Nature prompts also: neither law obeyed To the uttermost by any heart and soul We know or have in record: both of them Acknowledged blindly by whatever man We ever knew or heard of in this world. "Will you have why and wherefore, and the fact Made plain as pikestaff?" modern Science asks. "That mass man sprung from was a jelly-lump Once on a time; he kept an after-course Through fish and insect, reptile, bird and beast, Till he attained to be an ape at last Or last but one. And if this doctrine shock In aught the natural pride" ... Friend, banish fear, The natural humility replies. Do you suppose, even I, poor potentate, Hohenstiel-Schwangau, who once ruled the roast,-- I was born able at all points to ply My tools? or did I have to learn my trade, Practise as exile ere perform as prince? The world knows something of my ups and downs: But grant me time, give me the management And manufacture of a model me, Me fifty-fold, a prince without a flaw,-- Why, there 's no social grade, the sordidest, My embryo potentate should blink and 'scape. King, all the better he was cobbler once, He should know, sitting on the throne, how tastes Life to who sweeps the doorway. But life 's hard, Occasion rare; you cut probation short, And, being half-instructed, on the stage You shuffle through your part as best you can, And bless your stars, as I do. God takes time. I like the thought he should have lodged me once I' the hole, the cave, the hut, the tenement, The mansion and the palace; made me learn The feel o' the first, before I found myself Loftier i' the last, not more emancipate; From first to last of lodging, I was I, And not at all the place that harbored me. Do I refuse to follow farther yet I' the backwardness, repine if tree and flower, Mountain or streamlet were my dwelling-place Before I gained enlargement, grew mollusc? As well account that way for many a thrill Of kinship, I confess to, with the powers Called Nature: animate, inanimate, In parts or in the whole, there 's something there Man-like that somehow meets the man in me. My pulse goes altogether with the heart O' the Persian, that old Xerxes, when he stayed His march to conquest of the world, a day I' the desert, for the sake of one superb Plane-tree which queened it there in solitude: Giving her neck its necklace, and each arm Its armlet, suiting soft waist, snowy side, With cincture and apparel. Yes, I lodged In those successive tenements; perchance Taste yet the straitness of them while I stretch Limb and enjoy new liberty the more. And some abodes are lost or ruinous; Some, patched-up and pieced-out, and so transformed They still accommodate the traveller His day of lifetime. Oh, you count the links, Descry no bar of the unbroken man? Yes,--and who welds a lump of ore, suppose He likes to make a chain and not a bar, And reach by link on link, link small, link large, Out to the due length--why, there 's forethought still Outside o' the series, forging at one end, While at the other there 's--no matter what The kind of critical intelligence Believing that last link had last but one For parent, and no link was, first of all, Fitted to anvil, hammered into shape. Else, I accept the doctrine, and deduce This duty, that I recognize mankind, In all its height and depth and length and breadth. Mankind i' the main have little wants, not large: I, being of will and power to help, i' the main, Mankind, must help the least wants first. My friend, That is, my foe, without such power and will, May plausibly concentrate all he wields, And do his best at helping some large want, Exceptionally noble cause, that's seen Subordinate enough from where I stand. As he helps, I helped once, when like himself, Unable to help better, work more wide; And so would work with heart and hand to-day; Did only computists confess a fault, And multiply the single score by five, Five only, give man's life its hundred years. Change life, in me shall follow change to match! Time were then, to work here, there, everywhere, By turns and try experiment at ease! Full time to mend as well as mar: why wait The slow and sober uprise all around O' the building? Let us run up, right to roof, Some sudden marvel, piece of perfectness, And testify what we intend the whole! Is the world losing patience? "Wait!" say we: "There 's time: no generation needs to die Unsolaced; you 've a century in store!" But, no: I sadly let the voices wing Their way i' the upper vacancy, nor test Truth on this solid as I promised once. Well, and what is there to be sad about? The world 's the world, life 's life, and nothing else. 'T is part of life, a property to prize, That those o' the higher sort engaged i' the world, Should fancy they can change its ill to good, Wrong to right, ugliness to beauty: find Enough success in fancy turning fact, To keep the sanguine kind in countenance And justify the hope that busies them: Failure enough,--to who can follow change Beyond their vision, see new good prove ill I' the consequence, see blacks and whites of life Shift square indeed, but leave the checkered face Unchanged i' the main,--failure enough for such, To bid ambition keep the whole from change, As their best service. I hope naught beside. No, my brave thinkers, whom I recognize, Gladly, myself the first, as, in a sense, All that our world 's worth, flower and fruit of man! Such minds myself award supremacy Over the common insignificance, When only Mind 's in question,--Body bows To quite another government, you know. Be Kant crowned king o' the castle in the air! Hans Slouch--his own, and children's mouths to feed I' the hovel on the ground--wants meat, nor chews "The Critique of Pure Reason" in exchange. But, now,--suppose I could allow your claims And quite change life to please you,--would it please? Would life comport with change and still be life? Ask, now, a doctor for a remedy: There 's his prescription. Bid him point you out Which of the five or six ingredients saves The sick man. "Such the efficacity? Then why not dare and do things in one dose Simple and pure, all virtue, no alloy Of the idle drop and powder?" What 's his word? The efficacity, neat, were neutralized: It wants dispersing and retarding,--nay, Is put upon its mettle, plays its part Precisely through such hindrance everywhere, Finds some mysterious give and take i' the case. Some gain by opposition, he foregoes Should he unfetter the medicament. So with this thought of yours that fain would work Free in the world: it wants just what it finds-- The ignorance, stupidity, the hate, Envy and malice and uncharitableness That bar your passage, break the flow of you Down from those happy heights where many a cloud Combined to give you birth and bid you be The royalest of rivers: on you glide Silverly till you reach the summit-edge, Then over, on to all that ignorance, Stupidity, hate, envy, bluffs and blocks, Posted to fret you into foam and noise. What of it? Up you mount in minute mist, And bridge the chasm that, crushed your quietude, A spirit-rainbow, earthborn jewelry Outsparkling the insipid firmament Blue above Terni and its orange-trees. Do not mistake me! You, too, have your rights! Hans must not burn Kant's house above his head Because he cannot understand Kant's book: And still less must Hans' pastor burn Kant's self Because Kant understands some books too well. But, justice seen to on this little point, Answer me, is it manly, is it sage To stop and struggle with arrangements here It took so many lives, so much of toil, To tinker up into efficiency? Can't you contrive to operate at once,-- Since time is short and art is long,--to show Your quality i' the world, whate'er you boast, Without this fractious call on folks to crush The world together just to set you free, Admire the capers you will cut perchance, Nor mind the mischief to your neighbors?

"Age! Age and experience bring discouragement," You taunt me: I maintain the opposite. Am I discouraged who--perceiving health, Strength, beauty, as they tempt the eye of soul, Are uncombinable with flesh and blood-- Resolve to let my body live its best, And leave my soul what better yet may be Or not be, in this life or afterward? --In either fortune, wiser than who waits Till magic art procure a miracle. In virtue of my very confidence Mankind ought to outgrow its babyhood; I prescribe rocking, deprecate rough hands, While thus the cradle holds it past mistake. Indeed, my task 's the harder--equable Sustainment everywhere, all strain, no push-- Whereby friends credit me with indolence, Apathy, hesitation. "Stand stock-still If able to move briskly? 'All a-strain'-- So must we compliment your passiveness? Sound asleep, rather!"

Just the judgment passed Upon a statue, luckless like myself, I saw at Rome once! 'T was some artist's whim To cover all the accessories close I' the group, and leave you only Laocoön With neither sons nor serpents to denote The purpose of his gesture. Then a crowd Was called to try the question, criticise Wherefore such energy of legs and arms, Nay, eyeballs, starting from the socket. One-- I give him leave to write my history-- Only one said, "I think the gesture strives Against some obstacle we cannot see." All the rest made their minds up. "'T is a yawn Of sheer fatigue subsiding to repose: The statue 's 'Somnolency' clear enough!"

There, my arch stranger-friend, my audience both And arbitress, you have one half your wish, At least: you know the thing I tried to do! All, so far, to my praise and glory--all Told as befits the self-apologist,-- Who ever promises a candid sweep And clearance of those errors miscalled crimes None knows more, none laments so much as he, And ever rises from confession, proved A god whose fault was--trying to be man. Just so, fair judge,--if I read smile aright-- I condescend to figure in your eyes As biggest heart and best of Europe's friends, And hence my failure. God will estimate Success one day; and, in the mean time--you!

I daresay there 's some fancy of the sort Frolicking round this final puff I send To die up yonder in the ceiling-rose,-- Some consolation-stakes, we losers win! A plague of the return to "I--I--I Did this, meant that, hoped, feared the other thing!" Autobiography, adieu! The rest Shall make amends, be pure blame, history And falsehood: not the ineffective truth, But Thiers-and-Victor-Hugo exercise. Hear what I never was, but might have been I' the better world where goes tobacco-smoke! Here lie the dozen volumes of my life: (Did I say "lie"? the pregnant word will serve.) Cut on to the concluding chapter, though! Because the little hours begin to strike. Hurry Thiers-Hugo to the labor's end!

Something like this the unwritten chapter reads.

Exemplify the situation thus! Hohenstiel-Schwangau, being, no dispute, Absolute mistress, chose the Assembly, first, To serve her: chose this man, its President Afterward, to serve also,--specially To see that folk did service one and all. And now the proper term of years was out, When the Head-servant must vacate his place; And nothing lay so patent to the world As that his fellow-servants one and all Were--mildly to make mention--knaves or fools, Each of them with his promise flourished full I' the face of you by word and impudence, Or filtered slyly out by nod and wink And nudge upon your sympathetic rib-- That not one minute more did knave or fool Mean to keep faith and serve as he had sworn Hohenstiel-Schwangau, once her Head away. Why should such swear except to get the chance, When time should ripen and confusion bloom, Of putting Hohenstielers-Schwangauese To the true use of human property-- Restoring souls and bodies, this to Pope, And that to King, that other to his planned Perfection of a Share-and-share-alike, That other still, to Empire absolute In shape of the Head-servant's very self Transformed to Master whole and sole? each scheme Discussible, concede one circumstance-- That each scheme's parent were, beside himself, Hohenstiel-Schwangau, not her serving-man Sworn to do service in the way she chose Rather than his way: way superlative, Only,--by some infatuation,--his And his and his and every one's but hers Who stuck to just the Assembly and the Head. I make no doubt the Head, too, had his dream Of doing sudden duty swift and sure On all that heap of untrustworthiness-- Catching each vaunter of the villany He meant to perpetrate when time was ripe, Once the Head-servant fairly out of doors,-- And, caging here a knave and there a fool, Cry, "Mistress of your servants, these and me, Hohenstiel-Schwangau! I, their trusty Head, Pounce on a pretty scheme concocting here That's stopped, extinguished by my vigilance. Your property is safe again: but mark! Safe in these hands, not yours, who lavish trust Too lightly. Leave my hands their charge awhile! I know your business better than yourself: Let me alone about it! Some fine day, Once we are rid of the embarrassment, You shall look up and see your longings crowned!" Such fancy might have tempted him be false, But this man chose truth and was wiser so. He recognized that for great minds i' the world There is no trial like the appropriate one Of leaving little minds their liberty Of littleness to blunder on through life, Now aiming at right ends by foolish means, Now, at absurd achievement through the aid Of good and wise endeavor--to acquiesce In folly's life-long privilege, though with power To do the little minds the good they need, Despite themselves, by just abolishing Their right to play the part and fill the place I' the scheme of things He schemed who made alike Great minds and little minds, saw use for each. Could the orb sweep those puny particles It just half-lights at distance, hardly leads I' the leash--sweep out each speck of them from space They anticise in with their days and nights And whirlings round and dancings off, forsooth, And all that fruitless individual life One cannot lend a beam to but they spoil-- Sweep them into itself and so, one star, Preponderate henceforth i' the heritage Of heaven! No! in less senatorial phrase, The man endured to help, not save outright The multitude by substituting him For them, his knowledge, will and way, for God's: Nor change the world, such as it is, and was And will be, for some other, suiting all Except the purpose of the maker. No! He saw that weakness, wickedness will be, And therefore should be: that the perfect man, As we account perfection--at most pure O' the special gold, whate'er the form it take, Head-work or heart-work, fined and thrice-refined I' the crucible of life, whereto the powers Of the refiner, one and all, are flung To feed the flame, he saw that e'en the block, Such perfect man holds out triumphant, breaks Into some poisonous ore, gold's opposite, At the very purest, so compensating Man's Adversary--what if we believe? For earlier stern exclusion of his stuff. See the sage, with the hunger for the truth, And see his system that's all true, except The one weak place that's stanchioned by a lie! The moralist, who walks with head erect I' the crystal clarity of air so long, Until a stumble, and the man's one mire! Philanthropy undoes the social knot With axe-edge, makes love room 'twixt head and trunk: Religion--but, enough, the thing's too clear! Well, if these sparks break out i' the greenest tree, Our topmost of performance, yours and mine, What will be done i' the dry ineptitude Of ordinary mankind, bark and bole, All seems ashamed of but their mother-earth? Therefore throughout Head's term of servitude He did the appointed service, and forebore Extraneous action that were duty else, Done by some other servant, idle now Or mischievous: no matter, each his own-- Own task, and, in the end, own praise or blame! He suffered them strut, prate, and brag their best, Squabble at odds on every point save one, And there shake hands,--agree to trifle time, Obstruct advance with, each, his cricket-cry, "Wait till the Head be off the shoulders here! Then comes my King, my Pope, my Autocrat, My Socialist Republic to her own-- To-wit, that property of only me, Hohenstiel-Schwangau who conceits herself Free, forsooth, and expects I keep her so!" --Nay, suffered when, perceiving with dismay Head's silence paid no tribute to their noise, They turned on him. "Dumb menace in that mouth, Malice in that unstridulosity! He cannot but intend some stroke of state Shall signalize his passage into peace Out of the creaking,--hinder transference O' the Hohenstielers-Schwangauese to king, Pope, autocrat, or socialist republic! That 's Exact the cause his lips unlocked would cry! Therefore be stirring: brave, beard, bully him! Dock, by the million, of its friendly joints, The electoral body short at once! who did, May do again, and undo us beside; Wrest from his hands the sword for self-defence, The right to parry any thrust in play We peradventure please to meditate!" And so forth; creak, creak, creak: and ne'er a line His locked mouth oped the wider, till at last O' the long degraded and insulting day, Sudden the clock told it was judgment-time. Then he addressed himself to speak indeed To the fools, not knaves: they saw him walk straight down Each step of the eminence, as he first engaged, And stand at last o' the level,--all he swore. "People, and not the people's varletry, This is the task you set myself and these! Thus I performed my part of it, and thus They thwarted me throughout, here, here and here: Study each instance! yours the loss, not mine. What they intend now is demonstrable As plainly: here's such man, and here's such mode Of making you some other than the thing You, wisely or unwisely, choose to be, And only set him up to keep you so. Do you approve this? Yours the loss, not mine. Do you condemn it? There 's a remedy. Take me--who know your mind, and mean your good. With clearer brain and stouter arm than they, Or you, or haply anybody else-- And make me master for the moment! Choose What time, what power you trust me with: I too Will choose as frankly ere I trust myself With time and power: they must be adequate To the end and aim, since mine the loss, with yours, If means be wanting; once their worth approved, Grant them, and I shall forthwith operate-- Ponder it well!--to the extremist stretch O' the power you trust me: if with unsuccess, God wills it, and there 's nobody to blame."

Whereon the people answered with a shout, "The trusty one! no tricksters any more!" How could they other? He was in his place.

What followed? Just what he foresaw, what proved The soundness of both judgments,--his, o' the knaves And fools, each trickster with his dupe,--and theirs, The people's, in what head and arm could help. There was uprising, masks dropped, flags unfurled, Weapons outflourished in the wind, my faith! Heavily did he let his fist fall plumb On each perturber of the public peace, No matter whose the wagging head it broke-- From bald-pate craft and greed and impudence Of night-hawk at first chance to prowl and prey For glory and a little gain beside, Passing for eagle in the dusk of the age,-- To florid head-top, foamy patriotism And tribunitial daring, breast laid bare Through confidence in rectitude, with hand On private pistol in the pocket: these And all the dupes of these, who lent themselves As dust and feather do, to help offence O' the wind that whirls them at you, then subsides In safety somewhere, leaving filth afloat, Annoyance you may brush from eyes and beard,-- These he stopped: bade the wind's spite howl or whine Its worst outside the building, wind conceives Meant to be pulled together and become Its natural playground so. What foolishness Of dust or feather proved importunate And fell 'twixt thumb and finger, found them gripe To detriment of bulk and buoyancy. Then followed silence and submission. Next, The inevitable comment came on work And work's cost: he was censured as profuse Of human life and liberty: too swift And thorough his procedure, who had lagged At the outset, lost the opportunity Through timid scruples as to right and wrong. "There 's no such certain mark of a small mind" (So did Sagacity explain the fault) "As when it needs must square away and sink To its own small dimensions, private scale Of right and wrong,--humanity i' the large, The right and wrong of the universe, forsooth! This man addressed himself to guard and guide Hohenstiel-Schwangau. When the case demands He frustrate villany in the egg, unhatched, With easy stamp and minimum of pang E'en to the punished reptile, 'There 's my oath Restrains my foot,' objects our guide and guard, 'I must leave guardianship and guidance now: Rather than stretch one handbreadth of the law, I am bound to see it break from end to end. First show me death i' the body politic: Then prescribe pill and potion, what may please Hohenstiel-Schwangau! all is for her sake: 'T was she ordained my service should be so. What if the event demonstrate her unwise, If she unwill the thing she willed before? I hold to the letter and obey the bond And leave her to perdition loyally.' Whence followed thrice the expenditure we blame Of human life and liberty: for want O' the by-blow, came deliberate butcher's-work!"

"Elsewhere go carry your complaint!" bade he. "Least, largest, there 's one law for all the minds, Here or above: be true at any price! 'T is just o' the great scale, that such happy stroke Of falsehood would be found a failure. Truth Still stands unshaken at her base by me, Reigns paramount i' the world, for the large good O' the long late generations,--I and you Forgotten like this buried foolishness! Not so the good I rooted in its grave."

This is why he refused to break his oath, Rather appealed to the people, gained the power To act as he thought best, then used it, once For all, no matter what the consequence To knaves and fools. As thus began his sway, So, through its twenty years, one rule of right Sufficed him: govern for the many first, The poor mean multitude, all mouths and eyes: Bid the few, better favored in the brain, Be patient, nor presume on privilege, Help him or else be quiet,--never crave That he help them,--increase, forsooth, the gulf Yawning so terribly 'twixt mind and mind I' the world here, which his purpose was to block At bottom, were it by an inch, and bridge, If by a filament, no more, at top. Equalize things a little! And the way He took to work that purpose out, was plain Enough to intellect and honesty And--superstition, style it if you please, So long as you allow there was no lack O' the quality imperative in man-- Reverence. You see deeper? thus saw he, And by the light he saw, must walk: how else Was he to do his part? a man's, with might And main, and not a faintest touch of fear, Sure he was in the hand of God who comes Before and after, with a work to do Which no man helps nor hinders. Thus the man,-- So timid when the business was to touch The uncertain order of humanity, Imperil, for a problematic cure Of grievance on the surface, any good I' the deep of things, dim yet discernible,-- This same man, so irresolute before, Show him a true excrescence to cut sheer, A devil's graft on God's foundation-stock, Then--no complaint of indecision more! He wrenched out the whole canker, root and branch, Deaf to who cried that earth would tumble in At its four corners if he touched a twig. Witness that lie of lies, arch-infamy, When the Republic, with her life involved In just this law--"Each people rules itself Its own way, not as any stranger please"-- Turned, and for first proof she was living, bade Hohenstiel-Schwangau fasten on the throat Of the first neighbor that claimed benefit O' the law herself established: "Hohenstiel For Hohenstielers! Rome, by parity Of reasoning, for Romans? That 's a jest Wants proper treatment,--lancet--puncture suits The proud flesh: Rome ape Hohenstiel forsooth!" And so the siege and slaughter and success Whereof we nothing doubt that Hohenstiel Will have to pay the price, in God's good time. Which does not always fall on Saturday When the world looks for wages. Anyhow, He found this infamy triumphant. Well: Sagacity suggested, make this speech! "The work was none of mine: suppose wrong wait, Stand over for redressing? Mine for me, My predecessors' work on their own head! Meantime, there 's plain advantage, should we leave Things as we find them. Keep Rome manacled Hand and foot: no fear of unruliness! Her foes consent to even seem our friends So long, no longer. Then, there 's glory got By boldness and bravado to the world: The disconcerted world must grin and bear The old saucy writing,--'Grunt thereat who may, So shall things be, for such my pleasure is-- Hohenstiel-Schwangau's.' How that reads in Rome, I' the capitol where Brennus broke his pate, And lends a flourish to our journalists!" Only, it was nor read nor flourished of, Since, not a moment did such glory stay Excision of the canker! Out it came, Root and branch, with much roaring, and some blood, And plentiful abuse of him from friend And foe. Who cared? Not Nature, who assuaged The pain and set the patient on his legs Promptly: the better! had it been the worse, 'T is Nature you must try conclusions with, Not he, since nursing canker kills the sick For certain, while to cut may cure, at least. "Ah," groaned a second time Sagacity, "Again the little mind, precipitate, Rash, rude, when even in the right, as here! The great mind knows the power of gentleness, Only tries force because persuasion fails. Had this man, by prelusive trumpet-blast, Signified, 'Truth and Justice mean to come, Nay, fast approach your threshold! Ere they knock, See that the house be set in order, swept And garnished, windows shut, and doors thrown wide! The free State comes to visit the free Church: Receive her! or ... or ... never mind what else!' Thus moral suasion heralding brute force, How had he seen the old abuses die, And new life kindle here, there, everywhere, Roused simply by that mild yet potent spell-- Beyond or beat of drum or stroke of sword-- Public opinion!"

"How, indeed?" he asked, "When all to see, after some twenty years, Were your own fool-face waiting for the sight, Faced by as wide a grin from ear to ear O' the knaves who, while the fools were waiting, worked-- Broke yet another generation's heart-- Twenty years' respite helping! Teach your nurse 'Compliance with, before you suck, the teat!' Find what that means, and meanwhile hold your tongue!"

Whereof the war came which he knew must be.

Now, this had proved the dry-rot of the race He ruled o'er, that, i' the old day, when was need They fought for their own liberty and life, Well did they fight, none better: whence, such love Of fighting somehow still for fighting's sake Against no matter whose the liberty And life, so long as self-conceit should crow And clap the wing, while justice sheathed her claw,-- That what had been the glory of the world When thereby came the world's good, grew its plague Now that the champion-armor, donned to dare The dragon once, was clattered up and down Highway and by-path of the world, at peace, Merely to mask marauding, or for sake O' the shine and rattle that apprised the fields Hohenstiel-Schwangau was a fighter yet, And would be, till the weary world suppressed Her peccant humors out of fashion now. Accordingly the world spoke plain at last, Promised to punish who next played with fire.

So, at his advent, such discomfiture Taking its true shape of beneficence, Hohenstiel-Schwangau, half-sad and part-wise, Sat: if with wistful eye reverting oft To each pet weapon, rusty on its peg, Yet, with a sigh of satisfaction too That, peacefulness become the law, herself Got the due share of godsends in its train, Cried shame and took advantage quietly. Still, so the dry-rot had been nursed into Blood, bones and marrow, that, from worst to best, All,--clearest brains and soundest hearts save here,-- All had this lie acceptable for law Plain as the sun at noonday--"War is best, Peace is worst; peace we only tolerate As needful preparation for new war: War may be for whatever end we will-- Peace only as the proper help thereto. Such is the law of right and wrong for us Hohenstiel-Schwangau: for the other world, As naturally, quite another law. Are we content? The world is satisfied. Discontent? Then the world must give us leave To strike right, left, and exercise our arm Torpid of late through overmuch repose, And show its strength is still superlative At somebody's expense in life or limb: Which done,--let peace succeed and last a year!" Such devil's-doctrine so was judged God's law, We say, when this man stepped upon the stage, That it had seemed a venial fault at most Had he once more obeyed Sagacity. "You come i' the happy interval of peace, The favorable weariness from war: Prolong it! artfully, as if intent On ending peace as soon as possible. Quietly so increase the sweets of ease And safety, so employ the multitude, Put hod and trowel so in idle hands, So stuff and stop up wagging jaws with bread, That selfishness shall surreptitiously Do wisdom's office, whisper in the ear Of Hohenstiel-Schwangau, there 's a pleasant feel In being gently forced down, pinioned fast To the easy arm-chair by the pleading arms O' the world beseeching her to there abide Content with all the harm done hitherto, And let herself be petted in return, Free to re-wage, in speech and prose and verse, The old unjust wars, nay--in verse and prose And speech,--to vaunt new victories, shall prove A plague o' the future,--so that words suffice For present comfort, and no deeds denote That--tired of illimitable line on line Of boulevard-building, tired o' the theatre With the tuneful thousand in their thrones above, For glory of the male intelligence, And Nakedness in her due niche below, For illustration of the female use-- That she, 'twixt yawn and sigh, prepares to slip Out of the arm-chair, wants fresh blood again From over the boundary, to color-up The sheeny sameness, keep the world aware Hohenstiel-Schwangau's arm needs exercise Despite the petting of the universe! Come, you 're a city-builder: what 's the way Wisdom takes when time needs that she entice Some fierce tribe, castled on the mountain-peak, Into the quiet and amenity O' the meadow-land below? By crying 'Done With fight now, down with fortress'? Rather--'Dare On, dare ever, not a stone displaced!' Cries Wisdom: 'Cradle of our ancestors, Be bulwark, give our children safety still! Who of our children please may stoop and taste O' the valley-fatness, unafraid,--for why? At first alarm they have thy mother-ribs To run upon for refuge; foes forget Scarcely that Terror on her vantage-coign, Couchant supreme among the powers of air, Watches--prepared to pounce--the country wide! Meanwhile the encouraged valley holds its own, From the first hut's adventure in descent, Half home, half hiding-place,--to dome and spire Befitting the assured metropolis: Nor means offence to the fort which caps the crag, All undismantled of a turret-stone, And bears the banner-pole that creaks at times Embarrassed by the old emblazonment, When festal days are to commemorate: Otherwise left untenanted, no doubt, Since, never fear, our myriads from below Would rush, if needs were, man the walls again, Renew the exploits of the earlier time At moment's notice! But till notice sound, Inhabit we in ease and opulence!' And so, till one day thus a notice sounds, Not trumpeted, but in a whisper-gust Fitfully playing through mute city streets At midnight weary of day's feast and game-- 'Friends, your famed fort 's a ruin past repair! Its use is--to proclaim it had a use Obsolete long since. Climb and study there How to paint barbican and battlement I' the scenes of our new theatre! We fight Now--by forbidding neighbors to sell steel Or buy wine, not by blowing out their brains! Moreover, while we let time sap the strength O' the walls omnipotent in menace once, Neighbors would seem to have prepared surprise-- Run up defences in a mushroom-growth, For all the world like what we boasted: brief-- Hohenstiel-Schwangau's policy is peace!'"

Ay, so Sagacity advised him filch Folly from fools; handsomely substitute The dagger o' lath, while gay they sang and danced, For that long dangerous sword they liked to feel, Even at feast-time, clink and make friends start. No! he said: "Hear the truth, and bear the truth, And bring the truth to bear on all you are And do, assured that only good comes thence Whate'er the shape good take! While I have rule, Understand!--war for war's sake, war for sake O' the good war gets you as war's sole excuse, Is damnable and damned shall be. You want Glory? Why so do I, and so does God. Where is it found,--in this paraded shame,-- One particle of glory? Once you warred For liberty against the world, and won: There was the glory. Now, you fain would war Because the neighbor prospers overmuch,-- Because there has been silence half-an-hour, Like Heaven on earth, without a cannon-shot Announcing Hohenstielers-Schwangauese Are minded to disturb the jubilee,-- Because the loud tradition echoes faint, And who knows but posterity may doubt If the great deeds were ever done at all, Much less believe, were such to do again, So the event would follow: therefore, prove The old power, at the expense of somebody! Oh, Glory,--gilded bubble, bard and sage So nickname rightly,--would thy dance endure One moment, would thy vaunting make believe Only one eye thy ball was solid gold, Hadst thou less breath to buoy thy vacancy Than a whole multitude expends in praise, Less range for roaming than from head to head Of a whole people? Flit, fall, fly again, Only, fix never where the resolute hand May prick thee, prove the glassy lie thou art! Give me real intellect to reason with, No multitude, no entity that apes One wise man, being but a million fools! How and whence wishest glory, thou wise one? Wouldst get it,--didst thyself guide Providence,-- By stinting of his due each neighbor round In strength and knowledge and dexterity So as to have thy littleness grow large By all those somethings once, turned nothings now, As children make a molehill mountainous By scooping out a trench around their pile, And saving so the mudwork from approach? Quite otherwise the cheery game of life, True yet mimetic warfare, whereby man Does his best with his utmost, and so ends The victor most of all in fair defeat. Who thinks,--would he have no one think beside? Who knows, who does,--save his must learning die And action cease? Why, so our giant proves No better than a dwarf, once rivalry Prostrate around him. Let the whole race stand For him to try conclusions fairly with! Show me the great man would engage his peer Rather by grinning 'Cheat, thy gold is brass!' Than granting 'Perfect piece of purest ore! Still, is it less good mintage, this of mine?' Well, and these right and sound results of soul I' the strong and healthy one wise man,--shall such Be vainly sought for, scornfully renounced I' the multitude that make the entity-- The people?--to what purpose, if no less, In power and purity of soul, below The reach of the unit than, by multiplied Might of the body, vulgarized the more, Above, in thick and threefold brutishness? See! you accept such one wise man, myself: Wiser or less wise, still I operate From my own stock of wisdom, nor exact Of other sort of natures you admire, That whoso rhymes a sonnet pays a tax, Who paints a landscape dips brush at his cost, Who scores a septett true for strings and wind Mulcted must be--else how should I impose Properly, attitudinize aright, Did such conflicting claims as these divert Hohenstiel-Schwangau from observing me? Therefore, what I find facile, you be sure, With effort or without it, you shall dare-- You, I aspire to make my better self And truly the Great Nation. No more war For war's sake, then! and,--seeing, wickedness Springs out of folly,--no more foolish dread O' the neighbor waxing too inordinate A rival, through his gain of wealth and ease! What?--keep me patient, Powers!--the people here, Earth presses to her heart, nor owns a pride Above her pride i' the race all flame and air And aspiration to the boundless Great, The incommensurably Beautiful-- Whose very falterings groundward come of flight Urged by a pinion all too passionate For heaven and what it holds of gloom and glow: Bravest of thinkers, bravest of the brave Doers, exalt in Science, rapturous In Art, the--more than all--magnetic race To fascinate their fellows, mould mankind Hohenstiel-Schwangau-fashion,--these, what?--these Will have to abdicate their primacy Should such a nation sell them steel untaxed, And such another take itself, on hire For the natural sennight, somebody for lord Unpatronized by me whose back was turned? Or such another yet would fain build bridge, Lay rail, drive tunnel, busy its poor self With its appropriate fancy: so there 's--flash-- Hohenstiel-Schwangau up in arms at once! Genius has somewhat of the infantine: But of the childish, not a touch nor taint Except through self-will, which, being foolishness, Is certain, soon or late, of punishment. Which Providence avert!--and that it may Avert what both of us would so deserve, No foolish dread o' the neighbor, I enjoin! By consequence, no wicked war with him, While I rule!

"Does that mean--no war at all When just the wickedness I here proscribe Comes, haply, from the neighbor? Does my speech Precede the praying that you beat the sword To ploughshare, and the spear to pruning-hook, And sit down henceforth under your own vine And fig-tree through the sleepy summer month, Letting what hurly-burly please explode On the other side the mountain-frontier? No, Beloved! I foresee and I announce Necessity of warfare in one case, For one cause: one way, I bid broach the blood O' the world. For truth and right, and only right And truth,--right, truth, on the absolute scale of God, No pettiness of man's admeasurement,-- In such case only, and for such one cause, Fight your hearts out, whatever fate betide Hands energetic to the uttermost! Lie not! Endure no lie which needs your heart And hand to push it out of mankind's path-- No lie that lets the natural forces work Too long ere lay it plain and pulverized-- Seeing man's life lasts only twenty years! And such a lie, before both man and God, Proving, at this time present, Austria's rule O'er Italy,--for Austria's sake the first, Italy's next, and our sake last of all, Come with me and deliver Italy! Smite hip and thigh until the oppressor leave Free from the Adriatic to the Alps The oppressed one! We were they who laid her low In the old bad day when Villany braved Truth And Right, and laughed 'Henceforward, God deposed, Satan we set to rule forevermore I' the world!'--whereof to stop the consequence, And for atonement of false glory there Gaped at and gabbled over by the world, I purpose to get God enthroned again For what the world will gird at as sheer shame I' the cost of blood and treasure, 'All for naught-- Not even, say, some patch of province, splice O' the frontier?--some snug honorarium-fee Shut into glove and pocketed apace?' (Questions Sagacity) 'in deference To the natural susceptibility Of folks at home, unwitting of that pitch You soar to, and misdoubting if Truth, Right And the other such augustnesses repay Expenditure in coin o' the realm,--but prompt To recognize the cession of Savoy And Nice as marketable value!' No, Sagacity, go preach to Metternich, And, sermon ended, stay where he resides! Hohenstiel-Schwangau, you and I must march The other road! war for the hate of war, Not love, this once!" So Italy was free.

What else noteworthy and commendable I' the man's career?--that he was resolute-- No trepidation, much less treachery On his part, should imperil from its poise The ball o' the world, heaved up at such expense Of pains so far, and ready to rebound, Let but a finger maladroitly fall, Under pretence of making fast and sure The inch gained by late volubility, And run itself back to the ancient rest At foot o' the mountain. Thus he ruled, gave proof The world had gained a point, progressive so, By choice, this time, as will and power concurred, O' the fittest man to rule; not chance of birth, Or such-like dice-throw. Oft Sagacity Was at his ear: "Confirm this clear advance, Support this wise procedure! You, elect O' the people, mean to justify their choice And out-king all the kingly imbeciles; But that 's just half the enterprise: remains You find them a successor like yourself, In head and heart and eye and hand and aim, Or all done 's undone; and whom hope to mould So like you as the pupil Nature sends, The son and heir's completeness which you lack? Lack it no longer! Wed the pick o' the world, Where'er you think you find it. Should she be A queen,--tell Hohenstielers-Schwangauese, 'So do the old enthroned decrepitudes Acknowledge, in the rotten hearts of them, Their knell is knolled, they hasten to make peace With the new order, recognize in me Your right to constitute what king you will, Cringe therefore crown in hand and bride on arm, To both of us: we triumph, I suppose!' Is it the other sort of rank?--bright eye, Soft smile, and so forth, all her queenly boast? Undaunted the exordium--'I, the man O' the people, with the people mate myself: So stand, so fall. Kings, keep your crowns and brides! Our progeny (if Providence agree) Shall live to tread the baubles underfoot And bid the scarecrows consort with their kin. For son, as for his sire, be the free wife In the free state!'"

That is, Sagacity Would prop up one more lie, the most of all Pernicious fancy that the son and heir Receives the genius from the sire, himself Transmits as surely,--ask experience else! Which answers,--never was so plain a truth As that God drops his seed of heavenly flame Just where he wills on earth: sometimes where man Seems to tempt--such the accumulated store Of faculties--one spark to fire the heap; Sometimes where, fireball-like, it falls upon The naked unpreparèdness of rock, Burns, beaconing the nations through their night. Faculties, fuel for the flame? All helps Come, ought to come, or come not, crossed by chance, From culture and transmission. What 's your want I' the son and heir? Sympathy, aptitude, Teachableness, the fuel for the flame? You 'll have them for your pains: but the flame's self, The novel thought of God shall light the world? No, poet, though your offspring rhyme and chime I' the cradle,--painter, no, for all your pet Draws his first eye, beats Salvatore's boy,--And thrice no, statesman, should your progeny Tie bib and tucker with no tape but red, And make a foolscap-kite of protocols! Critic and copyist and bureaucrat To heart's content! The seed o' the apple-tree Brings forth another tree which bears a crab: 'T is the great gardener grafts the excellence On wildings where he will.

"How plain I view, Across those misty years 'twixt me and Rome"-- (Such the man's answer to Sagacity) "The little wayside temple, halfway down To a mild river that makes oxen white Miraculously, un-mouse-colors skin, Or so the Roman country people dream! I view that sweet small shrub-embedded shrine On the declivity, was sacred once To a transmuting Genius of the land, Could touch and turn its dunnest natures bright, --Since Italy means the Land of the Ox, we know. Well, how was it the due succession fell From priest to priest who ministered i' the cool Calm fane o' the Clitumnian god? The sire Brought forth a son and sacerdotal sprout, Endowed instinctively with good and grace To suit the gliding gentleness below-- Did he? Tradition tells another tale. Each priest obtained his predecessor's staff, Robe, fillet and insignia, blamelessly, By springing out of ambush, soon or late, And slaying him: the initiative rite Simply was murder, save that murder took, I' the case, another and religious name. So it was once, is now, shall ever be With genius and its priesthood in this world: The new power slays the old--but handsomely. There he lies, not diminished by an inch Of stature that he graced the altar with, Though somebody of other bulk and build Cries, 'What a goodly personage lies here Reddening the water where the bulrush roots! May I conduct the service in his place, Decently and in order, as did he, And, as he did not, keep a wary watch When meditating 'neath yon willow shade!' Find out your best man, sure the son of him Will prove best man again, and, better still Somehow than best, the grandson-prodigy! You think the world would last another day Did we so make us masters of the trick Whereby the works go, we could pre-arrange Their play and reach perfection when we please? Depend on it, the change and the surprise Are part o' the plan: 't is we wish steadiness; Nature prefers a motion by unrest, Advancement through this force which jostles that. And so, since much remains i' the world to see, Here 's the world still, affording God the sight." Thus did the man refute Sagacity, Ever at this old whisper in his ear: "Here are you picked out, by a miracle, And placed conspicuously enough, folks say And you believe, by Providence outright Taking a new way--nor without success-- To put the world upon its mettle: good! But Fortune alternates with Providence; Resource is soon exhausted. Never count On such a happy hit occurring twice! Try the old method next time!"

"Old enough," (At whisper in his ear, the laugh outbroke,) "And mode the most discredited of all, By just the men and women who make boast They are kings and queens thereby! Mere self-defence Should teach them, on one chapter of the law Must be no sort of trifling--chastity: They stand or fall, as their progenitors Were chaste or unchaste. Now, run eye around My crowned acquaintance, give each life its look And no more,--why, you 'd think each life was led Purposely for example of what pains Who leads it took to cure the prejudice, And prove there 's nothing so unprovable As who is who, what son of what a sire, And--inferentially--how faint the chance That the next generation needs to fear Another fool o' the selfsame type as he Happily regnant now by right divine And luck o' the pillow! No: select your lord By the direct employment of your brains As best you may,--bad as the blunder prove, A far worse evil stank beneath the sun When some legitimate blockhead managed so Matters that high time was to interfere, Though interference came from hell itself And not the blind mad miserable mob Happily ruled so long by pillow-luck And divine right,--by lies in short, not truth. And meanwhile use the allotted minute ..."

* * * * *

One,-- Two, three, four, five--yes, five the pendule warns! Eh? Why, this wild work wanders past all bound And bearing! Exile, Leicester Square, the life I' the old gay miserable time, rehearsed, Tried on again like cast clothes, still to serve At a pinch, perhaps? "Who 's who?" was aptly asked, Since certainly I am not I! since when? Where is the bud-mouthed arbitress? A nod Out-Homering Homer! Stay--there flits the clue I fain would find the end of! Yes,--"Meanwhile, Use the allotted minute!" Well, you see, (Veracious and imaginary Thiers, Who map out thus the life I might have led, But did not,--all the worse for earth and me,-- Doff spectacles, wipe pen, shut book, decamp!) You see 't is easy in heroics! Plain Pedestrian speech shall help me perorate. Ah, if one had no need to use the tongue! How obvious and how easy 't is to talk Inside the soul, a ghostly dialogue-- Instincts with guesses,--instinct, guess, again With dubious knowledge, half-experience: each And all the interlocutors alike Subordinating,--as decorum bids, Oh, never fear! but still decisively,-- Claims from without that take too high a tone, --("God wills this, man wants that, the dignity Prescribed a prince would wish the other thing")-- Putting them back to insignificance Beside one intimatest fact--myself Am first to be considered, since I live Twenty years longer and then end, perhaps! But, where one ceases to soliloquize, Somehow the motives, that did well enough I' the darkness, when you bring them into light Are found, like those famed cave-fish, to lack eye And organ for the upper magnitudes. The other common creatures, of less fine Existence, that acknowledge earth and heaven, Have it their own way in the argument. Yes, forced to speak, one stoops to say--one's aim Was--what it peradventure should have been: To renovate a people, mend or end That bane come of a blessing meant the world-- Inordinate culture of the sense made quick By soul,--the lust o' the flesh, lust of the eye, And pride of life,--and, consequent on these, The worship of that prince o' the power o' the air Who paints the cloud and fills the emptiness And bids his votaries, famishing for truth, Feed on a lie.

Alack, one lies one's self Even in the stating that one's end was truth, Truth only, if one states as much in words! Give me the inner chamber of the soul For obvious easy argument! 't is there One pits the silent truth against a lie-- Truth which breaks shell a careless simple bird, Nor wants a gorget nor a beak filed fine, Steel spurs and the whole armory o' the tongue, To equalize the odds. But, do your best, Words have to come: and somehow words deflect As the best cannon ever rifled will.

"Deflect" indeed! nor merely words from thoughts But names from facts: "Clitumnus" did I say? As if it had been his ox-whitening wave Whereby folk practised that grim cult of old-- The murder of their temple's priest by who Would qualify for his succession. Sure-- Nemi was the true lake's style. Dream had need Of the ox-whitening peace of prettiness And so confused names, well known once awake.

So, i' the Residenz yet, not Leicester Square, Alone,--no such congenial intercourse!-- My reverie concludes, as dreaming should, With daybreak: nothing done and over yet, Except cigars! The adventure thus may be, Or never needs to be at all: who knows? My Cousin-Duke, perhaps, at whose hard head --Is it, now--is this letter to be launched, The sight of whose gray oblong, whose grim seal, Set all these fancies floating for an hour?

Twenty years are good gain, come what come will! Double or quits! The letter goes! Or stays?

FIFINE AT THE FAIR

DONE ELVIRE

Vous plaît-il, don Juan, nous éclaircir ces beaux mystères?

DON JUAN

Madame, à vous dire la vérité...

DONE ELVIRE

Ah! que vous savez mal vous défendre pour un homme de cour, et qui doit être accoutumé à ces sortes de choses! J'ai pitié de vous voir la confusion que vous avez. Que ne vous armez-vous le front d'une noble effronterie? Que ne me jurez-vous que vous êtes toujours dans les mêmes sentimens pour moi, que vous m'aimez toujours avec une ardeur sans égale, et que rien n'est capable de vous détacher de moi que la mort?--(MOLIERE, _Don Juan_, Acte i, Sc 3.)

* * * * *

DONNA ELVIRA

Don Juan, might you please to help one give a guess, Hold up a candle, clear this fine mysteriousness?

DON JUAN

Madam, if needs I must declare the truth,--in short ...

DONNA ELVIRA

Fie, for a man of mode, accustomed at the court To such a style of thing, how awkwardly my lord Attempts defence! You move compassion, that 's the word-- Dumb-foundered and chapfallen! Why don't you arm your brow With noble impudence? Why don't you swear and vow No sort of change is come to any sentiment You ever had for me? Affection holds the bent, You love me now as erst, with passion that makes pale All ardor else: nor aught in nature can avail To separate us two, save what, in stopping breath, May peradventure stop devotion likewise--death!

PROLOGUE

AMPHIBIAN

The fancy I had to-day, Fancy which turned a fear! I swam far out in the bay, Since waves laughed warm and clear.

I lay and looked at the sun, The noon-sun looked at me: Between us two, no one Live creature, that I could see.

Yes! There came floating by Me, who lay floating too, Such a strange butterfly! Creature as dear as new:

Because the membraned wings So wonderful, so wide, So sun-suffused, were things Like soul and naught beside.

A handbreadth overhead! All of the sea my own, It owned the sky instead; Both of us were alone.

I never shall join its flight, For, naught buoys flesh in air. If it touch the sea--good night! Death sure and swift waits there.

Can the insect feel the better For watching the uncouth play Of limbs that slip the fetter, Pretend as they were not clay?

Undoubtedly I rejoice That the air comports so well With a creature which had the choice Of the land once. Who can tell?

What if a certain soul Which early slipped its sheath, And has for its home the whole Of heaven, thus look beneath,

Thus watch one who, in the world, Both lives and likes life's way, Nor wishes the wings unfurled That sleep in the worm, they say?

But sometimes when the weather Is blue, and warm waves tempt To free one's self of tether, And try a life exempt

From worldly noise and dust, In the sphere which overbrims With passion and thought,--why, just Unable to fly, one swims!

By passion and thought upborne, One smiles to one's self--"They fare Scarce better, they need not scorn Our sea, who live in the air!"

Emancipate through passion And thought, with sea for sky, We substitute, in a fashion, For heaven--poetry:

Which sea, to all intent, Gives flesh such noon-disport As a finer element Affords the spirit-sort.

Whatever they are, we seem: Imagine the thing they know; All deeds they do, we dream; Can heaven be else but so?

And meantime, yonder streak Meets the horizon's verge; That is the land, to seek If we tire or dread the surge:

Land the solid and safe-- To welcome again (confess!) When, high and dry, we chafe The body, and don the dress.

Does she look, pity, wonder At one who mimics flight, Swims--heaven above, sea under, Yet always earth in sight?

FIFINE AT THE FAIR

I

O trip and skip, Elvire! Link arm in arm with me! Like husband and like wife, together let us see The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage, Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage.

II

Now, who supposed the night would play us such a prank? --That what was raw and brown, rough pole and shaven plank, Mere bit of hoarding, half by trestle propped, half tub, Would flaunt it forth as brisk as butterfly from grub? This comes of sun and air, of Autumn afternoon, And Pornic and Saint Gille, whose feast affords the boon-- This scaffold turned parterre, this flower-bed in full blow, Bateleurs, baladines! We shall not miss the show! They pace and promenade; they presently will dance: What good were else i' the drum and fife? O pleasant land of France!

III

Who saw them make their entry? At wink of eve, be sure! They love to steal a march, nor lightly risk the lure. They keep their treasure hid, nor stale (improvident) Before the time is ripe, each wonder of their tent-- Yon six-legged sheep, to wit, and he who beats a gong, Lifts cap and waves salute, exhilarates the throng-- Their ape of many years and much adventure, grim And gray with pitying fools who find a joke in him. Or, best, the human beauty, Mimi, Toinette, Fifine, Tricot fines down if fat, padding plumps up if lean, Ere, shedding petticoat, modesty, and such toys, They bounce forth, squalid girls transformed to gamesome boys.

IV

No, no, thrice, Pornic, no! Perpend the authentic tale! 'T was not for every Gawain to gaze upon the Grail! But whoso went his rounds, when flew bat, flitted midge, Might hear across the dusk,--where both roads join the bridge, Hard by the little port,--creak a slow caravan, A chimneyed house on wheels; so shyly-sheathed, began To broaden out the bud which, bursting unaware, Now takes away our breath, queen-tulip of the Fair!

V

Yet morning promised much: for, pitched and slung and reared On terrace 'neath the tower, 'twixt tree and tree appeared An airy structure; how the pennon from its dome, Frenetic to be free, makes one red stretch for home! The home far and away, the distance where lives joy, The cure, at once and ever, of world and world's annoy; Since, what lolls full in front, a furlong from the booth, But ocean-idleness, sky-blue and millpond-smooth?

VI

Frenetic to be free! And, do you know, there beats Something within my breast, as sensitive?--repeats The fever of the flag? My heart makes just the same Passionate stretch, fires up for lawlessness, lays claim To share the life they lead: losels, who have and use The hour what way they will,--applaud them or abuse Society, whereof myself am at the beck, Whose call obey, and stoop to burden stiffest neck!

VII

Why is it that whene'er a faithful few combine To cast allegiance off, play truant, nor repine, Agree to bear the worst, forego the best in store For us who, left behind, do duty as of yore,-- Why is it that, disgraced, they seem to relish life the more? --Seem as they said, "We know a secret passing praise Or blame of such as you! Remain! we go our ways With something you o'erlooked, forgot or chose to sweep Clean out of door: our pearl picked from your rubbish-heap. You care not for your loss, we calculate our gain. All 's right. Are you content? Why, so let things remain! To the wood then, to the wild: free life, full liberty!" And when they rendezvous beneath the inclement sky, House by the hedge, reduced to brute-companionship, --Misguided ones who gave society the slip, And find too late how boon a parent they despised, What ministration spurned, how sweet and civilized--- Then, left alone at last with self-sought wretchedness, No interloper else!--why is it, can we guess?-- At somebody's expense, goes up so frank a laugh? As though they held the corn, and left us only chaff From garners crammed and closed. And we indeed are clever If we get grain as good, by threshing straw forever!

VIII

Still, truants as they are and purpose yet to be, That nowise needs forbid they venture--as you see-- To cross confine, approach the once familiar roof O' the kindly race their flight estranged: stand half aloof, Sidle half up, press near, and proffer wares for sale --In their phrase,--make in ours, white levy of black mail. They, of the wild, require some touch of us the tame, Since clothing, meat and drink, mean money all the same.

IX

If hunger, proverbs say, allures the wolf from wood, Much more the bird must dare a dash at something good: Must snatch up, bear away in beak, the trifle-treasure To wood and wild, and then--oh, how enjoy at leisure! Was never tree-built nest, you climbed and took, of bird, (Rare city-visitant, talked of, scarce seen or heard,) But, when you would dissect the structure, piece by piece, You found, enwreathed amid the country-product --fleece And feather, thistle-fluffs and bearded windle-straws Some shred of foreign silk, unravelling of gauze, Bit, maybe, of brocade, mid fur and blow-bell-down: Filched plainly from mankind, dear tribute paid by town, Which proved how oft the bird had plucked up heart of grace, Swooped down at waif and stray, made furtively our place Pay tax and toll, then borne the booty to enrich Her paradise i' the waste; the how and why of which, That is the secret, there the mystery that stings!

X

For, what they traffic in, consists of just the things We,--proud ones who so scorn dwellers without the pale, Bateleurs, baladines, white leviers of black mail, I say, they sell what we most pique us that we keep! How comes it, all we hold so dear they count so cheap?

XI

What price should you impose, for instance, on repute, Good fame, your own good fame and family's to boot? Stay start of quick moustache, arrest the angry rise Of eyebrow! All I asked is answered by surprise. Now tell me: are you worth the cost of a cigar? Go boldly, enter booth, disburse the coin at bar Of doorway where presides the master of the troop, And forthwith you survey his Graces in a group, Live Picture, picturesque no doubt and close to life: His sisters, right and left; the Grace in front, his wife. Next, who is this performs the feat of the Trapeze? Lo, she is launched, look--fie, the fairy!--how she flees O'er all those heads thrust back,--mouths, eyes, one gape and stare,-- No scrap of skirt impedes free passage through the air, Till, plumb on the other side, she lights and laughs again, That fairy-form, whereof each muscle, nay, each vein The curious may inspect,--his daughter that he sells Each rustic for five sous. Desiderate aught else O' the vendor? As you leave his show, why, joke the man! "You cheat: your six-legged sheep, I recollect, began Both life and trade, last year, trimmed properly and clipt, As the Twin-headed Babe, and Human Nondescript!" What does he care? You paid his price, may pass your jest. So values he repute, good fame, and all the rest!

XII

But try another tack; say: "I indulge caprice, Who am Don and Duke, and Knight, beside, o' the Golden Fleece, And, never mind how rich. Abandon this career! Have hearth and home, nor let your womankind appear Without as multiplied a coating as protects An onion from the eye! Become, in all respects, God-fearing householder, subsistent by brain-skill, Hand-labor; win your bread whatever way you will, So it be honestly,--and, while I have a purse, Means shall not lack!"--his thanks will be the roundest curse That ever rolled from lip.

XIII

Now, what is it?--returns The question--heartens so this losel that he spurns All we so prize? I want, put down in black and white, What compensating joy, unknown and infinite, Turns lawlessness to law, makes destitution--wealth, Vice--virtue, and disease of soul and body--health?

XIV

Ah, the slow shake of head, the melancholy smile, The sigh almost a sob! What's wrong, was right erewhile? Why are we two at once such ocean-width apart? Pale fingers press my arm, and sad eyes probe my heart. Why is the wife in trouble?

XV

This way, this way, Fifine! Here 's she, shall make my thoughts be surer what they mean! First let me read the signs, portray you past mistake The gypsy's foreign self, no swarth our sun could bake. Yet where 's a woolly trace degrades the wiry hair? And note the Greek-nymph nose, and--oh, my Hebrew pair Of eye and eye--o'erarched by velvet of the mole-- That swim as in a sea, that dip and rise and roll, Spilling the light around! While either ear is cut Thin as a dusk-leaved rose carved from a cocoanut. And then, her neck! now, grant you had the power to deck, Just as your fancy pleased, the bistre-length of neck, Could lay, to shine against its shade, a moonlike row Of pearls, each round and white as bubble Cupids blow Big out of mother's milk,--what pearl-moon would surpass That string of mock-turquoise, those almandines of glass, Where girlhood terminates? for with breasts'-birth commence The boy, and page-costume, till pink and impudence End admirably all: complete the creature trips Our way now, brings sunshine upon her spangled hips, As here she fronts us full, with pose half-frank, half-fierce!

XVI

Words urged in vain, Elvire! You waste your quart and tierce, Lunge at a phantom here, try fence in fairy-land. For me, I own defeat, ask but to understand The acknowledged victory of whom I call my queen, Sexless and bloodless sprite: though mischievous and mean, Yet free and flower-like too, with loveliness for law, And self-sustainment made morality.

XVII

A flaw Do you account i' the lily, of lands which travellers know, That, just as golden gloom supersedes Northern snow I' the chalice, so, about each pistil, spice is packed,-- Deliriously-drugged scent, in lieu of odor lacked, With us, by bee and moth, their banquet to enhance At morn and eve, when dew, the chilly sustenance, Needs mixture of some chaste and temperate perfume? I ask, is she in fault who guards such golden gloom, Such dear and damning scent, by who cares what devices, And takes the idle life of insects she entices When, drowned to heart's desire, they satiate the inside O' the lily, mark her wealth and manifest her pride?

XVIII

But, wiser, we keep off, nor tempt the acrid juice; Discreet we peer and praise, put rich things to right use. No flavorous venomed bell,--the rose it is, I wot, Only the rose, we pluck and place, unwronged a jot, No worse for homage done by every devotee, I' the proper loyal throne, on breast where rose should be. Or if the simpler sweets we have to choose among, Would taste between our teeth, and give its toy the tongue,-- O gorgeous poison-plague, on thee no hearts are set! We gather daisy meek, or maiden violet: I think it is Elvire we love, and not Fifine.

XIX

"How does she make my thoughts be sure of what they mean?" Judge and be just! Suppose, an age and time long past nenew for our behoof one pageant more, the last O' the kind, sick Louis liked to see defile between Him and the yawning grave, its passage served to screen. With eye as gray as lead, with cheek as brown as bronze, Here where we stand, shall sit and suffer Louis Onze: The while from yonder tent parade forth, not--oh, no-- Bateleurs, baladines! but range themselves a-row Those well-sung women-worthies whereof loud fame still finds Some echo linger faint, less in our hearts than minds.

XX

See, Helen! pushed in front o' the world's worst night and storm, By Lady Venus' hand on shoulder: the sweet form Shrinkingly prominent, though mighty, like a moon Outbreaking from a cloud, to put harsh things in tune, And magically bring mankind to acquiesce In its own ravage,--call no curse upon, but bless (Beldame, a moment since) the outbreaking beauty, now, That casts o'er all the blood a candor from her brow. See, Cleopatra! bared, the entire and sinuous wealth O' the shining shape; each orb of indolent ripe health, Captured, just where it finds a fellow-orb as fine I' the body: traced about by jewels which outline, Fire-frame, and keep distinct, perfections--lest they melt To soft smooth unity ere half their hold be felt: Yet, o'er that white and wonder, a soul's predominance I' the head so high and haught--except one thievish glance, From back of oblong eye, intent to count the slain. Hush,--oh, I know, Elvire! Be patient, more remain! What say you to Saint? ... Pish! Whatever Saint you please, Cold-pinnacled aloft o' the spire, prays calm the seas From Pornic Church, and oft at midnight (peasants say) Goes walking out to save from shipwreck: well she may! For think how many a year has she been conversant With naught but winds and rains, sharp courtesy and scant O' the wintry snow that coats the pent-house of her shrine, Covers each knee, climbs near, but spares the smile benign Which seems to say, "I looked for scarce so much from earth!" She follows, one long thin pure finger in the girth O' the girdle--whence the folds of garment, eye and eye, Besprent with fleurs-de-lys, flow down and multiply Around her feet,--and one, pressed hushingly to lip: As if, while thus we made her march, some foundering ship Might miss her from her post, nearer to God halfway In heaven, and she inquired, "Who that treads earth can pray? I doubt if even she, the unashamed! though, sure, She must have stripped herself only to clothe the poor."

XXI

This time, enough 's a feast, not one more form, Elvire! Provided you allow that, bringing up the rear O' the bevy I am loth to--by one bird--curtail, First note may lead to last, an octave crown the scale, And this feminity be followed--do not flout!-- By--who concludes the masque with curtsey, smile and pout, Submissive-mutinous? No other than Fifine Points toe, imposes haunch, and pleads with tambourine!

XXII

"Well, what 's the meaning here, what does the masque intend, Which, unabridged, we saw file past us, with no end Of fair ones, till Fifine came, closed the catalogue?"

XXIII

Task fancy yet again! Suppose you cast this clog Of flesh away (that weeps, upbraids, withstands my arm) And pass to join your peers, paragon charm with charm, As I shall show you may,--prove best of beauty there! Yourself confront yourself! This, help me to declare That yonder-you, who stand beside these, braving each And blinking none, beat her who lured to Troy-town beach The purple prows of Greece,--nay, beat Fifine; whose face, Mark how I will inflame, when seigneur-like I place I' the tambourine, to spot the strained and piteous blank Of pleading parchment, see, no less than a whole franc!

XXIV

Ah, do you mark the brown o' the cloud, made bright with fire Through and through? as, old wiles succeeding to desire, Quality (you and I) once more compassionate A hapless infant, doomed (fie on such partial fate!) To sink the inborn shame, waive privilege of sex, And posture as you see, support the nods and becks Of clowns that have their stare, nor always pay its price; An infant born perchance as sensitive and nice As any soul of you, proud dames, whom destiny Keeps uncontaminate from stigma of the sty She wallows in! You draw back skirts from filth like her Who, possibly, braves scorn, if, scorned, she minister To age, want, and disease of parents one or both; Nay, peradventure, stoops to degradation, loth That some just-budding sister, the dew yet on the rose, Should have to share in turn the ignoble trade,--who knows?

XXV

Ay, who indeed! Myself know nothing, but dare guess That oft she trips in haste to hand the booty ... yes, 'Twixt fold and fold of tent, there looms he, dim-discerned, The ogre, lord of all those lavish limbs have earned! --Brute-beast-face,--ravage, sear, scowl and malignancy,-- O' the Strong Man, whom (no doubt, her husband) by and by You shall behold do feats: lift up nor quail beneath A quintal in each hand, a cart-wheel 'twixt his teeth. Oh, she prefers sheer strength to ineffective grace, Breeding and culture! seeks the essential in the case! To him has flown my franc; and welcome, if that squint O' the diabolic eye so soften through absinthe, That for once, tambourine, tunic and tricot 'scape Their customary curse "Not half the gain o' the ape!" Ay, they go in together!

XXVI

Yet still her phantom stays Opposite, where you stand: as steady 'neath our gaze,-- The live Elvire's and mine,--though fancy stuff and mere Illusion; to be judged--dream-figures--without fear Or favor, those the false, by you and me the true.

XXVII

"What puts it in my head to make yourself judge you?" Well, it may be, the name of Helen brought to mind A certain myth I mused in years long left behind: How she that fled from Greece with Paris whom she loved, And came to Troy, and there found shelter, and so proved Such cause of the world's woe,--how she, old stories call This creature, Helen's self, never saw Troy at all. Jove had his fancy-fit, must needs take empty air, Fashion her likeness forth, and set the phantom there I' the midst for sport, to try conclusions with the blind And blundering race, the game create for Gods, mankind: Experiment on these,--establish who would yearn To give up life for her, who, other-minded, spurn The best her eyes could smile,--make half the world sublime, And half absurd, for just a phantom all the time! Meanwhile true Helen's self sat, safe and far away, By a great river-side, beneath a purer day, With solitude around, tranquillity within; Was able to lean forth, look, listen, through the din And stir; could estimate the worthlessness or worth Of Helen who inspired such passion to the earth, A phantom all the time! That put it in my head To make yourself judge you--the phantom-wife instead O' the tearful true Elvire!

XXVIII

I thank the smile at last Which thins away the tear! Our sky was overcast, And something fell; but day clears up: if there chanced rain, The landscape glistens more. I have not vexed in vain Elvire: because she knows, now she has stood the test, How, this and this being good, herself may still be best O' the beauty in review; because the flesh that claimed Unduly my regard, she thought, the taste, she blamed In me, for things externe, was all mistake, she finds,-- Or will find, when I prove that bodies show me minds, That, through the outward sign, the inward grace allures, And sparks from heaven transpierce earth's coarsest covertures, All by demonstrating-the value of Fifine!

XXIX

Partake my confidence! No creature 's made so mean But that, some way, it boasts, could we investigate, Its supreme worth: fulfils, by ordinance of fate, Its momentary task, gets glory all its own, Tastes triumph in the world, pre-eminent, alone. Where is the single grain of sand, 'mid millions heaped. Confusedly on the beach, but, did we know, has leaped Or will leap, would we wait, i' the century, some once, To the very throne of things?--earth's brightest for the nonce, When sunshine shall impinge on just that grain's facette Which fronts him fullest, first, returns his ray with jet Of promptest praise, thanks God best in creation's name! As firm is my belief, quick sense perceives the same Self-vindicating flash illustrate every man And woman of our mass, and prove, throughout the plan, No detail but, in place allotted it, was prime And perfect.

XXX

Witness her, kept waiting all this time! What happy angle makes Fifine reverberate Sunshine, least sand-grain, she, of shadiest social state? No adamantine shield, polished like Helen there, Fit to absorb the sun, regorge him till the glare, Dazing the universe, draw Troy-ward those blind beaks Of equal-sided ships rowed by the well-greaved Greeks! No Asian mirror, like yon Ptolemaic witch Able to fix sun fast and tame sun down, enrich, Not burn the world with beams thus flatteringly rolled About her, head to foot, turned slavish snakes of gold! And oh, no tinted pane of oriel sanctity, Does our Fifine afford, such as permits supply Of lustrous heaven, revealed, far more than mundane sight Could master, to thy cell, pure Saint! where, else too bright, So suits thy sense the orb, that, what outside was noon, Pales, through thy lozenged blue, to meek benefic moon! What then? does that prevent each dunghill, we may pass Daily, from boasting too its bit of looking-glass, Its sherd which, sun-smit, shines, shoots arrowy fire beyond That satin-muffled mope, your sulky diamond?

XXXI

And now, the mingled ray she shoots, I decompose. Her antecedents, take for execrable! Gloze No whit on your premiss: let be, there was no worst Of degradation spared Fifine: ordained from first To last, in body and soul, for one life-long debauch, The Pariah of the North, the European Nautch! This, far from seek to hide, she puts in evidence Calmly, displays the brand, bids pry without offence Your finger on the place. You comment, "Fancy us So operated on, maltreated, mangled thus! Such torture in our case, had we survived an hour? Some other sort of flesh and blood must be, with power Appropriate to the vile, unsensitive, tough-thonged, In lieu of our fine nerve! Be sure, she was not wronged Too much: you must not think she winced at prick as we!" Come, come, that 's what you say, or would, were thoughts but free.

XXXII

Well then, thus much confessed, what wonder if there steal Unchallenged to nay heart the force of one appeal She makes, and justice stamp the sole claim she asserts? So absolutely good is truth, truth never hurts The teller, whose worst crime gets somehow grace, avowed. To me, that silent pose and prayer proclaimed aloud: "Know all of me outside, the rest be emptiness For such as you! I call attention to my dress, Coiffure, outlandish features, lithe memorable limbs, Piquant entreaty, all that eye-glance overskims. Does this give pleasure? Then, repay the pleasure, put Its price i' the tambourine! Do you seek further? Tut! I 'm just my instrument,--sound hollow: mere smooth skin Stretched o'er gilt framework, I; rub-dub, naught else within-- Always, for such as you!--if I have use elsewhere, If certain bells, now mute, can jingle, need you care? Be it enough, there 's truth i' the pleading, which comports With no word spoken out in cottages or courts, Since all I plead is, 'Pay for just the sight you see, And give no credit to another charm in me!' Do I say, like your Love? 'To praise my face is well, But, who would know my worth, must search my heart to tell!' Do I say, like your Wife? 'Had I passed in review The produce of the globe, my man of men were--you!' Do I say, like your Helen? 'Yield yourself up, obey Implicitly, nor pause to question, to survey Even the worshipful! prostrate you at my shrine! Shall you dare controvert what the world counts divine? Array your private taste, own liking of the sense, Own longing of the soul, against the impudence Of history, the blare and bullying of verse? As if man ever yet saw reason to disburse The amount of what sense liked, soul longed for,--given, devised As love, forsooth,--until the price was recognized As moderate enough by divers fellow-men! Then, with his warrant safe that these would love too, then, Sure that particular gain implies a public loss, And that no smile he buys but proves a slash across The face, a stab into the side of somebody-- Sure that, along with love's main-purchase, he will buy Up the whole stock of earth's uncharitableness, Envy and hatred,--then, decides he to profess His estimate of one, by love discerned, though dim To all the world beside: since what 's the world to him?' Do I say, like your Queen of Egypt? 'Who foregoes My cup of witchcraft--fault be on the fool! He knows Nothing of how I pack my wine-press, turn its winch Three-times-three, all the time to song and dance, nor flinch From charming on and on, till at the last I squeeze Out the exhaustive drop that leaves behind mere lees And dregs, vapidity, thought essence heretofore! Sup of my sorcery, old pleasures please no more! Be great, be good, love, learn, have potency of hand Or heart or head,--what boots? You die, nor understand What bliss might be in life: you ate the grapes, but knew Never the taste of wine, such vintage as I brew!' Do I say, like your Saint? 'An exquisitest touch Bides in the birth of things: no after-time can much Enhance that fine, that faint, fugitive first of all! What color paints the cup o' the May-rose, like the small Suspicion of a blush which doubtfully begins? What sound outwarbles brook, while, at the source, it wins That moss and stone dispart, allow its bubblings breathe? What taste excels the fruit, just where sharp flavors sheathe Their sting, and let encroach the honey that allays? And so with soul and sense; when sanctity betrays First fear lest earth below seem real as heaven above, And holy worship, late, change soon to sinful love-- Where is the plenitude of passion which endures Comparison with that, I ask of amateurs?' Do I say, like Elvire" ...

XXXIII

(Your husband holds you fast, Will have you listen, learn your character at last!) "Do I say?--like her mixed unrest and discontent, Reproachfulness and scorn, with that submission blent So strangely, in the face, by sad smiles and gay tears,-- Quiescence which attacks, rebellion which endears,-- Say? 'As you loved me once, could you but love me now! Years probably have graved their passage on my brow, Lips turn more rarely red, eyes sparkle less than erst; Such tribute body pays to time; but, unamerced, The soul retains, nay, boasts old treasure multiplied. Though dew-prime flee,--mature at noonday, love defied Chance, the wind, change, the rain: love strenuous all the more For storm, struck deeper root and choicer fruitage bore, Despite the rocking world; yet truth struck root in vain: While tenderness bears fruit, you praise, not taste again. Why? They are yours, which once were hardly yours, might go To grace another's ground: and then--the hopes we know, The fears we keep in mind!--when, ours to arbitrate, Your part was to bow neck, bid fall decree of fate. Then, O the knotty point--white-night's work to revolve-- What meant that smile, that sigh? Not Solon's self could solve! Then, O the deep surmise what one word might express, And if what seemed her "No" may not have meant her "Yes!" Then, such annoy, for cause--calm welcome, such acquist Of rapture if, refused her arm, hand touched her wrist! Now, what 's a smile to you? Poor candle that lights up The decent household gloom which sends you out to sup. A tear? worse! warns that health requires you keep aloof From nuptial chamber, since rain penetrates the roof! Soul, body got and gained, inalienably safe Your own, become despised; more worth has any waif Or stray from neighbor's pale: pouch that,--'t is pleasure, pride, Novelty, property, and larceny beside! Preposterous thought! to find no value fixed in things, To covet all you see, hear, dream of, till fate brings About that, what you want, you gain; then follows change. Give you the sun to keep, forthwith must fancy range: A goodly lamp, no doubt,--yet might you catch her hair And capture, as she frisks, the fen-fire dancing there! What do I say? at least a meteor 's half in heaven; Provided filth but shine, my husband hankers even After putridity that 's phosphorescent, cribs The rustic's tallow-rush, makes spoil of urchins' squibs, In short, prefers to me--chaste, temperate, serene-- What sputters green and blue, this fizgig called Fifine!'"

XXXIV

So all your sex mistake! Strange that so plain a fact Should raise such dire debate! Few families were racked By torture self-supplied, did Nature grant but this-- That women comprehend mental analysis!

XXXV

Elvire, do you recall when, years ago, our home The intimation reached, a certain pride of Rome, Authenticated piece, in the third, last and best Manner--whatever, fools and connoisseurs contest,-- No particle disturbed by rude restorer's touch, The palaced picture-pearl, so long eluding clutch Of creditor, at last, the Rafael might--could we But come to terms--change lord, pass from the Prince to me? I think you recollect my fever of a year: How the Prince would, and how he would not; now,--too dear That promise was, he made his grandsire so long since, Rather to boast "I own a Rafael" than "am Prince!" And now, the fancy soothed--if really sell he must His birthright for a mess of pottage--such a thrust I' the vitals of the Prince were mollified by balm, Could he prevail upon his stomach to bear qualm, And bequeath Liberty (because a purchaser Was ready with the sum--a trifle!) yes, transfer His heart at all events to that land where, at least, Free institutions reign! And so, its price increased Fivefold (Americans are such importunates!), Soon must his Rafael start for the United States. Oh, alternating bursts of hope now, then despair! At last, the bargain 's struck, I 'm all but beggared, there The Rafael faces me, in fine, no dream at all, My housemate, evermore to glorify my wall. A week must pass, before heart-palpitations sink, In gloating o'er my gain, so late I edged the brink Of doom; a fortnight more, I spend in Paradise: "Was outline e'er so true, could coloring entice So calm, did harmony and quiet so avail? How right, how resolute, the action tells the tale!" A month, I bid my friends congratulate their best: "You happy Don!" (to me): "The blockhead!" (to the rest): "No doubt he thinks his daub original, poor dupe!" Then I resume my life: one chamber must not coop Man's life in, though it boast a marvel like my prize. Next year, I saunter past with unaverted eyes, Nay, loll and turn my back: perchance to overlook With relish, leaf by leaf, Doré's last picture-book.

XXXVI

Imagine that a voice reproached me from its frame: "Here do I hang, and may! Your Rafael, just the same, 'T is only you that change; no ecstasies of yore! No purposed suicide distracts you any more!" Prompt would my answer meet such frivolous attack: "You misappropriate sensations. What men lack, And labor to obtain, is hoped and feared about After a fashion; what they once obtain, makes doubt, Expectancy's old fret and fume, henceforward void. But do they think to hold such havings unalloyed By novel hopes and fears, of fashion just as new, To correspond i' the scale? Nowise, I promise you! Mine you are, therefore mine will be, as fit to cheer My soul and glad my sense to-day as this-day-year. So, any sketch or scrap, pochade, caricature, Made in a moment, meant a moment to endure, I snap at, seize, enjoy, then tire of, throw aside, Find you in your old place. But if a servant cried 'Fire in the gallery!'--methinks, were I engaged In Doré, elbow-deep, picture-books million-paged To the four winds would pack, sped by the heartiest curse Was ever launched from lip, to strew the universe. Would not I brave the best o' the burning, bear away Either my perfect piece in safety, or else stay And share its fate, be made its martyr, nor repine? Inextricably wed, such ashes mixed with mine!"

XXXVII

For which I get the eye, the hand, the heart, the whole O' the wondrous wife again!

XXXVIII

But no, play out your rôle I' the pageant! 'T is not fit your phantom leave the stage: I want you, there, to make you, here, confess you wage Successful warfare, pique those proud ones, and advance Claim to ... equality? nay, but predominance In physique o'er them all, where Helen heads the scene Closed by its tiniest of tail-tips, pert Fifine. How ravishingly pure you stand in pale constraint! My new-created shape, without or touch or taint, Inviolate of life and worldliness and sin-- Fettered, I hold my flower, her own cup's weight would win From off the tall slight stalk a-top of which she turns And trembles, makes appeal to one who roughly earns Her thanks instead of blame, (did lily only know,) By thus constraining length of lily, letting snow Of cup-crown, that 's her face, look from its guardian stake, Superb on all that crawls beneath, and mutely make Defiance, with the mouth's white movement of disdain, To all that stoops, retires, and hovers round again! How windingly the limbs delay to lead up, reach Where, crowned, the head waits calm: as if reluctant, each, That eye should traverse quick such lengths of loveliness, From feet, which just are found embedded in the dress Deep swathed about with folds and flowings virginal, Up to the pleated breasts, rebellious 'neath their pall, As if the vesture's snow were moulding sleep not death, Must melt and so release; whereat, from the fine sheath, The flower-cup-crown starts free, the face is unconcealed, And what shall now divert me, once the sweet face revealed, From all I loved so long, so lingeringly left?

XXXIX

Because indeed your face fits into just the cleft O' the heart of me, Elvire, makes right and whole once more All that was half itself without you! As before, My truant finds its place! Doubtlessly sea-shells yearn, If plundered by sad chance: would pray their pearls return, Let negligently slip away into the wave! Never may eyes desist, those eyes so gray and grave, From their slow sure supply of the effluent soul within! And, would you humor me? I dare to ask, unpin The web of that brown hair! O'erwash o' the sudden, but As promptly, too, disclose, on either side, the jut Of alabaster brow! So part rich rillets dyed Deep by the woodland leaf, when down they pour, each side O' the rock-top, pushed by Spring!

XL

"And where i' the world is all This wonder, you detail so trippingly, espied? My mirror would reflect a tall, thin, pale, deep-eyed Personage, pretty once, it may be, doubtless still Loving,--a certain grace yet lingers, if you will,-- But all this wonder, where?"

XLI

Why, where but in the sense And soul of me, Art's judge? Art is my evidence That something was, is, might be; but no more thing itself, Than flame is fuel. Once the verse-book laid on shelf, The picture turned to wall, the music fled from ear,-- Each beauty, born of each, grows clearer and more clear, Mine henceforth, ever mine!

XLII

But if I would retrace Effect, in Art, to cause,--corroborate, erase What 's right or wrong i' the lines, test fancy in my brain By fact which gave it birth? I re-peruse in vain The verse, I fail to find that vision of delight I' the Bazzi's lost-profile, eye-edge so exquisite. And, music: what? that burst of pillared cloud by day And pillared fire by night, was product, must we say, Of modulating just, by enharmonic change,-- The augmented sixth resolved,--from out the straighter range Of D sharp minor--leap of disimprisoned thrall-- Into thy light and life, D major natural?

XLIII

Elvire, will you partake in what I shall impart? I seem to understand the way heart chooses heart By help of the outside form,--a reason for our wild Diversity in choice,--why each grows reconciled To what is absent, what superfluous in the mask Of flesh that 's meant to yield,--did nature ply her task As artist should,--precise the features of the soul, Which, if in any case they found expression, whole I' the traits, would give a type, undoubtedly display A novel, true, distinct perfection in its way. Never shall I believe any two souls were made Similar; granting, then, each soul of every grade Was meant to be itself, prove in itself complete, And, in completion, good,--nay, best o' the kind,--as meet Needs must it be that show on the outside correspond With inward substance,--flesh, the dress which soul has donned, Exactly reproduce,--were only justice done Inside and outside too,--types perfect every one. How happens it that here we meet a mystery Insoluble to man, a plaguy puzzle? Why Each soul is either made imperfect, and deserves As rude a face to match; or else a bungler swerves, And nature, on a soul worth rendering aright, Works ill, or proves perverse, or, in her own despite, --Here too much, there too little,--bids each face, more or less, Retire from beauty, make approach to ugliness? And yet succeeds the same: since, what is wanting to success, If somehow every face, no matter how deform, Evidence, to some one of hearts on earth, that, warm Beneath the veriest ash, there hides a spark of soul Which, quickened by love's breath, may yet pervade the whole O' the gray, and, free again, be fire?--of worth the same, Howe'er produced, for, great or little, flame is flame. A mystery, whereof solution is to seek.

XLIV

I find it in the fact that each soul, just as weak Its own way as its fellow,--departure from design As flagrant in the flesh,--goes striving to combine With what shall right the wrong, the under or above The standard: supplement unloveliness by love. --Ask Plato else! And this corroborates the sage, That Art,--which I may style the love of loving, rage Of knowing, seeing, feeling the absolute truth of things For truth's sake, whole and sole, not any good, truth brings The knower, seer, feeler, beside,--instinctive Art Must fumble for the whole, once fixing on a part However poor, surpass the fragment, and aspire To reconstruct thereby the ultimate entire. Art, working with a will, discards the superflux, Contributes to defect, toils on till,--_fiat lux_,-- There 's the restored, the prime, the individual type!

XLV

Look, for example now! This piece of broken pipe (Some shipman's solace erst) shall act as crayon; and What tablet better serves my purpose than the sand? --Smooth slab whereon I draw, no matter with what skill, A face, and yet another, and yet another still. There lie my three prime types of beauty!

XLVI

Laugh your best! "Exaggeration and absurdity?" Confessed! Yet, what may that face mean, no matter for its nose, A yard long, or its chin, a foot short?

XLVII

"You suppose, Horror?" Exactly! What 's the odds if, more or less By yard or foot, the features do manage to express Such meaning in the main? Were I of Gérôme's force, Nor feeble as you see, quick should my crayon course O'er outline, curb, excite, till,--so completion speeds With Gérôme well at work,--observe how brow recedes, Head shudders back on spine, as if one haled the hair, Would have the full-face front what pin-point eye's sharp stare Announces; mouth agape to drink the flowing fate, While chin protrudes to meet the burst o' the wave: elate Almost, spurred on to brave necessity, expend All life left, in one flash, as fire does at its end. Retrenchment and addition effect a masterpiece, Not change i' the motive: here dimmish, there increase-- And who wants Horror, has it.

XLVIII

Who wants some other show Of soul, may seek elsewhere--this second of the row? What does it give for germ, monadic mere intent Of mind in face, faint first of meanings ever meant? Why, possibly, a grin, that, strengthened, grows a laugh; That, softened, leaves a smile; that, tempered, bids you quaff At such a magic cup as English Reynolds once Compounded: for the witch pulls out of you response Like Garrick's to Thalia, however due may be Your homage claimed by that stiff-stoled Melpomene!

XLIX

And just this one face more! Pardon the bold pretence! May there not lurk some hint, struggle toward evidence In that compressed mouth, those strained nostrils, steadfast eyes Of utter passion, absolute self-sacrifice, Which--could I but subdue the wild grotesque, refine That bulge of brow, make blunt that nose's aquiline, And let, although compressed, a point of pulp appear I' the mouth--would give at last the portrait of Elvire?

L

Well, and if so succeed hand-practice on awry Preposterous art-mistake, shall soul-proficiency Despair,--when exercised on nature, which at worst Always implies success,--however crossed and curst By failure,--such as art would emulate in vain? Shall any soul despair of setting free again Trait after trait, until the type as wholly start Forth, visible to sense, as that minutest part, (Whate'er the chance,) which first arresting eye, warned soul That, under wrong enough and ravage, lay the whole O' the loveliness it "loved"--I take the accepted phrase?

LI

So I account for tastes: each chooses, none gainsays The fancy of his fellow, a paradise for him, A hell for all beside. You can but crown the brim O' the cup; if it be full, what matters less or more? Let each, i' the world, amend his love, as I, o' the shore, My sketch, and the result as undisputed be! Their handiwork to them, and my Elvire to me: --Result more beautiful than beauty's self, when lo, What was my Rafael turns my Michelagnolo!

LII

For, we two boast, beside our pearl, a diamond. I' the palace-gallery, the corridor beyond, Upheaves itself a marble, a magnitude man-shaped As snow might be. One hand--the Master's--smoothed and scraped That mass, he hammered on and hewed at, till he hurled Life out of death, and left a challenge: for the world, Death still,--since who shall dare, close to the image, say If this be purposed Art, or mere mimetic play Of Nature?--wont to deal with crag or cloud, as stuff To fashion novel forms, like forms we know, enough For recognition, but enough unlike the same, To leave no hope ourselves may profit by her game; Death therefore to the world. Step back a pace or two! And then, who dares dispute the gradual birth its due Of breathing life, or breathless immortality, Where out she stands, and yet stops short, half bold, half shy, Hesitates on the threshold of things, since partly blent With stuff she needs must quit, her native element I' the mind o' the Master,--what 's the creature, dear-divine Yet earthly-awful too, so manly-feminine, Pretends this white advance? What startling brain-escape Of Michelagnolo takes elemental shape? I think he meant the daughter of the old man o' the sea, Emerging from her wave, goddess Eidotheé-- She who, in elvish sport, spite with benevolence Mixed Mab-wise up, must needs instruct the Hero whence Salvation dawns o'er that mad misery of his isle. Yes, she imparts to him, by what a pranksome wile He may surprise her sire, asleep beneath a rock, When he has told their tale, amid his webfoot flock Of sea-beasts, "fine fat seals with bitter breath!" laughs she At whom she likes to save, no less: Eidotheé, Whom you shall never face evolved, in earth, in air, In wave; but, manifest i' the soul's domain, why, there She ravishingly moves to meet you, all through aid O' the soul! Bid shine what should, dismiss into the shade What should not be,--and there triumphs the paramount Emprise o' the Master! But, attempt to make account Of what the sense, without soul's help perceives? I bought That work--(despite plain proof, whose hand it was had wrought I' the rough: I think we trace the tool of triple tooth, Here, there, and everywhere)--bought dearly that uncouth Unwieldy bulk, for just ten dollars--"Bulk, would fetch-- Converted into lime--some five pauls!" grinned a wretch, Who, bound on business, paused to hear the bargaining, And would have pitied me "but for the fun o' the thing!"

LIII

Shall such a wretch be--you? Must--while I show Elvire Shaming all other forms, seen as I see her here I' the soul,--this other-you perversely look outside, And ask me, "Where i' the world is charm to be descried I' the tall thin personage, with paled eye, pensive face, Any amount of love, and some remains of grace?" See yourself in my soul!

LIV

And what a world for each Must somehow be i' the soul,--accept that mode of speech,-- Whether an aura gird the soul, wherein it seems To float and move, a belt of all the glints and gleams It struck from out that world, its weaklier fellows found So dead and cold; or whether these not so much surround, As pass into the soul itself, add worth to worth, As wine enriches blood, and straightway send it forth, Conquering and to conquer, through all eternity, That 's battle without end.

LV

I search but cannot see What purpose serves the soul that strives, or world it tries Conclusions with, unless the fruit of victories Stay, one and all, stored up and guaranteed its own Forever, by some mode whereby shall be made known The gain of every life. Death reads the title clear-- What each soul for itself conquered from out things here: Since, in the seeing soul, all worth lies, I assert,-- And naught i' the world, which, save for soul that sees, inert Was, is, and would be ever,--stuff for transmuting,--null And void until man's breath evoke the beautiful-- But, touched aright, prompt yields each particle its tongue Of elemental flame,--no matter whence flame sprung From gums and spice, or else from straw and rottenness, So long as soul has power to make them burn, express What lights and warms henceforth, leaves only ash behind, Howe'er the chance: if soul be privileged to find Food so soon that, by first snatch of eye, suck of breath, It can absorb pure life: or, rather, meeting death I' the shape of ugliness, by fortunate recoil So put on its resource, it find therein a foil For a new birth of life, the challenged soul's response To ugliness and death,--creation for the nonce.

LVI

I gather heart through just such conquests of the soul, Through evocation out of that which, on the whole, Was rough, ungainly, partial accomplishment, at best, And--what, at worst, save failure to spit at and detest?-- --Through transference of all, achieved in visible things, To where, secured from wrong, rest soul's imaginings-- Through ardor to bring help just where completion halts, Do justice to the purpose, ignore the slips and faults-- And, last, through waging with deformity a fight Which wrings thence, at the end, precise its opposite. I praise the loyalty o' the scholar,--stung by taunt Of fools, "Does this evince thy Master men so vaunt? Did he then perpetrate the plain abortion here?"-- Who cries, "His work am I! full fraught by him, I clear His fame from each result of accident and time, Myself restore his work to its fresh morning-prime, Not daring touch the mass of marble, fools deride, But putting my idea in plaster by its side, His, since mine; I, he made, vindicate who made me!"

LVII

For you must know, I too achieved Eidotheé, In silence and by night--dared justify the lines Plain to my soul, although, to sense, that triple-tine's Achievement halt halfway, break down, or leave a blank. If she stood forth at last, the Master was to thank! Yet may there not have smiled approval in his eyes-- That one at least was left who, born to recognize Perfection in the piece imperfect, worked, that night, In silence, such his faith, until the apposite Design was out of him, truth palpable once more? And then--for at one blow, its fragments strewed the floor-- Recalled the same to live within his soul as heretofore.

LVIII

And, even as I hold and have Eidotheé, I say, I cannot think that gain,--which would not be Except a special soul had gained it,--that such gain Can ever be estranged, do aught but appertain Immortally, by right firm, indefeasible, To who performed the feat, through God's grace and man's will! Gain, never shared by those who practised with earth's stuff, And spoiled whate'er they touched, leaving its roughness rough, Its blankness bare, and, when the ugliness opposed, Either struck work or laughed "He doted or he dozed!"

LIX

While, oh, how all the more will love become intense Hereafter, when "to love" means yearning to dispense, Each soul, its own amount of gain through its own mode Of practising with life, upon some soul which owed Its treasure, all diverse and yet in worth the same, To new work and changed way! Things furnish you rose-flame, Which burn up red, green, blue, nay, yellow more than needs, For me, I nowise doubt; why doubt a time succeeds When each one may impart, and each receive, both share The chemic secret, learn,--where I lit force, why there You drew forth lambent pity,--where I found only food For self-indulgence, you still blew a spark at brood I' the grayest ember, stopped not till self-sacrifice imbued Heaven's face with flame? What joy, when each may supplement The other, changing each, as changed, till, wholly blent, Our old things shall be new, and, what we both ignite, Fuse, lose the varicolor in achromatic white! Exemplifying law, apparent even now In the eternal progress,--love's law, which I avow And thus would formulate: each soul lives, longs and works For itself, by itself, because a lodestar lurks, An other than itself,--in whatsoe'er the niche Of mistiest heaven it hide, whoe'er the Glumdalclich May grasp the Gulliver: or it, or he, or she-- _Theosutos e broteios eper kekramene_,-- (For fun's sake, where the phrase has fastened, leave it fixed! So soft it says,--"God, man, or both together mixed!") This, guessed at through the flesh, by parts which prove the whole, This constitutes the soul discernible by soul --Elvire, by me!

LX

"And then"--(pray you, permit remain This hand upon my arm!--your cheek dried, if you deign, Choosing my shoulder)--"then!"--(Stand up for, boldly state The objection in its length and breadth!) "You abdicate, With boast yet on your lip, soul's empire, and accept The rule of sense; the Man, from monarch's throne has stept-- Leapt, rather, at one bound, to base, and there lies, Brute. You talk of soul,--how soul, in search of soul to suit, Must needs review the sex, the army, rank and file Of womankind, report no face nor form so vile But that a certain worth, by certain signs, may thence Evolve itself and stand confessed--to soul--by sense. Sense? Oh, the loyal bee endeavors for the hive! Disinterested hunts the flower-field through, alive Not one mean moment, no,--suppose on flower he light,-- To his peculiar drop, petal-dew perquisite, Matter-of-course snatched snack: unless he taste, how try? This, light on tongue-tip laid, allows him pack his thigh, Transport all he counts prize, provision for the comb, Food for the future day,--a banquet, but at home! Soul? Ere you reach Fifine's, some flesh may be to pass! That bombéd brow, that eye, a kindling chrysopras, Beneath its stiff black lash, inquisitive how speeds Each functionary limb, how play of foot succeeds, And how you let escape or duly sympathize With gastro-knemian grace,--true, your soul tastes and tries, And trifles time with these, but, fear not, will arrive At essence in the core, bring honey home to hive, Brain-stock and heart-stuff both--to strike objectors dumb-- Since only soul affords the soul fit pabulum! Be frank for charity! Who is it you deceive-- Yourself or me or God, with all this make-believe?"

LXI

And frank I will respond as you interrogate. Ah, Music, wouldst thou help! Words struggle with the weight So feebly of the False, thick element between Our soul, the True, and Truth! which, but that intervene False shows of things, were reached as easily by thought Reducible to word, as now by yearnings wrought Up with thy fine free force, O Music, that canst thrid, Electrically win a passage through the lid Of earthly sepulchre, our words may push against, Hardly transpierce as thou! Not dissipate, thou deign'st, So much as tricksily elude what words attempt To heave away, i' the mass, and let the soul, exempt From all that vapory obstruction, view, instead Of glimmer underneath, a glory overhead. Not feebly, like our phrase, against the barrier go In suspirative swell the authentic notes I know, By help whereof, I would our souls were found without The pale, above the dense and dim which breeds the doubt! But Music, dumb for you, withdraws her help from me; And, since to weary words recourse again must be, At least permit they rest their burden here and there, Music-like: cover space! My answer,--need you care If it exceed the bounds, reply to questioning You never meant should plague? Once fairly on the wing, Let me flap far and wide!

LXII

For this is just the time, The place, the mood in you and me, when all things chime. Clash forth life's common chord, whence, list how there ascend Harmonics far and faint, till our perception end,-- Reverberated notes whence we construct the scale Embracing what we know and feel and are! How fail To find or, better, lose your question, in this quick Reply which nature yields, ample and catholic? For, arm in arm, we too have reached, nay, passed, you see, The village-precinct; sun sets mild on Sainte-Marie-- We only catch the spire, and yet I seem to know What 's hid i' the turn o' the hill: how all the graves must glow Soberly, as each warms its little iron cross, Flourished about with gold, and graced (if private loss Be fresh) with stiff rope-wreath of yellow crisp bead-blooms Which tempt down birds to pay their supper, 'mid the tombs, With prattle good as song, amuse the dead awhile, If couched they hear beneath the matted camomile!

LXIII

Bid them good-by before last friend has sung and supped! Because we pick our path and need our eyes,--abrupt Descent enough,--but here 's the beach, and there 's the bay, And, opposite, the streak of Île Noirmoutier. Thither the waters tend; they freshen as they haste, At feel o' the night-wind, though, by cliff and cliff embraced, This breadth of blue retains its self-possession still; As you and I intend to do, who take our fill Of sights and sounds--soft sound, the countless hum and skip Of insects we disturb, and that good fellowship Of rabbits our footfall sends huddling, each to hide He best knows how and where; and what whirred past, wings wide? That was, an owl, their young may justlier apprehend! Though you refuse to speak, your beating heart, my friend, I feel against my arm,--though your bent head forbids A look into your eyes, yet, on my cheek, their lids That ope and shut, soft send a silken thrill the same. Well, out of all and each these nothings, comes--what came Often enough before, the something that would aim Once more at the old mark: the impulse to at last Succeed where hitherto was failure in the past, And yet again essay the adventure. Clearlier sings No bird to its couched corpse, "Into the truth of things-- Out of their falseness rise, and reach thou, and remain!

LXIV

"That rise into the true out of the false--explain?" May an example serve? In yonder bay I bathed, This sunny morning: swam my best, then hung, half swathed With chill, and half with warmth, i' the channel's midmost deep: You know how one--not treads, but stands in water? Keep Body and limbs below, hold head back, uplift chin, And, for the rest, leave care! If brow, eyes, mouth, should win Their freedom,--excellent! If they must brook the surge, No matter though they sink, let but the nose emerge. So, all of me in brine lay soaking: did I care One jot? I kept alive by man's due breath of air I' the nostrils, high and dry. At times, o'er these would run The ripple, even wash the wavelet,--morning's sun Tempted advance, no doubt: and always flash of froth, Fish-outbreak, bubbling by, would find me nothing loth To rise and look around; then all was overswept With dark and death at once. But trust the old adept! Back went again the head, a merest motion made, Fin-fashion, either hand, and nostril soon conveyed Assurance light and life were still in reach as erst: Always the last and--wait and watch--sometimes the first. Try to ascend breast-high? wave arms wide free of tether? Be in the air and leave the water altogether? Under went all again, till I resigned myself To only breathe the air, that 's footed by an elf, And only swim the water, that 's native to a fish. But there is no denying that, ere I curbed my wish, And schooled my restive arms, salt entered mouth and eyes Often enough--sun, sky, and air so tantalize! Still, the adept swims, this accorded, that denied; Can always breathe, sometimes see and be satisfied!

LXV

I liken to this play o' the body--fruitless strife To slip the sea and hold the heaven--my spirit's life 'Twixt false, whence it would break, and true, where it would bide. I move in, yet resist, am upborne every side By what I beat against, an element too gross To live in, did not soul duly obtain her dose Of life-breath, and inhale from truth's pure plenitude Above her, snatch and gain enough to just illude With hope that some brave bound may baffle evermore The obstructing medium, make who swam henceforward soar: --Gain scarcely snatched when, foiled by the very effort, souse, Underneath ducks the soul, her truthward yearnings dowse Deeper in falsehood! ay, but fitted less and less To bear in nose and mouth old briny bitterness Proved alien more and more: since each experience proves Air--the essential good, not sea, wherein who moves Must thence, in the act, escape, apart from will or wish. Move a mere hand to take water-weed, jelly-fish, Upward you tend! And yet our business with the sea Is not with air, but just o' the water, watery: We must endure the false, no particle of which Do we acquaint us with, but up we mount a pitch Above it, find our head reach truth, while hands explore The false below: so much while here we bathe,--no more!

LXVI

Now, there is one prime point (hear and be edified!) One truth more true for me than any truth beside-- To-wit, that I am I, who have the power to swim, The skill to understand the law whereby each limb May bear to keep immersed, since, in return, made sure That its mere movement lifts head clean through coverture. By practice with the false, I reach the true? Why, thence It follows, that the more I gain self-confidence, Get proof I know the trick, can float, sink, rise, at will, The better I submit to what I have the skill To conquer in my turn, even now, and by and by Leave wholly for the land, and there laugh, shake me dry To last drop, saturate with noonday--no need more Of wet and fret, plagued once: on Pornic's placid shore, Abundant air to breathe, sufficient sun to feel! Meantime I buoy myself: no whit my senses reel When over me there breaks a billow; nor, elate Too much by some brief taste, I quaff intemperate The air, o'ertop breast-high the wave-environment. Full well I know the thing I grasp, as if intent To hold,--my wandering wave,--will not be grasped at all: The solid-seeming grasped, the handful great or small Must go to nothing, glide through fingers fast enough; But none the less, to treat liquidity as stuff-- Though failure--certainly succeeds beyond its aim, Sends head above, past thing that hands miss, or the same.

LXVII

So with this wash o' the world, wherein lifelong we drift; We push and paddle through the foam by making shift To breathe above at whiles when, after deepest duck Down underneath the show, we put forth hand and pluck At what seems somehow like reality--a soul. I catch at this and that, to capture and control, Presume I hold a prize, discover that my pains Are run to naught: my hands are balked, my head regains The surface where I breathe and look about, a space. The soul that helped me mount? Swallowed up in the race O' the tide, come who knows whence, gone gayly who knows where! I thought the prize was mine; I flattered myself there. It did its duty, though: I felt it, it felt me; Or, where I look about and breathe, I should not be. The main point is--the false fluidity was bound Acknowledge that it frothed o'er substance, nowise found Fluid, but firm and true. Man, outcast, "howls,"--at rods?-- If "sent in playful spray a-shivering to his gods!" Childishest childe, man makes thereby no bad exchange. Stay with the flat-fish, thou! We like the upper range Where the "gods" live, perchance the dæmons also dwell: Where operates a Power, which every throb and swell Of human heart invites that human soul approach, "Sent" near and nearer still, however "spray" encroach On "shivering" flesh below, to altitudes, which gained, Evil proves good, wrong right, obscurity explained, And "howling" childishness. Whose howl have we to thank. If all the dogs 'gan bark and puppies whine, till sank Each yelper's tail 'twixt legs? for Huntsman Common-sense Came to the rescue, bade prompt thwack of thong dispense Quiet i' the kennel; taught that ocean might be blue, And rolling and much more, and yet the soul have, too, Its touch of God's own flame, which he may so expand, "Who measurèd the waters i' the hollow of his hand," That ocean's self shall dry, turn dewdrop in respect Of all-triumphant fire, matter with intellect Once fairly matched; bade him who egged on hounds to bay, Go curse, i' the poultry yard, his kind: "there let him lay" The swan's one addled egg: which yet shall put to use, Rub breast-bone warm against, so many a sterile goose!

LXVIII

No, I want sky not sea, prefer the larks to shrimps, And never dive so deep but that I get a glimpse O' the blue above, a breath of the air around. Elvire, I seize--by catching at the melted beryl here, The tawny hair that just has trickled off,--Fifine! Did not we two trip forth to just enjoy the scene, The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage, Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage-- Dabble, and there an end, with foam and froth o'er face, Till suddenly Fifine suggested change of place? Now we taste æther, scorn the ware, and interchange apace No ordinary thoughts, but such as evidence The cultivated mind in both. On what pretence Are you and I to sneer at who lent help to hand, And gave the lucky lift?

LXIX

Still sour? I understand! One ugly circumstance discredits my fair plan-- That Woman does the work: I waive the help of Man. "Why should experiment be tried with only waves, When solid spars float round? Still some Thalassia saves Too pertinaciously, as though no Triton, bluff As e'er blew brine from conch, were free to help enough! Surely, to recognize a man, his mates serve best! Why is there not the same or greater interest In the strong spouse as in the pretty partner, pray, Were recognition just your object, as you say, Amid this element o' the false?"

LXX

We come to terms. I need to be proved true; and nothing so confirms One's faith in the prime point that one 's alive, not dead, In all Descents to Hell whereof I ever read, As when a phantom there, male enemy or friend, Or merely stranger-shade, is struck, is forced suspend His passage: "You that breathe, along with us the ghosts?" Here, why must it be still a woman that accosts?

LXXI

Because, one woman 's worth, in that respect, such hairy hosts Of the other sex and sort! Men? Say you have the power To make them yours, rule men, throughout life's little hour, According to the phrase; what follows? Men, you make, By ruling them, your own: each man for his own sake Accepts you as his guide, avails him of what worth He apprehends in you to sublimate his earth With fire: content, if so you convoy him through night, That you shall play the sun, and he, the satellite, Pilfer your light and heat and virtue, starry pelf, While, caught up by your course, he turns upon himself. Women rush into you, and there remain absorbed. Beside, 't is only men completely formed, full-orbed, Are fit to follow track, keep pace, illustrate so The leader: any sort of woman may bestow Her atom on the star, or clod she counts for such,--- Each little making less bigger by just that much. Women grow you, while men depend on you at best. And what dependence! Bring and put him to the test, Your specimen disciple, a handbreadth separate From you, he almost seemed to touch before! Abate Complacency you will, I judge, at what 's divulged! Some flabbiness you fixed, some vacancy out-bulged, Some--much--nay, all, perhaps, the outward man 's your work: But, inside man?--find him, wherever he may lurk, And where 's a touch of you in his true self?

LXXII

I wish Some wind would waft this way a glassy bubble-fish O' the kind the sea inflates, and show you, once detached From wave ... or no, the event is better told than watched: Still may the thing float free, globose and opaline All over, save where just the amethysts combine To blue their best, rim-round the sea-flower with a tinge Earth's violet never knew! Well, 'neath that gem-tipped fringe, A head lurks--of a kind--that acts as stomach too; Then comes the emptiness which out the water blew So big and belly-like, but, dry of water drained, Withers away nine-tenths. Ah, but a tenth remained! That was the creature's self: no more akin to sea, Poor rudimental head and stomach, you agree, Than sea 's akin to sun who yonder dips his edge.

LXXIII

But take the rill which ends a race o'er yonder ledge O' the fissured cliff, to find its fate in smoke below! Disengage that, and ask--what news of life, you know It led, that long lone way, through pasture, plain and waste? All 's gone to give the sea! no touch of earth, no taste Of air, reserved to tell how rushes used to bring The butterfly and bee, and fisher-bird that 's king O' the purple kind, about the snow-soft silver-sweet Infant of mist and dew; only these atoms fleet, Embittered evermore, to make the sea one drop More big thereby--if thought keep count where sense must stop.

LXXIV

The full-blown ingrate, mere recipient of the brine, That takes all and gives naught, is Man; the feminine Rillet that, taking all and giving naught in turn, Goes headlong to her death i' the sea, without concern For the old inland life, snow-soft and silver-clear, That 's woman--typified from Fifine to Elvire.

LXXV

Then, how diverse the modes prescribed to who would deal With either kind of creature! 'T is Man, you seek to seal Your very own? Resolve, for first step, to discard Nine-tenths of what you are! To make, you must be marred,-- To raise your race, must stoop,--to teach them aught, must learn Ignorance, meet halfway what most you hope to spurn I' the sequel. Change yourself, dissimulate the thought And vulgarize the word, and see the deed be brought To look like nothing done with any such intent As teach men--though perchance it teach, by accident! So may you master men: assured that if you show One point of mastery, departure from the low And level,--head or heart-revolt at long disguise, Immurement, stifling soul in mediocrities,-- If inadvertently a gesture, much more, word Reveal the hunter no companion for the herd, His chance of capture 's gone. Success means, they may snuff, Examine, and report,--a brother, sure enough, Disports him in brute-guise; for skin is truly skin, Horns, hoofs, are hoofs and horns, and all, outside and in, Is veritable beast, whom fellow-beasts resigned May follow, made a prize in honest pride, behind One of themselves and not creation's upstart lord! Well, there 's your prize i' the pound--much joy may it afford My Indian! Make survey and tell me,--was it worth You acted part so well, went all-fours upon earth The live-long day, brayed, belled, and all to bring to pass That stags should deign eat hay when winter stints them grass?

LXXVI

So much for men, and how disguise may make them mind Their master. But you have to deal with womankind? Abandon stratagem for strategy! Cast quite The vile disguise away, try truth clean-opposite Such creep-and-crawl, stand forth all man and, might it chance, Somewhat of angel too!--whate'er inheritance, Actual on earth, in heaven prospective, be your boast, Lay claim to! Your best self revealed at uttermost,-- That 's the wise way o' the strong! And e'en should falsehood tempt The weaker sort to swerve,--at least the lie 's exempt From slur, that 's loathlier still, of aiming to debase Rather than elevate its object. Mimic grace, Not make deformity your mask! Be sick by stealth, Nor traffic with disease--malingering in health! No more of: "Countrymen, I boast me one like you-- My lot, the common strength, the common weakness too! I think the thoughts you think; and if I have the knack Of fitting thoughts to words, you peradventure lack, Envy me not the chance, yourselves more fortunate! Many the loaded ship self-sunk through treasure freight, Many the pregnant brain brought never child to birth, Many the great heart broke beneath its girdle-girth! Be mine the privilege to supplement defect, Give dumbness voice, and let the laboring intellect Find utterance in word, or possibly in deed! What though I seem to go before? 't is you that lead! I follow what I see so plain--the general mind Projected pillar-wise, flame kindled by the kind, Which dwarfs the unit--me--to insignificance! Halt you, I stop forthwith,--proceed, I too advance!"

LXXVII

Ay, that 's the way to take with men you wish to lead, Instruct and benefit. Small prospect you succeed With women so! Be all that 's great and good and wise, August, sublime--swell out your frog the right ox-size-- He 's buoyed like a balloon, to soar, not burst, you 'll see! The more you prove yourself, less fear the prize will flee The captor. Here you start after no pompous stag Who condescends be snared, with toss of horn, and brag Of bray, and ramp of hoof; you have not to subdue The foe through letting him imagine he snares you! 'T is rather with ...

LXXVIII

Ah, thanks! quick--where the dipping disk Shows red against the rise and fall o' the fin! there frisk In shoal the--porpoises? Dolphins, they shall and must Cut through the freshening clear--dolphins, my instance just! 'T is fable, therefore truth: who has to do with these, Needs never practice trick of going hands and knees As beasts require. Art fain the fish to captivate? Gather thy greatness round, Arion! Stand in state, As when the banqueting thrilled conscious--like a rose Throughout its hundred leaves at that approach it knows Of music in the bird--while Corinth grew one breast A-throb for song and thee; nay, Periander pressed The Methymnæan hand, and felt a king indeed, and guessed How Phœbus' self might give that great mouth of the gods Such a magnificence of song! The pillar nods, Rocks roof, and trembles door, gigantic, post and jamb, As harp and voice rend air--the shattering dithyramb! So stand thou, and assume the robe that tingles yet With triumph; strike the harp, whose every golden fret Still smoulders with the flame, was late at fingers' end-- So, standing on the bench o' the ship, let voice expend Thy soul, sing, unalloyed by meaner mode, thine own, The Orthian lay; then leap from music's lofty throne Into the lowest surge, make fearlessly thy launch! Whatever storm may threat, some dolphin will be stanch! Whatever roughness rage, some exquisite sea-thing Will surely rise to save, will bear--palpitating-- One proud humility of love beneath its load-- Stem tide, part wave, till both roll on, thy jewell'd road Of triumph, and the grim o' the gulf grow wonder-white I' the phosphorescent wake; and still the exquisite Sea-thing stems on, saves still, palpitatingly thus, Lands safe at length its load of love at Tænarus, True woman-creature!

LXXIX

Man? Ah, would you prove what power Marks man,--what fruit his tree may yield, beyond the sour And stinted crab, he calls love-apple, which remains After you toil and moil your utmost,--all, love gains By lavishing manure?--try quite the other plan! And, to obtain the strong true product of a man, Set him to hate a little! Leave cherishing his root, And rather prune his branch, nip off the pettiest shoot Superfluous on his bough! I promise, you shall learn By what grace came the goat, of all beasts else, to earn Such favor with the god o' the grape: 't was only he Who, browsing on its tops, first stung fertility Into the stock's heart, stayed much growth of tendril-twine, Some faintish flower, perhaps, but gained the indignant wine, Wrath of the red press! Catch the puniest of the kind-- Man-animalcule, starved body, stunted mind, And, as you nip the blotch 'twixt thumb and finger-nail, Admire how heaven above and earth below avail No jot to soothe the mite, sore at God's prime offence In making mites at all,--coax from its impotence One virile drop of thought, or word, or deed, by strain To propagate for once--which nature rendered vain, Who lets first failure stay, yet cares not to record Mistake that seems to cast opprobrium on the Lord! Such were the gain from love's best pains! But let the elf Be touched with hate, because some real man bears himself Manlike in body and soul, and, since he lives, must thwart And furify and set a-fizz this counterpart O' the pismire that 's surprised to effervescence, if, By chance, black bottle come in contact with chalk cliff, Acid with alkali! Then thrice the bulk, out blows Our insect, does its kind, and cuckoo-spits some rose!

LXXX

No--'t is ungainly work, the ruling men, at best! The graceful instinct 's right: 't is women stand confessed Auxiliary, the gain that never goes away, Takes nothing and gives all: Elvire, Fifine, 't is they Convince,--if little, much, no matter!--one degree The more, at least, convince unreasonable me That I am, anyhow, a truth, though all else seem And be not: if I dream, at least I know I dream. The falsity, beside, is fleeting: I can stand Still, and let truth come back,--your steadying touch of hand Assists me to remain self-centred, fixed amid All on the move. Believe in me, at once you bid Myself believe that, since one soul has disengaged Mine from the shows of things, so much is fact: I waged No foolish warfare, then, with shades, myself a shade, Here in the world--may hope my pains will be repaid! How false things are, I judge: how changeable, I learn: When, where, and how it is I shall see truth return, That I expect to know, because Fifine knows me!-- How much more, if Elvire!

LXXXI

"And why not, only she? Since there can be for each, one Best, no more, such Best, For body and mind of him, abolishes the rest O' the simply Good and Better. You please select Elvire To give you this belief in truth, dispel the fear Yourself are, after all, as false as what surrounds; And why not be content? When we two watched the rounds The boatman made, 'twixt shoal and sandbank, yesterday, As, at dead slack of tide, he chose to push his way, With oar and pole, across the creek, and reach the isle After a world of pains--my word provoked your smile, Yet none the less deserved reply: ''T were wiser wait The turn o' the tide, and find conveyance for his freight-- How easily--within the ship to purpose moored, Managed by sails, not oars! But no,--the man 's allured By liking for the new and hard in his exploit! First come shall serve! He makes--courageous and adroit-- The merest willow-leaf of boat do duty, bear His merchandise across: once over, needs he care If folk arrive by ship, six hours hence, fresh and gay?' No: he scorns commonplace, affects the unusual way; And good Elvire is moored, with not a breath to flap The yards of her, no lift of ripple to o'erlap Keel, much less, prow. What care? since here 's a cockle-shell, Fifine, that 's taut and crank, and carries just as well Such seamanship as yours!"

LXXXII

Alack, our life is lent, From first to last, the whole, for this experiment Of proving what I say--that we ourselves are true! I would there were one voyage, and then no more to do But tread the firm-land, tempt the uncertain sea no more I would we might dispense with change of shore for shore To evidence our skill, demonstrate--in no dream It was, we tided o'er the trouble of the stream. I would the steady voyage, and not the fitful trip,-- Elvire, and not Fifine,--might test our seamanship. But why expend one's breath to tell you, change of boat Means change of tactics too? Come see the same afloat To-morrow, all the change, new stowage fore and aft O' the cargo; then, to cross requires new sailor-craft! To-day, one step from stern to bow keeps boat in trim: To-morrow, some big stone--or woe to boat and him!-- Must ballast both. That man stands for Mind, paramount Throughout the adventure: ay, howe'er you make account, 'T is mind that navigates,--skips over, twists between The bales i' the boat,--now gives importance to the mean, And now abates the pride of life, accepts all fact, Discards all fiction,--steers Fifine, and cries, i' the act, "Thou art so bad, and yet so delicate a brown! Wouldst tell no end of lies: I talk to smile or frown! Wouldst rob me: do men blame a squirrel, lithe and sly, For pilfering the nut she adds to hoard? Nor I." Elvire is true, as truth, honesty's self, alack! The worse! too safe the ship, the transport there and back Too certain! one may loll and lounge and leave the helm, Let wind and tide do work: no fear that waves o'erwhelm The steady-going bark, as sure to feel her way Blindfold across, reach land, next year as yesterday! How can I but suspect, the true feat were to slip Down side, transfer myself to cockle-shell from ship, And try if, trusting to sea-tracklessness, I class With those around whose breast grew oak and triple brass: Who dreaded no degree of death, but, with dry eyes, Surveyed the turgid main and its monstrosities-- And rendered futile so, the prudent Power's decree Of separate earth and disassociating sea; Since, how is it observed, if impious vessels leap Across, and tempt a thing they should not touch--the deep? (See Horace to the boat, wherein, for Athens bound, When Virgil must embark--Jove keep him safe and sound!-- The poet bade his friend start on the watery road, Much reassured by this so comfortable ode.)

LXXXIII

Then, never grudge my poor Fifine her compliment! The rakish craft could slip her moorings in the tent, And, hoisting every stitch of spangled canvas, steer Through divers rocks and shoals,--in fine, deposit here Your Virgil of a spouse, in Attica: yea, thrid The mob of men, select the special virtue hid In him, forsooth, and say--or rather, smile so sweet, "Of all the multitude, you--I prefer to cheat! Are you for Athens bound? I can perform the trip, Shove little pinnace off, while yon superior ship, The Elvire, refits in port!" So, off we push from beach Of Pornic town, and lo, ere eye can wink, we reach The Long Walls, and I prove that Athens is no dream, For there the temples rise! they are, they nowise seem! Earth is not all one lie, this truth attests me true! Thanks therefore to Fifine! Elvire, I 'm back with you! Share in the memories! Embark I trust we shall Together some fine day, and so, for good and all, Bid Pornic Town adieu,--then, just the strait to cross, And we reach harbor, safe, in Iostephanos!

LXXXIV

How quickly night comes! Lo, already 't is the land Turns sea-like; overcrept by gray, the plains expand, Assume significance; while ocean dwindles, shrinks Into a pettier bound: its plash and plaint, methinks, Six steps away, how both retire, as if their part Were played, another force were free to prove her art, Protagonist in turn! Are you unterrified? All false, all fleeting too! And nowhere things abide, And everywhere we strain that things should stay,--the one Truth, that ourselves are true!

LXXXV

A word, and I have done. Is it not just our hate of falsehood, fleetingness, And the mere part, things play, that constitutes express The inmost charm of this Fifine and all her tribe? Actors! We also act, but only they inscribe Their style and title so, and preface, only they, Performance with "A lie is all we do or say." Wherein but there can be the attraction, Falsehood's bribe, That wins so surely o'er to Fifine and her tribe The liking, nay the love of who hate Falsehood most, Except that these alone of mankind make their boast "Frankly, we simulate!" To feign, means--to have grace And so get gratitude! This ruler of the race, Crowned, sceptred, stoled to suit,--'t is not that you detect The cobbler in the king, but that he makes effect By seeming the reverse of what you know to be The man, the mind, whole form, fashion, and quality. Mistake his false for true, one minute,--there 's an end Of the admiration! Truth, we grieve at or rejoice: 'T is only falsehood, plain in gesture, look and voice, That brings the praise desired, since profit comes thereby. The histrionic truth is in the natural lie. Because the man who wept the tears was, all the time, Happy enough; because the other man, a-grime With guilt was, at the least, as white as I and you; Because the timid type of bashful maidhood, who Starts at her own pure shade, already numbers seven Born babes and, in a month, will turn their odd to even; Because the saucy prince would prove, could you unfurl Some yards of wrap, a meek and meritorious girl-- Precisely as you see success attained by each O' the mimes, do you approve, not foolishly impeach The falsehood!

LXXXVI

That 's the first o' the truths found: all things, slow Or quick i' the passage, come at last to that, you know! Each has a false outside, whereby a truth is forced To issue from within: truth, falsehood, are divorced By the excepted eye, at the rare season, for The happy moment. Life means--learning to abhor The false, and love the true, truth treasured snatch by snatch, Waifs counted at their worth. And when with strays they match I' the particolored world,--when, under foul, shines fair, And truth, displayed i' the point, flashes forth everywhere I' the circle, manifest to soul, though hid from sense, And no obstruction more affects this confidence,-- When faith is ripe for sight,--why, reasonably, then Comes the great clearing-up. Wait threescore years and ten!

LXXXVII

Therefore I prize stage-play, the honest cheating; thence The impulse pricked, when fife and drum bade Fair commence, To bid you trip and skip, link arm in arm with me, Like husband and like wife, and so together see The tumbling-troop arrayed, the strollers on their stage Drawn up and under arms, and ready to engage. And if I started thence upon abstruser themes ... Well, 't was a dream, pricked too!

LXXXVIII

A poet never dreams: We prose-folk always do: we miss the proper duct For thoughts on things unseen, which stagnate and obstruct The system, therefore; mind, sound in a body sane, Keeps thoughts apart from facts, and to one flowing vein Confines its sense of that which is not, but might be, And leaves the rest alone. What ghosts do poets see? What demons fear? what man or thing misapprehend? Unchecked, the channel 's flush, the fancy 's free to spend Its special self aright in manner, time and place. Never believe that who create the busy race O' the brain, bring poetry to birth, such act performed, Feel trouble them, the same, such residue as warmed My prosy blood, this morn,--intrusive fancies, meant For outbreak and escape by quite another vent! Whence follows that, asleep, my dreamings oft exceed The bound. But you shall hear.

LXXXIX

I smoked. The webs o' the weed, With many a break i' the mesh, were floating to re-form Cupola-wise above: chased thither by soft warm Inflow of air without; since I--of mind to muse, to clench The gain of soul and body, got by their noonday drench In sun and sea--had flung both frames o' the window wide, To soak my body still and let soul soar beside. In came the country sounds and sights and smells--that fine Sharp needle in the nose from our fermenting wine! In came a dragon-fly with whir and stir, then out, Off and away: in came,--kept coming, rather,--pout Succeeding smile, and take-away still close on give,-- One loose long creeper-branch, tremblingly sensitive To risks, which blooms and leaves,--each leaf tongue-broad, each bloom Midfinger-deep,--must run by prying in the room Of one who loves and grasps and spoils and speculates. All so far plain enough to sight and sense: but, weights, Measures and numbers,--ah, could one apply such test To other visitants that came at no request Of who kept open house,--to fancies manifold From this four-cornered world, the memories new and old, The antenatal prime experience--what know I?-- The initiatory love preparing us to die-- Such were a crowd to count, a sight to see, a prize To turn to profit, were but fleshly ears and eyes Able to cope with those o' the spirit!

XC

Therefore,--since Thought hankers after speech, while no speech may evince Feeling like music,--mine, o'erburdened with each gift From every visitant, at last resolved to shift Its burden to the back of some musician dead And gone, who feeling once what I feel now, instead Of words, sought sounds, and saved forever, in the same, Truth that escapes prose,--nay, puts poetry to shame. I read the note, I strike the key, I bid _record_ The instrument,--thanks greet the veritable word! And not in vain I urge: "O dead and gone away, Assist who struggles yet, thy strength become my stay, Thy record serve as well to register--I felt And knew thus much of truth! With me, must knowledge melt Into surmise and doubt and disbelief, unless Thy music reassure--I gave no idle guess, But gained a certitude, I yet may hardly keep! What care? since round is piled a monumental heap Of music that conserves the assurance, thou as well Wast certain of the same! thou, master of the spell, Mad'st moonbeams marble, didst _record_ what other men Feel only to forget!" Who was it helped me, then? What master's work first came responsive to my call, Found my eye, fixed my choice?

XCI

Why, Schumann's "Carnival"! My choice chimed in, you see, exactly with the sounds And sights of yestereve, when, going on my rounds, Where both roads join the bridge, I heard across the dusk Creak a slow caravan, and saw arrive the husk O' the spice-nut, which peeled off this morning, and displayed, 'Twixt tree and tree, a tent whence the red pennon made Its vivid reach for home and ocean-idleness-- And where, my heart surmised, at that same moment,--yes,-- Tugging her tricot on--yet tenderly, lest stitch Announce the crack of doom, reveal disaster which Our Pornic's modest stock of merceries in vain Were ransacked to retrieve,--there, cautiously a-strain, (My heart surmised) must crouch in that tent's corner, curved Like Spring-month's russet moon, some girl by fate reserved To give me once again the electric snap and spark Which prove, when finger finds out finger in the dark O' the world, there 's fire and life and truth there, link but hands And pass the secret on. Lo, link by link, expands The circle, lengthens out the chain, till one embrace Of high with low is found uniting the whole race, Not simply you and me and our Fifine, but all The world: the Fair expands into the Carnival, And Carnival again to ... ah, but that 's my dream!

XCII

I somehow played the piece: remarked on each old theme I' the new dress; saw how food o' the soul, the stuff that 's made To furnish man with thought and feeling, is purveyed Substantially the same from age to age, with change Of the outside only for successive feasters, Range The banquet-room o' the world, from the dim farthest head O' the table, to its foot, for you and me bespread, This merry morn, we find sufficient fare, I trow. But, novel? Scrape away the sauce; and taste, below, The verity o' the viand,--you shall perceive there went To board-head just the dish which other condiment Makes palatable now: guests came, sat down, fell-to, Rose up, wiped mouth, went way,--lived, died,--and never knew That generations yet should, seeking sustenance, Still find the selfsame fare, with somewhat to enhance Its flavor, in the kind of cooking. As with hates And loves and fears and hopes, so with what emulates The same, expresses hates, loves, fears, and hopes in Art: The forms, the themes--no one without its counterpart Ages ago; no one but, mumbled the due time I' the mouth of the eater, needs be cooked again in rhyme, Dished up anew in paint, sauce-smothered fresh in sound, To suit the wisdom-tooth, just cut, of the age, that 's found With gums obtuse to gust and smack which relished so The meat o' the meal folk made some fifty years ago. But don't suppose the new was able to efface The old without a struggle, a pang! The commonplace Still clung about his heart, long after all the rest O' the natural man, at eye and ear, was caught, confessed The charm of change, although wry lip and wrinkled nose Owned ancient virtue more conducive to repose Than modern nothings roused to somethings by some shred Of pungency, perchance garlic in amber's stead. And so on, till one day, another age, by due Rotation, pries, sniffs, smacks, discovers old is new, And sauce, our sires pronounced insipid, proves again Sole piquant, may resume its titillating reign-- With music, most of all the arts, since change is there The law, and not the lapse: the precious means the rare, And not the absolute in all good save surprise. So I remarked upon our Schumann's victories Over the commonplace, how faded phrase grew fine, And palled perfection--piqued, up-startled by that brine, His pickle--bit the mouth and burnt the tongue aright, Beyond the merely good no longer exquisite: Then took things as I found, and thanked without demur The pretty piece--played through that movement, you prefer Where dance and shuffle past,--he scolding while she pouts, She canting while he calms,--in those eternal bouts Of age, the dog--with youth, the cat--by rose-festoon Tied teasingly enough--Columbine, Pantaloon: She, toe-tips and _staccato_,--_legato_, shakes his poll And shambles in pursuit, the senior. _Fi la folle!_ Lie to him! get his gold and pay its price! begin Your trade betimes, nor wait till you 've wed Harlequin And need, at the week's end, to play the duteous wife, And swear you still love slaps and leapings more than life! Pretty! I say.

XCIII

And so, I somehow-nohow played The whole o' the pretty piece; and then ... whatever weighed My eyes down, furled the films about my wits? suppose, The morning-bath,--the sweet monotony of those Three keys, flat, flat and flat, never a sharp at all,-- Or else the brain's fatigue, forced even here to fall Into the same old track, and recognize the shift From old to new, and back to old again, and,--swift Or slow, no matter,--still the certainty of change, Conviction we shall find the false, where'er we range, In art no less than nature: or what if wrist were numb, And over-tense the muscle, abductor of the thumb, Taxed by those tenths' and twelfths' unconscionable stretch? Howe'er it came to pass, I soon was far to fetch-- Gone off in company with Music!

XCIV

Whither bound Except for Venice? She it was, by instinct found Carnival-country proper, who far below the perch Where I was pinnacled, showed, opposite, Mark's Church, And, underneath, Mark's Square, with those two lines of street, _Procuratié_-sides, each leading to my feet-- Since from above I gazed, however I got there.

XCV

And what I gazed upon was a prodigious Fair, Concourse immense of men and women, crowned or casqued, Turbaned or tiar'd, wreathed, plumed, hatted or wigged, but masked-- Always masked,--only, how? No face-shape, beast or bird, Nay, fish and reptile even, but some one had preferred, From out its frontispiece, feathered or scaled or curled, To make the vizard whence himself should view the world, And where the world believed himself was manifest. Yet when you came to look, mixed up among the rest More funnily by far, were masks to imitate Humanity's mishap: the wrinkled brow, bald pate, And rheumy eyes of Age, peak'd chin and parchment chap, Were signs of day-work done, and wage-time near,--mishap Merely; but, Age reduced to simple greed and guile, Worn apathetic else as some smooth slab, ere-while A clear-cut man-at-arms i' the pavement, till foot's tread Effaced the sculpture, left the stone you saw instead,-- Was not that terrible beyond the mere uncouth? Well, and perhaps the next revolting you was Youth, Stark ignorance and crude conceit, half smirk, half stare On that frank fool-face, gay beneath its head of hair Which covers nothing.

XCVI

These, you are to understand, Were the mere hard and sharp distinctions. On each hand, I soon became aware, flocked the infinitude Of passions, loves and hates, man pampers till his mood Becomes himself, the whole sole face we name him by, Nor want denotement else, if age or youth supply The rest of him: old, young,--classed creature: in the main A love, a hate, a hope, a fear, each soul astrain Some one way through the flesh--the face, an evidence O' the soul at work inside; and, all the more intense, So much the more grotesque.

XCVII

"Why should each soul be tasked Some one way, by one love or else one hate?" I asked. When it occurred to me, from all these sights beneath There rose not any sound: a crowd, yet dumb as death!

XCVIII

Soon I knew why. (Propose a riddle, and 't is solved Forthwith--in dream!) They spoke; but, since on me devolved To see, and understand by sight,--the vulgar speech Might be dispensed with. "He who cannot see, must reach As best he may the truth of men by help of words They please to speak, must fare at will of who affords The banquet,"--so I thought. "Who sees not, hears and so Gets to believe; myself it is that, seeing, know, And, knowing, can dispense with voice and vanity Of speech. What hinders then, that, drawing closer, I Put privilege to use, see and know better still These _simulacra_, taste the profit of my skill, Down in the midst?"

XCIX And plumb I pitched into the square-- A groundling like the rest. What think you happened there? Precise the contrary of what one would expect! For,--whereas, so much more monstrosities deflect From nature and the type, as you the more approach Their precinct,--here, I found brutality encroach Less on the human, lie the lightlier as I looked The nearlier on these faces that seemed but now so crook'd And clawed away from God's prime purpose. They diverged A little from the type, but somehow rather urged To pity than disgust: the prominent, before, Now dwindled into mere distinctness, nothing more. Still, at first sight, stood forth undoubtedly the fact Some deviation was: in no one case there lacked The certain sign and mark, say hint, say, trick of lip Or twist of nose, that proved a fault in workmanship, Change in the prime design, some hesitancy here And there, which checked the man and let the beast appear; But that was all.

C

All; yet enough to bid each tongue Lie in abeyance still. They talked, themselves among, Of themselves, to themselves: I saw the mouths at play, The gesture that enforced, the eye that strove to say The same thing as the voice, and seldom gained its point --That this was so, I saw; but all seemed out of joint I' the vocal medium 'twixt the world and me. I gained Knowledge by notice, not by giving ear,--attained To truth by what men seemed, not said: to me one glance Was worth whole histories of noisy utterance, --At least, to me in dream.

CI

And presently I found That, just as ugliness had withered, so unwound Itself, and perished off, repugnance to what wrong Might linger yet i' the make of man. My will was strong I' the matter; I could pick and choose, project my weight: (Remember how we saw the boatman trim his freight!) Determine to observe, or manage to escape, Or make divergency assume another shape By shift of point of sight in me the observer: thus Corrected, added to, subtracted from,--discuss Each variant quality, and brute-beast touch was turned Into mankind's safeguard! Force, guile, were arms which earned My praise, not blame at all: for we must learn to live, Case-hardened at all points, not bare and sensitive, But plated for defence, nay, furnished for attack, With spikes at the due place, that neither front nor back May suffer in that squeeze with nature, we find--life. Are we not here to learn the good of peace through strife, Of love through hate, and reach knowledge by ignorance? Why, those are helps thereto, which late we eyed askance, And nicknamed unaware! Just so, a sword we call Superfluous, and cry out against, at festival: Wear it in time of war, its clink and clatter grate O' the ear to purpose then!

CII

I found, one must abate One's scorn of the soul's casing, distinct from the soul's self-- Which is the centre-drop: whereas the pride in pelf, The lust to seem the thing it cannot be, the greed For praise, and all the rest seen outside,--these indeed Are the hard polished cold crystal environment Of those strange orbs unearthed i' the Druid temple, meant For divination (so the learned please to think) Wherein you may admire one dewdrop roll and wink, All unaffected by--quite alien to--what sealed And saved it long ago: though how it got congealed I shall not give a guess, nor how, by power occult, The solid surface-shield was outcome and result Of simple dew at work to save itself amid The unwatery force around; protected thus, dew slid Safe through all opposites, impatient to absorb Its spot of life, and last forever in the orb We, now, from hand to hand pass with impunity.

CIII

And the delight wherewith I watch this crowd must be Akin to that which crowns the chemist when he winds Thread up and up, till clue be fairly clutched,--unbinds The composite, ties fast the simple to its mate, And, tracing each effect back to its cause, elate, Constructs in fancy, from the fewest primitives, The complex and complete, all diverse life, that lives Not only in beast, bird, fish, reptile, insect, but The very plants and earths and ores. Just so I glut My hunger both to be and know the thing I am, By contrast with the thing I am not; so, through sham And outside, I arrive at inmost real, probe And prove how the nude form obtained the checkered robe.

CIV

--Experience, I am glad to master soon or late, Here, there, and everywhere i' the world, without debate! Only, in Venice why? What reason for Mark's Square Rather than Timbuctoo?

CV

And I became aware, Scarcely the word escaped my lips, that swift ensued In silence and by stealth, and yet with certitude, A formidable change of the amphitheatre Which held the Carnival; although the human stir Continued just the same amid that shift of scene.

CVI

For as on edifice of cloud i' the gray and green Of evening,--built about some glory of the west, To barricade the sun's departure,--manifest, He plays, pre-eminently gold, gilds vapor, crag and crest Which bend in rapt suspense above the act and deed They cluster round and keep their very own, nor heed The world at watch; while we, breathlessly at the base O' the castellated bulk, note momently the mace Of night fall here, fall there, bring change with every blow, Alike to sharpened shaft and broadened portico I' the structure: heights and depths, beneath the leaden stress, Crumble and melt and mix together, coalesce, Re-form, but sadder still, subdued yet more and more By every fresh defeat, till wearied eyes need pore No longer on the dull impoverished decadence Of all that pomp of pile in towering evidence So lately:--

CVII

Even thus nor otherwise, meseemed That if I fixed my gaze awhile on what I dreamed Was Venice' Square, Mark's Church, the scheme was straight unschemed, A subtle something had its way within the heart Of each and every house I watched, with counterpart Of tremor through the front and outward face, until Mutation was at end; impassive and stock-still Stood now the ancient house, grown--new, is scarce the phrase, Since older, in a sense,--altered to ... what i' the ways, Ourselves are wont to see, coerced by city, town, Or village, anywhere i' the world, pace up or down Europe! In all the maze, no single tenement I saw, but I could claim acquaintance with.

CVIII

There went Conviction to my soul, that what I took of late For Venice was the world; its Carnival--the state Of mankind, masquerade in life-long permanence For all time, and no one particular feast-day. Whence 'T was easy to infer what meant my late disgust At the brute-pageant, each grotesque of greed and lust And idle hate, and love as impotent for good-- When from my pride of place I passed the interlude In critical review; and what, the wonder that ensued When, from such pinnacled pre-eminence, I found Somehow the proper goal for wisdom was the ground And not the sky,--so, slid sagaciously betimes Down heaven's baluster-rope, to reach the mob of mimes And mummers; whereby came discovery there was just Enough and not too much of hate, love, greed and lust, Could one discerningly but hold the balance, shift The weight from scale to scale, do justice to the drift Of nature, and explain the glories by the shames Mixed up in man, one stuff miscalled by different names According to what stage i' the process turned his rough, Even as I gazed, to smooth--only get close enough! --What was all this except the lesson of a life?

CIX

And--consequent upon the learning how from strife Grew peace--from evil, good--came knowledge that, to get Acquaintance with the way o' the world, we must nor fret Nor fume, on altitudes of self-sufficiency, But bid a frank farewell to what--we think--should be, And, with as good a grace, welcome what is--we find.

CX

_Is_--for the hour, observe! Since something to my mind Suggested soon the fancy, nay, certitude that change, Never suspending touch, continued to derange What architecture, we, walled up within the cirque O' the world, consider fixed as fate, not fairy-work. For those were temples, sure, which tremblingly grew blank From bright, then broke afresh in triumph,--ah, but sank As soon, for liquid change through artery and vein O' the very marble wound its way! And first a stain Would startle and offend amid the glory; next, Spot swift succeeded spot, but found me less perplexed By portents; then, as 't were, a sleepiness soft stole Over the stately fane, and shadow sucked the whole Façade into itself, made uniformly earth What was a piece of heaven; till, lo, a second birth, And the veil broke away because of something new Inside, that pushed to gain an outlet, paused in view At last, and proved a growth of stone or brick or wood Which, alien to the aim o' the Builder, somehow stood The test, could satisfy, if not the early race For whom he built, at least our present populace, Who must not bear the blame for what, blamed, proves mishap Of the Artist: his work gone, another fills the gap, Serves the prime purpose so. Undoubtedly there spreads Building around, above, which makes men lift their heads To look at, or look through, or look--for aught I care-- Over: if only up, it is, not down, they stare. "Commercing with the skies," and not the pavement in the Square.

CXI

But are they only temples that subdivide, collapse, And tower again, transformed? Academies, perhaps! Domes where dwells Learning, seats of Science, bower and hall Which house Philosophy--do these, too, rise and fall, Based though foundations be on steadfast mother-earth, With no chimeric claim to supermundane birth, No boast that, dropped from cloud, they did not grow from ground? Why, these fare worst of all! these vanish and are found Nowhere, by who tasks eye some twice within his term Of threescore years and ten, for tidings what each germ Has burgeoned out into, whereof the promise stunned His ear with such acclaim,--praise-payment to refund The praisers, never doubt, some twice before they die Whose days are long i' the land.

CXII

Alack, Philosophy! Despite the chop and change, diminished or increased, Patched-up and plastered-o'er, Religion stands at least I' the temple-type. But thou? Here gape I, all agog These thirty years, to learn how tadpole turns to frog; And thrice at least have gazed with mild astonishment, As, skyward up and up, some fire-new fabric sent Its challenge to mankind, that, clustered underneath To hear the word, they straight believe, ay, in the teeth O' the Past, clap hands, and hail triumphant Truth's outbreak-- Tadpole-frog-theory propounded past mistake! In vain! A something ails the edifice, it bends, It bows, it buries ... Haste! cry "Heads below" to friends-- But have no fear they find, when smother shall subside, Some substitution perk with unabated pride I' the predecessor's place!

CXIII

No,--the one voice which failed Never, the preachment's coign of vantage nothing ailed,-- That had the luck to lodge i' the house not made with hands! And all it preached was this: "Truth builds upon the sands, Though stationed on a rock: and so her work decays, And so she builds afresh, with like result. Naught stays But just the fact that Truth not only is, but fain Would have men know she needs must be, by each so plain Attempt to visibly inhabit where they dwell." Her works are work, while she is she; that work does well Which lasts mankind their lifetime through, and lets believe One generation more, that, though sand run through sieve, Yet earth now reached is rock, and what we moderns find Erected here is Truth, who, 'stablished to her mind I' the fulness of the days, will never change in show More than in substance erst: men thought they knew; we know!

CXIV

Do you, my generation? Well, let the blocks prove mist I' the main enclosure,--church and college, if they list, Be something for a time, and everything anon, And anything awhile, as fit is off or on, Till they grow nothing, soon to reappear no less As something,--shape reshaped, till out of shapelessness Come shape again as sure! no doubt, or round or square Or polygon its front, some building will be there, Do duty in that nook o' the wall o' the world where once The Architect saw fit precisely to ensconce College or church, and bid such bulwark guard the line O' the barrier round about, humanity's confine.

CXV

Leave watching change at work i' the greater scale, on these The main supports, and turn to their interstices Filled up by fabrics too, less costly and less rare, Yet of importance, yet essential to the Fair They help to circumscribe, instruct, and regulate! See, where each booth-front boasts, in letters small or great, Its speciality, proclaims its privilege to stop A breach, beside the best!

CXVI

Here History keeps shop, Tells how past deeds were done, so and not otherwise: "Man! hold truth evermore! forget the early lies!" There sits Morality, demure behind her stall, Dealing out life and death: "This is the thing to call Right, and this other, wrong; thus think, thus do, thus say, Thus joy, thus suffer!--not to-day as yesterday-- Yesterday's doctrine dead, this only shall endure! Obey its voice and live!"--enjoins the dame demure. While Art gives flag to breeze, bids drum beat, trumpet blow, Inviting eye and ear to yonder raree-show. Up goes the canvas, hauled to height of pole. I think, We know the way--long lost, late learned--to paint! A wink Of eye, and lo, the pose! the statue on its plinth! How could we moderns miss the heart o' the labyrinth Perversely all these years, permit the Greek seclude His secret till to-day? And here 's another feud Now happily composed: inspect this quartet-score! Got long past melody, no word has Music more To say to mortal man! But is the bard to be Behindhand? Here 's his book, and now perhaps you see At length what poetry can do!

CXVII

Why, that 's stability Itself, that change on change we sorrowfully saw Creep o'er the prouder piles! We acquiesced in law When the fine gold grew dim i' the temple, when the brass Which pillared that so brave abode where Knowledge was, Bowed and resigned the trust; but, bear all this caprice, Harlequinade where swift to birth succeeds decease Of hue at every turn o' the tinsel-flag which flames While Art holds booth in Fair? Such glories chased by shames Like these, distract beyond the solemn and august Procedure to decay, evanishment in dust, Of those marmoreal domes,--above vicissitude, We used to hope!

CXVIII

"So, all is change, in fine," pursued The preachment to a pause. When--"All is permanence!" Returned a voice. Within? without? No matter whence The explanation came: for, understand, I ought To simply say--"I saw," each thing I say "I thought." Since ever, as, unrolled, the strange scene-picture grew Before me, sight flashed first, though mental comment too Would follow in a trice, come hobblingly to halt.

CXIX

So, what did I see next but,--much as when the vault I' the west,--wherein we watch the vapory, manifold Transfiguration,--tired turns blaze to black,--behold, Peak reconciled to base, dark ending feud with bright, The multiform subsides, becomes the definite. Contrasting life and strife, where battle they i' the blank Severity of peace in death, for which we thank One wind that conies to quell the concourse, drive at last Things to a shape which suits the close of things, and cast Palpably o'er vexed earth heaven's mantle of repose?

CXX

Just so, in Venice' Square, that things were at the close Was signalled to my sense; for I perceived arrest O' the change all round about. As if some impulse pressed Each gently into each, what was distinctness, late, Grew vague, and, line from line no longer separate, No matter what its style, edifice ... shall I say, Died into edifice? I find no simpler way Of saying how, without or dash or shock or trace Of violence, I found unity in the place Of temple, tower,--nay, hall and house and hut,--one blank Severity of peace in death; to which they sank Resigned enough, till ... ah, conjecture, I beseech, What special blank did they agree to, all and each? What common shape was that wherein they mutely merged Likes and dislikes of form, so plain before?

CXXI

I urged Your step this way, prolonged our path of enterprise To where we stand at last, in order that your eyes Might see the very thing, and save my tongue describe The Druid monument which fronts you. Could I bribe Nature to come in aid, illustrate what I mean, What wants there she should lend to solemnize the scene?

CXXII

How does it strike you, this construction gaunt and gray-- Sole object, these piled stones, that gleam unground-away By twilight's hungry jaw, which champs fine all beside I' the solitary waste we grope through? Oh, no guide Need we to grope our way and reach the monstrous door Of granite! Take my word, the deeper you explore That caverned passage, filled with fancies to the brim, The less will you approve the adventure! such a grim Bar-sinister soon blocks abrupt your path, and ends All with a cold dread shape,--shape whereon Learning spends Labor, and leaves the test obscurer for the gloss, While Ignorance reads right--recoiling from that Cross! Whence came the mass and mass, strange quality of stone Unquarried anywhere i' the region round? Unknown! Just as unknown, how such enormity could be Conveyed by land, or else transported over sea, And laid in order, so, precisely each on each, As you and I would build a grotto where the beach Sheds shell--to last an hour: this building lasts from age To age the same. But why?

CXXIII

Ask Learning! I engage You get a prosy wherefore, shall help you to advance In knowledge just as much as helps you Ignorance Surmising, in the mouth of peasant-lad or lass, "I heard my father say he understood it was A building, people built as soon as earth was made Almost, because they might forget (they were afraid) Earth did not make itself, but came of Somebody. They labored that their work might last, and show thereby He stays, while we and earth, and all things come and go. Come whence? Go whither? That, when come and gone, we know Perhaps, but not while earth and all things need our best Attention: we must wait and die to know the rest. Ask, if that 's true, what use in setting up the pile? To make one fear and hope: remind us, all the while We come and go, outside there 's Somebody that stays; A circumstance which ought to make us mind our ways, Because,--whatever end we answer by this life,-- Next time, best chance must be for who, with toil and strife, Manages now to live most like what he was meant Become: since who succeeds so far, 't is evident, Stands foremost on the file; who fails, has less to hope From new promotion. That 's the rule--with even a rope Of mushrooms, like this rope I dangle! those that grew Greatest and roundest, all in life they had to do, Gain a reward, a grace they never dreamed, I think; Since, outside white as milk and inside black as ink, They go to the Great House to make a dainty dish For Don and Donna; while this basket-load, I wish Well off my arm, it breaks,--no starveling of the heap But had his share of dew, his proper length of sleep I' the sunshine: yet, of all, the outcome is--this queer Cribbed quantity of dwarfs which burden basket here Till I reach home; 't is there that, having run their rigs, They end their earthly race, are flung as food for pigs. Any more use I see? Well, you must know, there lies Something, the Curé says, that points to mysteries Above our grasp: a huge stone pillar, once upright, Now laid at length, half-lost--discreetly shunning sight I' the bush and brier, because of stories in the air-- Hints what it signified, and why was stationed there, Once on a time. In vain the Curé tasked his lungs-- Showed, in a preachment, how, at bottom of the rungs O' the ladder, Jacob saw, where heavenly angels stept Up and down, lay a stone which served him, while he slept, For pillow; when he woke, he set the same upright As pillar, and a-top poured oil: things requisite To instruct posterity, there mounts from floor to roof, A staircase, earth to heaven; and also put in proof, When we have sealed the sky, we well may let alone What raised us from the ground, and--paying to the stone Proper respect, of course--take staff and go our way, Leaving the Pagan night for Christian break of day. 'For,' preached he, 'what they dreamed, these Pagans, wide-awake We Christians may behold. How strange, then, were mistake Did anybody style the stone,--because of drop Remaining there from oil which Jacob poured a-top,-- Itself the Gate of Heaven, itself the end, and not The means thereto!' Thus preached the Curé and no jot The more persuaded people but that, what once a thing Meant and had right to mean, it still must mean. So cling Folk somehow to the prime authoritative speech, And so distrust report, it seems as they could reach Far better the arch-word, whereon their fate depends. Through rude charactery, than all the grace it lends, That lettering of your scribes! who flourish pen apace And ornament the text, they say--we say, efface. Hence, when the earth began its life afresh in May, And fruit-trees bloomed, and waves would wanton, and the bay Ruffle its wealth of weed, and stranger-birds arrive, And beasts take each a mate,--folk, too, found sensitive, Surmised the old gray stone upright there, through such tracts Of solitariness and silence, kept the facts Entrusted it, could deal out doctrine, did it please: No fresh and frothy draught, but liquor on the lees, Strong, savage, and sincere: first bleedings from a vine Whereof the product now do Curés so refine To insipidity, that, when heart sinks, we strive And strike from the old stone the old restorative. 'Which is?'--why, go and ask our grandames how they used To dance around it, till the Curé disabused Their ignorance, and bade the parish in a band Lay flat the obtrusive thing that cumbered so the land! And there, accordingly, in bush and brier it--'bides Its time to rise again!' (so somebody derides, That 's pert from Paris,) 'since, yon spire, you keep erect Yonder, and pray beneath, is nothing, I suspect, But just the symbol's self, expressed in slate for rock, Art's smooth for Nature's rough, new chip from the old block!' There, sir, my say is said! Thanks, and Saint Gille increase The wealth bestowed so well!"--wherewith he pockets piece, Doffs cap, and takes the road. I leave in Learning's clutch More money for his book, but scarcely gain as much.

CXXIV

To this it was, this same primeval monument, That, in my dream, I saw building with building blent Fall: each on each they fast and founderingly went Confusion-ward; but thence again subsided fast, Became the mound you see. Magnificently massed Indeed, those mammoth-stones, piled by the Protoplast Temple-wise in my dream! beyond compare with fanes Which, solid-looking late, had left no least remains I' the bald and blank, now sole usurper of the plains Of heaven, diversified and beautiful before. And yet simplicity appeared to speak no more Nor less to me than spoke the compound. At the core, One and no other word, as in the crust of late, Whispered, which, audible through the transition-state, Was no loud utterance in even the ultimate Disposure. For as some imperial chord subsists, Steadily underlies the accidental mists Of music springing thence, that run their mazy race Around, and sink, absorbed, back to the triad base,-- So, out of that one word, each variant rose and fell And left the same "All 's change, but permanence as well." --Grave note whence--list aloft!--harmonics sound, that mean: "Truth inside, and outside, truth also; and between Each, falsehood that is change, as truth is permanence. The individual soul works through the shows of sense (Which, ever proving false, still promise to be true) Up to an outer soul as individual too; And, through the fleeting, lives to die into the fixed, And reach at length 'God, man, or both together mixed,' Transparent through the flesh, by parts which prove a whole, By hints which make the soul discernible by soul-- Let only soul look up, not down, not hate but love, As truth successively takes shape, one grade above Its last presentment, tempts as it were truth indeed Revealed this time; so tempts, till we attain to read The signs aright, and learn, by failure, truth is forced To manifest itself through falsehood; whence divorced By the excepted eye, at the rare season, for The happy moment, truth instructs us to abhor The false, and prize the true, obtainable thereby. Then do we understand the value of a lie; Its purpose served, its truth once safe deposited, Each lie, superfluous now, leaves, in the singer's stead, The indubitable song; the historic personage Put by, leaves prominent the impulse of his age; Truth sets aside speech, act, time, place, indeed, but brings Nakedly forward now the principle of things Highest and least."

CXXV

Wherewith change ends. What change to dread When, disengaged at last from every veil, instead Of type remains the truth? once--falsehood: but anon _Theosuton e broteion eper kekramenon_, Something as true as soul is true, though veils between Prove false and fleet away. As I mean, did he mean, The poet whose bird-phrase sits, singing in my ear A mystery not unlike? What through the dark and drear Brought comfort to the Titan? Emerging from the lymph, "God, man, or mixture" proved only to be a nymph: "From whom the clink on clink of metal" (money, judged Abundant in my purse) "struck" (bumped at, till it budged) "The modesty, her soul's habitual resident" (Where late the sisterhood were lively in their tent) "As out of wingèd car" (that caravan on wheels) "Impulsively she rushed, no slippers to her heels," And "Fear not, friends we flock!" soft smiled the sea-Fifine-- Primitive of the veils (if he meant what I mean) The poet's Titan learned to lift, ere "Three-formed Fate, _Moirai Trimorphoi_" stood unmasked the Ultimate.

CXXVI

Enough o' the dream! You see how poetry turns prose. Announcing wonder-work, I dwindle at the close Down to mere commonplace old facts which everybody knows. So dreaming disappoints! The fresh and strange at first, Soon wears to trite and tame, nor warrants the outburst Of heart with which we hail those heights, at very brink Of heaven, whereto one least of lifts would lead, we think, But wherefrom quick decline conducts our step, we find, To homely earth, old facts familiar left behind. Did not this monument, for instance, long ago Say all it had to say, show all it had to show, Nor promise to do duty more in dream?

CXXVII

Awaking so, What if we, homeward-bound, all peace and some fatigue, Trudge, soberly complete our tramp of near a league, Last little mile which makes the circuit just, Elvire? We end where we began: that consequence is clear. All peace and some fatigue, wherever we were nursed To life, we bosom us on death, find last is first And thenceforth final too.

CXXVIII

"Why final? Why the more Worth credence now than when such truth proved false before?" Because a novel point impresses now: each lie Redounded to the praise of man, was victory Man's nature had both right to get, and might to gain, And by no means implied submission to the reign Of other quite as real a nature, that saw fit To have its way with man, not man his way with it. This time, acknowledgment and acquiescence quell Their contrary in man; promotion proves as well Defeat: and Truth, unlike the False with Truth's outside, Neither plumes up his will nor puffs him out with pride. I fancy, there must lurk some cogency i' the claim, Man, such abatement made, submits to, all the same. Soul finds no triumph, here, to register like Sense With whom 't is ask and have,--the want, the evidence That the thing wanted, soon or late, will be supplied. This indeed plumes up will; this, sure, puffs out with pride, When, reading records right, man's instincts still attest Promotion comes to Sense because Sense likes it best; For bodies sprouted legs, through a desire to run: While hands, when fain to filch, got fingers one by one, And nature, that 's ourself, accommodative brings To bear that, tired of legs which walk, we now bud wings Since of a mind to fly. Such savor in the nose Of Sense would stimulate Soul sweetly, I suppose, Soul with its proper itch of instinct, prompting clear To recognize soul's self soul's only master here Alike from first to last. But if time's pressure, light's Or rather dark's approach, wrest thoroughly the rights Of rule away, and bid the soul submissive bear Another soul than it play master everywhere In great and small,--this time, I fancy, none disputes There 's something in the fact that such conclusion suits Nowise the pride of man, nor yet chimes in with attributes Conspicuous in the lord of nature. He receives And not demands--not first likes faith and then believes.

CXXIX

And as with the last essence, so with its first faint type. Inconstancy means raw, 't is faith alone means ripe I' the soul which runs its round: no matter how it range From Helen to Fifine, Elvire bids back the change To permanence. Here, too, love ends where love began. Such ending looks like law, because the natural man Inclines the other way, feels lordlier free than bound. Poor pabulum for pride when the first love is found Last also! and, so far from realizing gain, Each step aside just proves divergency in vain. The wanderer brings home no profit from his quest Beyond the sad surmise that keeping house were best Could life begin anew. His problem posed aright Was--"From the given point evolve the infinite!" Not--"Spend thyself in space, endeavoring to joint Together, and so make infinite, point and point: Fix into one Elvire a Fair-ful of Fifines!" Fifine, the foam-flake, she: Elvire, the sea's self, means Capacity at need to shower how many such! And yet we left her calm profundity, to clutch Foam-flutter, bell on bell, that, bursting at a touch, Blistered us for our pains. But wise, we want no more O' the fickle element. Enough of foam and roar! Land-locked, we live and die henceforth: for here 's the villa door.

CXXX

How pallidly you pause o' the threshold! Hardly night, Which drapes you, ought to make real flesh and blood so white! Touch me, and so appear alive to all intents! Will the saint vanish from the sinner that repents? Suppose you are a ghost! A memory, a hope, A fear, a conscience! Quick! Give back the hand I grope I' the dusk for!

CXXXI

That is well. Our double horoscope I cast, while you concur. Discard that simile O' the fickle element! Elvire is land not sea-- The solid land, the safe. All these word-bubbles came O' the sea, and bite like salt. The unlucky bath's to blame. This hand of yours on heart of mine, no more the bay I beat, nor bask beneath the blue! In Pornic, say, The Mayor shall catalogue me duly domiciled, Contributable, good-companion of the guild And mystery of marriage. I stickle for the town, And not this tower apart; because, though, halfway down, Its mullions wink o'erwebbed with bloomy greenness, yet Who mounts to staircase top may tempt the parapet, And sudden there 's the sea! No memories to arouse, No fancies to delude! Our honest civic house Of the earth be earthy too!--or graced perchance with shell Made prize of long ago, picked haply where the swell Menaced a little once--or seaweed-branch that yet Dampens and softens, notes a freak of wind, a fret Of wave: though, why on earth should sea-change mend or mar The calm contemplative householders that we are? So shall the seasons fleet, while our two selves abide: E'en past astonishment how sunrise and springs tide Could tempt one forth to swim; the more if time appoints That swimming grow a task for one's rheumatic joints. Such honest civic house, behold, I constitute Our villa! Be but flesh and blood, and smile to boot! Enter for good and all! then fate bolt fast the door, Shut you and me inside, never to wander more!

CXXXII

Only,--you do not use to apprehend attack! No doubt, the way I march, one idle arm, thrown slack Behind me, leaves the open hand defenceless at the back, Should an impertinent on tiptoe steal, and stuff --Whatever can it be? A letter sure enough, Pushed betwixt palm and glove! That largess of a franc? Perhaps inconsciously,--to better help the blank O' the nest, her tambourine, and, laying egg, persuade A family to follow, the nest-egg that I laid May have contained--but just to foil suspicious folk-- Between two silver whites a yellow double yolk! Oh, threaten no farewell! five minutes shall suffice To clear the matter up. I go, and in a trice Return; five minutes past, expect me! If in vain-- Why, slip from flesh and blood, and play the ghost again!

EPILOGUE

THE HOUSEHOLDER

Savage I was sitting in my house, late, lone: Dreary, weary with the long day's work: Head of me, heart of me, stupid as a stone: Tongue-tied now, now blaspheming like a Turk; When, in a moment, just a knock, call, cry, Half a pang and all a rapture, there again were we!-- "What, and is it really you again?" quoth I: "I again, what else did you expect?" quoth She.

"Never mind, hie away from this old house-- Every crumbling brick embrowned with sin and shame! Quick, in its corners ere certain shapes arouse! Let them--every devil of the night--lay claim, Make and mend, or rap and rend, for me! Good-by! God be their guard from disturbance at their glee, Till, crash, comes down the carcass in a heap!" quoth I: "Nay, but there's a decency required!" quoth She.

"Ah, but if you knew how time has dragged, days, nights! All the neighbor-talk with man and maid--such men! All the fuss and trouble of street-sounds, window-sights: All the worry of flapping door and echoing roof; and then, All the fancies ... Who were they had leave, dared try Darker arts that almost struck despair in me? If you knew but how I dwelt down here!" quoth I: "And was I so better off up there?" quoth She.

"Help and get it over! _Reunited to his wife_ (How draw up the paper lets the parish-people know?) _Lies M. or N., departed from this life,_ _Day the this or that, month and year the so and so._ What i' the way of final flourish? Prose, verse? Try! _Affliction sore long time he bore_, or, what is it to be? _Till God did please to grant him ease_. Do end!" quoth I: "I end with--Love is all, and Death is naught!" quoth She.

RED COTTON NIGHT-CAP COUNTRY

OR

TURF AND TOWERS

TO MISS THACKERAY

This poem, dated January 23, 1873, was published in the early summer of the same year. Browning had been staying with his sister at St. Aubin, in Normandy, and there met Miss Thackeray, who was to tell a tale of the White Cotton Night-cap Country, but a tragedy then just coming to a culmination in the courts supplied Browning with the more suggestive title which he adopted. Mr. Cooke records:--

"In the poem as written the names of the actors and places were correctly given, but when the poem was being revised in proof-sheets they were changed from prudential reasons, because the last act in the tragedy occurred only a brief period prior to the writing of the poem.

"Browning submitted the proof-sheets of the poem to his friend Lord Coleridge, then the English Attorney-General, afterwards Chief Justice, who thought that a case of libel might lie for what was said, however improbable such action might be. He accordingly changed the names to fictitious ones. It was the year following this, and the publication of the poem, that the appeal against the judgment in favor of the will of Mellerio was dismissed, and the case finally set at rest in harmony with the conclusion reached by the poet."

In the second edition of her _Hand-Book_ Mrs. Orr gives the correct names, as furnished to her by Browning himself. These names will be found in the notes at the end of this volume.

I

And so, here happily we meet, fair friend! Again once more, as if the years rolled back And this our meeting-place were just that Rome Out in the champaign, say, o'er-rioted By verdure, ravage, and gay winds that war Against strong sunshine settled to his sleep; Or on the Paris Boulevard, might it prove, You and I came together saunteringly, Bound for some shop-front in the Place Vendôme-- Goldsmithy and Golconda mine, that makes "The Firm--Miranda" blazed about the world-- Or, what if it were London, where my toe Trespassed upon your flounce? "Small blame," you smile, Seeing the Staircase Party in the Square Was Small and Early, and you broke no rib. Even as we met where we have met so oft, Now meet we on this unpretending beach Below the little village: little, ay! But pleasant, may my gratitude subjoin? Meek, hitherto un-Murrayed bathing-place, Best loved of seacoast-nookful Normandy! That, just behind you, is mine own hired house: With right of pathway through the field in front, No prejudice to all its growth unsheaved Of emerald luzern bursting into blue. Be sure I keep the path that hugs the wall, Of mornings, as I pad from door to gate! Yon yellow--what if not wild--mustard flower?-- Of that, my naked sole makes lawful prize, Bruising the acrid aromatics out, Till, what they preface, good salt savors sting From, first, the sifted sands, then sands in slab, Smooth save for pipy wreath-work of the worm: (Granite and mussel-shell are ground alike To glittering paste,--the live worm troubles yet.) Then, dry and moist, the varech limit-line, Burnt cinder-black, with brown uncrumpled swathe Of berried softness, sea-swoln thrice its size; And, lo, the wave protrudes a lip at last, And flecks my foot with froth, nor tempts in vain.

Such is Saint-Rambert, wilder very much Than Joyeux, that famed Joyous-Gard of yours, Some five miles farther down; much homelier too-- Right for me,--right for you the fine and fair! Only, I could endure a transfer--wrought By angels famed still, through our countryside, For weights they fetched and carried in old time When nothing like the need was--transfer, just Of Joyeux church, exchanged for yonder prig, Our brand-new stone cream-colored masterpiece.

Well--and you know, and not since this one year, The quiet seaside country? So do I: Who like it, in a manner, just because Nothing is prominently likable To vulgar eye without a soul behind, Which, breaking surface, brings before the ball Of sight, a beauty buried everywhere. If we have souls, know how to see and use, One place performs, like any other place, The proper service every place on earth Was framed to furnish man with: serves alike To give him note that, through the place he sees, A place is signified he never saw, But, if he lack not soul, may learn to know. Earth's ugliest walled and ceiled imprisonment May suffer, through its single rent in roof, Admittance of a cataract of light Beyond attainment through earth's palace-panes Pinholed athwart their windowed filigree By twinklings sobered from the sun outside. Doubtless the High Street of our village here Imposes hardly as Rome's Corso could: And our projected race for sailing-boats Next Sunday, when we celebrate our Saint, Falls very short of that attractiveness, That artistry in festive spectacle, Paris ensures you when she welcomes back (When shall it be?) the Assembly from Versailles; While the best fashion and intelligence Collected at the counter of our Mayor (Dry-goods he deals in, grocery beside) What time the post-bag brings the news from Vire,-- I fear me much, it scarce would hold its own, That circle, that assorted sense and wit, With Five-o'clock Tea in a house we know.

Still, 'tis the check that gives the leap its lift. The nullity of cultivated souls, Even advantaged by their news from Vire, Only conduces to enforce the truth That, thirty paces off, this natural blue Broods o'er a bag of secrets, all unbroached, Beneath the bosom of the placid deep, Since first the Post Director sealed them safe; And formidable I perceive this fact-- Little Saint-Rambert touches the great sea. From London, Paris, Rome, where men are men, Not mice, and mice not Mayors presumably, Thought scarce may leap so fast, alight so far. But this is a pretence, you understand, Disparagement in play, to parry thrust Of possible objector: nullity And ugliness, the taunt be his, not mine Nor yours,--I think we know the world too well! Did you walk hither, jog it by the plain, Or jaunt it by the highway, braving bruise From springless and uncushioned vehicle? Much, was there not, in place and people both, To lend an eye to? and what eye like yours-- The learned eye is still the loving one! Our land; its quietude, productiveness, Is length and breadth of grain-crop, meadow-ground, Its orchards in the pasture, farms a-field, And hamlets on the road-edge, naught you missed Of one and all the sweet rusticities! From stalwart strider by the wagon-side, Brightening the acre with his purple blouse, To those dark-featured comely women-folk, Healthy and tall, at work, and work indeed, On every cottage doorstep, plying brisk Bobbins that bob you ladies out such lace! Oh, you observed! and how that nimble play Of finger formed the sole exception, bobbed The one disturbance to the peace of things, Where nobody esteems it worth his while, If time upon the clock-face goes asleep, To give the rusted hands a helpful push. Nobody lifts an energetic thumb And index to remove some dead and gone Notice which, posted on the barn, repeats For truth what two years' passage made a lie. Still is for sale, next June, that same château With all its immobilities,--were sold Duly next June behind the last but last; And, woe's me, still placards the Emperor His confidence in war he means to wage, God aiding and the rural populace. No: rain and wind must rub the rags away And let the lazy land untroubled snore.

Ah, in good truth? and did the drowsihead So suit, so soothe the learned loving eye, That you were minded to confer a crown, (Does not the poppy boast such?)--call the land By one slow hither-thither stretching, fast Subsiding-into-slumber sort of name, Symbolic of the place and people too, "_White Cotton Night-cap Country?_" Excellent! For they do, all, dear women young and old, Upon the heads of them bear notably This badge of soul and body in repose; Nor its fine thimble fits the acorn-top, Keeps woolly ward above that oval brown, Its placid feature, more than muffler makes A safeguard, circumvents intelligence In--what shall evermore be named and famed, If happy nomenclature aught avail, "_White Cotton Night-cap Country_."

Do I hear-- Oh, better, very best of all the news-- You mean to catch and cage the wingèd word, And make it breed and multiply at home Till Norman idlesse stock our England too? Normandy shown minute yet magnified In one of those small books, the truly great, We never know enough, yet know so well? How I foresee the cursive diamond-dints,-- Composite pen that plays the pencil too,-- As, touch the page and up the glamour goes, And filmily o'er grain-crop, meadow-ground, O'er orchard in the pasture, farm a-field, And hamlet on the road-edge, floats and forms And falls, at lazy last of all, the Cap That crowns the country! we, awake outside, Farther than ever from the imminence Of what cool comfort, what close coverture Your magic, deftly weaving, shall surround The unconscious captive with. Be theirs to drowse Trammelled, and ours to watch the trammel-trick! Ours be it, as we con the book of books, To wonder how is winking possible!

All hail, "White Cotton Night-cap Country," then! And yet, as on the beach you promise book,-- On beach, mere razor-edge 'twixt earth and sea, I stand at such a distance from the world That 'tis the whole world which obtains regard, Rather than any part, though part presumed A perfect little province in itself, When wayfare made acquaintance first therewith. So standing, therefore, on this edge of things, What if the backward glance I gave, return Loaded with other spoils of vagrancy Than I dispatched it for, till I propose The question--puzzled by the sudden store Officious fancy plumps beneath my nose-- "Which sort of Night-cap have you glorified?"

You would be gracious to my ignorance: What other Night-cap than the normal one?-- Old honest guardian of man's head and hair In its elastic yet continuous, soft, No less persisting, circumambient gripe,-- Night's notice, life is respited from day! Its form and fashion vary, suiting so Each seasonable want of youth and age. In infancy, the rosy naked ball Of brain, and that faint golden fluff it bears, Are smothered from disaster,--nurses know By what foam-fabric; but when youth succeeds, The sterling value of the article Discards adornment, cap is cap henceforth Unfeathered by the futile row on row. Manhood strains hard a sturdy stocking-stuff O'er well-deserving head and ears: the cone Is tassel-tipt, commendably takes pride, Announcing workday done and wages pouched, And liberty obtained to sleep, nay, snore. Unwise, he peradventure shall essay The sweets of independency for once-- Waive its advantage on his wedding-night: Fool, only to resume it, night the next, And never part companionship again. Since, with advancing years, night's solace soon Intrudes upon the daybreak dubious life Persuades it to appear the thing it is Half-sleep; and so, encroaching more and more, It lingers long past the abstemious meal Of morning, and, as prompt to serve, precedes The supper-summons, gruel grown a feast. Finally, when the last sleep finds the eye So tired it cannot even shut itself, Does not a kind domestic hand unite Friend to friend, lid from lid to part no more, Consigned alike to that receptacle So bleak without, so warm and white within?

"Night-caps, night's comfort of the human race: Their usage may be growing obsolete, Still, in the main, the institution stays. And though yourself may possibly have lived, And probably will die, undignified-- The Never-night-capped--more experienced folk Laugh you back answer--What should Night-cap be Save Night-cap pure and simple? Sorts of such? Take cotton for the medium, cast an eye This side to comfort, lambswool, or the like, That side to frilly cambric costliness, And all between proves Night-cap proper." Add "Fiddle!" and I confess the argument.

Only, your ignoramus here again Proceeds as tardily to recognize Distinctions: ask him what a fiddle means, And "Just a fiddle" seems the apt reply. Yet, is not there, while we two pace the beach, This blessed moment, at your Kensington, A special Fiddle-Show and rare array Of all the sorts were ever set to cheek, 'Stablished on clavicle, sawn bow-hand-wise, Or touched lute-fashion and forefinger-plucked? I doubt not there be duly catalogued Achievements all and some of Italy, Guarnerius, Straduarius,--old and new, Augustly rude, refined to finicking, This mammoth with his belly full of blare, That mouse of music--inch-long silvery wheeze, And here a specimen has effloresced Into the scroll-head, there subsides supreme, And with the tailpiece satisfies mankind. Why should I speak of woods, grains, stains and streaks, The topaz varnish or the ruby gum? We preferably pause where tickets teach, "Over this sample would Corelli croon, Grieving, by minors, like the cushat-dove, Most dulcet Giga, dreamiest Saraband." "From this did Paganini comb the fierce Electric sparks, or to tenuity Pull forth the inmost wailing of the wire-- No cat-gut could swoon out so much of soul!"

Three hundred violin-varieties Exposed to public view! And dare I doubt Some future enterprise shall give the world Quite as remarkable a Night-cap-show? Methinks, we, arm-in-arm, that festal day, Pace the long range of relics shrined aright, Framed, glazed, each cushioned curiosity, And so begin to smile and to inspect: "Pope's sickly head-sustainment, damped with dews Wrung from the all-unfair fight: such a frame-- Though doctor and the devil helped their best-- Fought such a world that, waiving doctor's help, Had the mean devil at its service too! Voltaire's imperial velvet! Hogarth eyed The thumb-nail record of some alley-phiz, Then chucklingly clapped yonder cosiness On pate, and painted with true flesh and blood! Poor hectic Cowper's soothing sarsnet-stripe!" And so we profit by the catalogue, Somehow our smile subsiding more and more, Till we decline into ... but no! shut eyes And hurry past the shame uncoffined here, The hangman's toilet! If we needs must trench, For science' sake which craves completeness still, On the sad confine, not the district's self, The object that shall close review may be ... Well, it is French, and here are we in France: It is historic, and we live to learn, And try to learn by reading story-books. It is an incident of 'Ninety-two, And, twelve months since, the Commune had the sway. Therefore resolve that, after all the Whites Presented you, a solitary Red Shall pain us both, a minute and no more! Do not you see poor Louis pushed to front Of palace-window, in persuasion's name, A spectacle above the howling mob Who tasted, as it were, with tiger-smack, The outstart, the first spurt of blood on brow, The Phrygian symbol, the new crown of thorns, The Cap of Freedom? See the feeble mirth At odds with that half-purpose to be strong And merely patient under misery! And note the ejaculation, ground so hard Between his teeth, that only God could hear, As the lean pale proud insignificance With the sharp-featured liver-worried stare Out of the two gray points that did him stead, And passed their eagle-owner to the front Better than his mob-elbowed undersize,-- The Corsican lieutenant commented, "Had I but one good regiment of my own, How soon should volleys to the due amount Lay stiff upon the street-flags this canaille! As for the droll there, he that plays the king, And screws out smile with a Red night-cap on, He 's done for! somebody must take his place." White Cotton Night-cap Country: excellent! Why not Red Cotton Night-cap Country too?

"Why not say swans are black and blackbirds white, Because the instances exist?" you ask. "Enough that white, not red, predominates. Is normal, typical, in cleric phrase _Quod semel, semper, et ubique_." Here, Applying such a name to such a land, Especially you find inopportune, Impertinent, my scruple whether white Or red describes the local color best. "Let be," (you say,) "the universe at large Supplied us with exceptions to the rule, So manifold, they bore no passing-by,-- Little Saint-Rambert has conserved at least The pure tradition: white from head to heel, Where is a hint of the ungracious hue? See, we have traversed with hop, step, and jump, From heel to head, the main-street in a trice, Measured the garment (help my metaphor!) Not merely criticised the cap, forsooth; And were you pricked by that collecting-itch, That pruriency for writing o'er your reds, 'Rare, rarer, rarest, not rare but unique,'-- The shelf, Saint-Rambert, of your cabinet, Unlabelled,--virginal, no Rahab-thread For blushing-token of the spy's success,-- Would taunt with vacancy, I undertake! What, yonder is your best apology, Pretence at most approach to naughtiness, Impingement of the ruddy on the blank? This is the criminal Saint-Rambertese Who smuggled in tobacco, half-a-pound! The Octroi found it out and fined the wretch. This other is the culprit who dispatched A hare, he thought a hedgehog, (clods obstruct,) Unfurnished with Permission for the Chase! As to the womankind--renounce from those The hope of getting a companion-tinge, First faint touch promising romantic fault!"

Enough: there stands Red Cotton Night-cap shelf-- A cavern's ostentatious vacancy-- My contribution to the show; while yours-- Whites heap your row of pegs from every hedge Outside, and house inside Saint-Rambert here-- We soon have come to end of. See, the church With its white steeple gives your challenge point, Perks as it were the night-cap of the town, Starchedly warrants all beneath is matched By all above, one snowy innocence!

You put me on my mettle. British maid And British man, suppose we have it out Here in the fields, decide the question so? Then, British fashion, shake hands hard again, Go home together, friends the more confirmed That one of us--assuredly myself-- Looks puffy about eye, and pink at nose? Which "pink" reminds me that the arduousness We both acknowledge in the enterprise, Claims, counts upon a large and liberal Acceptance of as good as victory In whatsoever just escapes defeat. You must be generous, strain point, and call Victory, any the least flush of pink Made prize of, labelled scarlet for the nonce-- Faintest pretension to be wrong and red And picturesque, that varies by a splotch The righteous flat of insipidity.

Quick to the quest, then--forward, the firm foot! Onward, the quarry-overtaking eye! For, what is this, by way of march-tune, makes The musicalest buzzing at my ear By reassurance of that promise old, _Though sins as scarlet they shall be as wool?_ Whence--what fantastic hope do I deduce? I am no Liebig: when the dyer dyes A texture, can the red dye prime the white? And if we washed well, wrung the texture hard, Would we arrive, here, there and everywhere, At a fierce ground beneath the surface meek?

I take the first chance, rub to threads what rag Shall flutter snowily in sight. For see! Already these few yards upon the rise, Our back to brave Saint-Rambert, how we reach The open, at a dozen steps or strides! Turn round and look about, a breathing-while! There lie, outspread at equidistance, thorpes And villages and towns along the coast, Distinguishable, each and all alike, By white persistent Night-cap, spire on spire. Take the left: yonder town is--what say you If I say "Londres"? Ay, the mother-mouse (Reversing fable, as truth can and will) Which gave our mountain of a London birth! This is the Conqueror's country, bear in mind, And Londres-district blooms with London-pride. Turn round; La Roche, to right, where oysters thrive: Monlieu--the lighthouse is a telegraph; This, full in front, Saint-Rambert; then succeeds Villeneuve, and Pons the Young with Pons the Old, And--ere faith points to Joyeux, out of sight, A little nearer--oh, La Ravissante!

There now is something like a Night-cap spire, Donned by no ordinary Notre-Dame! For, one of the three safety-guards of France, You front now, lady! Nothing intercepts The privilege, by crow-flight, two miles far. She and her sisters Lourdes and La Salette Are at this moment hailed the cynosure Of poor dear France, such waves have buffeted Since she eschewed infallibility And chose to steer by the vague compass-box. This same midsummer month, a week ago, Was not the memorable day observed For reinstatement of the misused Three In old supremacy forevermore? Did not the faithful flock in pilgrimage By railway, diligence, and steamer--nay, On foot with staff and scrip, to see the sights Assured them? And I say best sight was here: And nothing justified the rival Two In their pretension to equality; Our folk laid out their ticket-money best, And wiseliest, if they walked, wore shoe away; Not who went farther only to fare worse. For, what was seen at Lourdes and La Salette Except a couple of the common cures Such as all three can boast of, any day? While here it was, here and by no means there, That the Pope's self sent two great real gold crowns As thick with jewelry as thick could stick, His present to the Virgin and her Babe-- Provided for--who knows not?--by that fund, Count Alessandro Sforza's legacy, Which goes to crown some Virgin every year. But this year, poor Pope was in prison-house, And money had to go for something else; And therefore, though their present seemed the Pope's, The faithful of our province raised the sum Preached and prayed out of--nowise purse alone. Gentle and simple paid in kind, not cash, The most part: the great lady gave her brooch, The peasant-girl, her hairpin; 't was the rough Bluff farmer mainly who,--admonished well By wife to care lest his new colewort-crop Stray sorrowfully sparse like last year's seed,-- Lugged from reluctant pouch the fifty-franc, And had the Curés hope that rain would cease. And so, the sum in evidence at length, Next step was to obtain the donative By the spontaneous bounty of the Pope-- No easy matter, since his Holiness Had turned a deaf ear, long and long ago, To much entreaty on our Bishop's part, Commendably we boast. "But no," quoth he, "Image and image needs must take their turn: Here stand a dozen as importunate." Well, we were patient; but the cup ran o'er When--who was it pressed in and took the prize But our own offset, set far off indeed To grow by help of our especial name, She of the Ravissante--in Martinique! "What!" cried our patience at the boiling-point, "The daughter crowned, the mother's head goes bare? Bishop of Raimbaux!"--that 's our diocese-- "Thou hast a summons to repair to Rome, Be efficacious at the Council there: Now is the time or never! Right our wrong! Hie thee away, thou valued Morillon, And have the promise, thou who hast the vote!" So said, so done, so followed in due course (To cut the story short) this festival, This famous Twenty-second, seven days since.

Oh, but you heard at Joyeux! Pilgrimage, Concourse, procession with, to head the host, Cardinal Mirecourt, quenching lesser lights: The leafy street-length through, decked end to end With August-strippage, and adorned with flags, That would have waved right well but that it rained Just this picked day, by some perversity. And so were placed, on Mother and on Babe, The pair of crowns: the Mother's, you must see! Miranda, the great Paris goldsmith, made The marvel,--he 's a neighbor: that 's his park Before you, tree-topped wall we walk toward. His shop it was turned out the masterpiece, Probably at his own expenditure; Anyhow, his was the munificence Contributed the central and supreme Splendor that crowns the crown itself, The Stone. Not even Paris, ransacked, could supply That gem: he had to forage in New York, This jeweller, and country-gentleman, And most undoubted devotee beside! Worthily wived, too: since his wife it was Bestowed "with friendly hand"--befitting phrase! The lace which trims the coronation-robe-- Stiff wear--a mint of wealth on the brocade. Do go and see what I saw yesterday! And, for that matter, see in fancy still, Since ...

There now! Even for unthankful me, Who stuck to my devotions at high-tide That festal morning, never had a mind To trudge the little league and join the crowd-- Even for me is miracle vouchsafed! How pointless proves the sneer at miracles! As if, contrariwise to all we want And reasonably look to find, they graced Merely those graced-before, grace helps no whit, Unless, made whole, they need physician still. I--sceptical in every inch of me-- Did I deserve that, from the liquid name "Miranda,"--faceted as lovelily As his own gift, the gem,--a shaft should shine, Bear me along, another Abaris, Nor let me light till, lo, the Red is reached, And yonder lies in luminosity!

Look, lady! where I bade you glance but now! Next habitation, though two miles away,-- No tenement for man or beast between,-- That, park and domicile, is country-seat Of this same good Miranda! I accept The augury. Or there, or nowhere else, Will I establish that a Night-cap gleams Of visionary Red, not White for once! "Heaven," saith the sage, "is with us, here inside Each man:" "Hell also," simpleness subjoins, By White and Red describing human flesh.

And yet as we continue, quicken pace, Approach the object which determines me Victorious or defeated, more forlorn My chance seems,--that is certainty at least. Halt midway, reconnoitre! Either side The path we traverse (turn and see) stretch fields Without a hedge: one level, scallop-striped With bands of beet and turnip and luzern, Limited only by each color's end, Shelves down--we stand upon an eminence-- To where the earth-shell scallops out the sea, A sweep of semicircle; and at edge-- Just as the milk-white incrustations stud At intervals some shell-extremity, So do the little growths attract us here, Towns with each name I told you: say, they touch The sea, and the sea them, and all is said, So sleeps and sets to slumber that broad blue! The people are as peaceful as the place. This, that I call "the path" is road, highway; But has there passed us by a market-cart, Man, woman, child, or dog to wag a tail? True, I saw weeders stooping in a field; But--formidably white the Cap's extent!

Round again! Come, appearance promises! The boundary, the park-wall, ancient brick, Upholds a second wall of tree-heads high Which overlean its top, a solid green. That surely ought to shut in mysteries! A jeweller--no unsuggestive craft! Trade that admits of much romance, indeed. For, whom but goldsmiths used old monarchs pledge Regalia to, or seek a ransom from, Or pray to furnish dowry, at a pinch, According to authentic story-books? Why, such have revolutionized this land With diamond-necklace-dealing! not to speak Of families turned upside-down, because The gay "wives went and pawned clandestinely Jewels, and figured, till found out, with paste, Or else redeemed them--how, is horrible! Then there are those enormous criminals That love their ware and cannot lose their love, And murder you to get your purchase back. Others go courting after such a stone, Make it their mistress, marry for their wife, And find out, some day, it was false the while, As ever wife or mistress, man too fond Has named his Pilgrim, Hermit, Ace of Hearts.

Beside--what style of edifice begins To grow in sight at last and top the scene? That gray roof, with the range of lucarnes, four I count, and that erection in the midst-- Clock-house, or chapel-spire, or what, above? Conventual, that, beyond, manorial, sure! And reason good; for Clairvaux, such its name, Was built of old to be a Priory, Dependence on that Abbey-for-the-Males Our Conqueror founded in world-famous Caen, And where his body sought the sepulture, It was not to retain: you know the tale. Such Priory was Clairvaux, prosperous Hundreds of years; but nothing lasts below, And when the Red Cap pushed the Crown aside, The Priory became, like all its peers, A National Domain: which, bought and sold And resold, needs must change, with ownership. Both outside show and inside use; at length The messuage, three-and-twenty years ago, Became the purchase of rewarded worth Impersonate in Father--I must stoop To French phrase for precision's sake, I fear-- Father Miranda, goldsmith of renown: By birth a Madrilene, by domicile And sojourning accepted French at last. His energy it was which, trade transferred To Paris, throve as with a golden thumb, Established in the Place Vendôme. He bought Not building only, but belongings far And wide, at Gonthier there, Monlieu, Villeneuve, A plentiful estate: which, twelve years since, Passed, at the good man's natural demise, To Son and Heir Miranda--Clairvaux here, The Paris shop, the mansion--not to say Palatial residence on Quai Rousseau, With money, movables, a mine of wealth-- And young Léonce Miranda got it all.

Ah, but--whose might the transformation be? Were you prepared for this, now? As we talked, We walked, we entered the half-privacy, The partly-guarded precinct: passed beside The little paled-off islet, trees and turf, Then found us in the main ash-avenue Under the blessing of its branchage-roof: Till, on emergence, what affronts our gaze? Priory--Conqueror--Abbey-for-the-Males-- Hey, presto, pass, who conjured all away? Look through the railwork of the gate: a park --Yes, but _à l'Anglaise_, as they compliment! Grass like green velvet, gravel-walks like gold, Bosses of shrubs, embosomings of flowers, Lead you--through sprinkled trees of tiny breed Disporting, within reach of coverture. By some habitual acquiescent oak Or elm, that thinks, and lets the youngsters laugh-- Lead, lift at last your soul that walks the air, Up to the house-front, or its back perhaps-- Whether facade or no, one coquetry Of colored brick and carved stone! Stucco? Well, The daintiness is cheery, that I know, And all the sportive floral framework fits The lightsome purpose of the architect. Those lucarnes which I called conventual, late, Those are the outlets in the mansard-roof; And, underneath, what long light elegance Of windows here suggests how brave inside Lurk eyeballed gems they play the eyelids to! Festive arrangements look through such, be sure! And now the tower a-top, I took for clock's Or bell's abode, turns out a quaint device, Pillared and temple-treated Belvedere-- Pavilion safe within its railed-about Sublimity of area--whence what stretch, Of sea and land, throughout the seasons' change, Must greet the solitary! Or suppose, --If what the husband likes, the wife likes too,-- The happy pair of students cloistered high, Alone in April kiss when Spring arrives! Or no, he mounts there by himself to meet Winds, welcome wafts of sea-smell, first white bird That flaps thus far to taste the land again, And all the promise of the youthful year; Then he descends, unbosoms straight his store Of blessings in the bud, and both embrace, Husband and wife, since earth is Paradise, And man at peace with God. You see it all?

Let us complete our survey, go right round The place: for here, it may be, we surprise The Priory,--these solid walls, big barns, Gray orchard-grounds, huge four-square stores for stock, Betoken where the Church was busy once. Soon must we come upon the Chapel's self. No doubt next turn will treat us to ... Aha, Again our expectation proves at fault! Still the bright graceful modern--not to say Modish adornment, meets us: _Parc Anglais_, Tree-sprinkle, shrub-embossment as before. See, the sun splits on yonder bauble world Of silvered glass concentring, every side, All the adjacent wonder, made minute And touched grotesque by ball-convexity! Just so, a sense that something is amiss, Something is out of sorts in the display, Affects us, past denial, everywhere. The right erection for the Fields, the Wood, (Fields--but _Elysées_, wood--but _de Boulogne_) Is peradventure wrong for wood and fields When Vire, not Paris, plays the Capital. So may a good man have deficient taste; Since Son and Heir Miranda, he it was Who, six years now elapsed, achieved the work And truly made a wilderness to smile. Here did their domesticity reside, A happy husband and as happy wife, Till ... how can I in conscience longer keep My little secret that the man is dead I, for artistic purpose, talk about As if he lived still? No, these two years now Has he been dead. You ought to sympathize, Not mock the sturdy effort to redeem My pledge, and wring you out some tragedy From even such a perfect commonplace! Suppose I boast the death of such desert My tragic bit of Red? Who contravenes Assertion that a tragedy exists In any stoppage of benevolence, Utility, devotion above all? Benevolent? There never was his like: For poverty, he had an open hand ... Or stop--I use the wrong expression here-- An open purse, then, ever at appeal; So that the unreflecting rather taxed Profusion than penuriousness in alms. One, in his day and generation, deemed Of use to the community? I trust, Clairvaux thus renovated, regalized, Paris expounded thus to Normandy, Answers that question. Was the man devout? After a life--one mere munificence To Church and all things churchly, men or mice,-- Dying, his last bequeathment gave land, goods, Cash, every stick and stiver, to the Church, And notably to that church yonder, that Beloved of his soul, La Ravissante-- Wherefrom, the latest of his gifts, the Stone Gratefully bore me as on arrow-flash To Clairvaux, as I told you.

"Ay, to find Your Red desiderated article, Where every scratch and scrape provokes my White To all the more superb a prominence! Why, 't is the story served up fresh again-- How it befell the restive prophet old Who came and tried to curse but blessed the land. Come, your last chance! he disinherited Children: he made his widow mourn too much By this endowment of the other Bride-- Nor understood that gold and jewelry Adorn her in a figure, not a fact. You make that White I want, so very white, 'T is I say now--some trace of Red should be Somewhere in this Miranda-sanctitude!"

Not here, at all events, sweet mocking friend! For he was childless; and what heirs he had Were an uncertain sort of Cousinry Scarce claiming kindred so as to withhold The donor's purpose though fantastical: Heirs, for that matter, wanting no increase Of wealth, since rich already as himself; Heirs that had taken trouble off his hands, Bought that productive goldsmith-business he, With abnegation wise as rare, renounced Precisely at a time of life when youth, Nigh on departure, bids mid-age discard Life's other loves and likings in a pack, To keep, in lucre, comfort worth them all. This Cousinry are they who boast the shop Of "Firm-Miranda, London and New York." Cousins are an unconscionable kind; But these--pretension surely on their part To share inheritance were too absurd!

"Remains then, he dealt wrongly by his wife, Despoiled her somehow by such testament?" Farther than ever from the mark, fair friend! The man's love for his wife exceeded bounds Rather than failed the limit. 'T was to live Hers and hers only, to abolish earth Outside--since Paris holds the pick of earth-- He turned his back, shut eyes, stopped ears, to all Delicious Paris tempts her children with, And fled away to this far solitude-- She peopling solitude sufficiently! She, partner in each heavenward flight sublime, Was, with each condescension to the ground, Duly associate also: hand in hand, ... Or side by side, I say by preference-- On every good work sidlingly they went. Hers was the instigation--none but she Willed that, if death should summon first her lord, Though she, sad relict, must drag residue Of days encumbered by this load of wealth-- (Submitted to with something of a grace So long as her surviving vigilance Might worthily administer, convert Wealth to God's glory and the good of man, Give, as in life, so now in death, effect To cherished purpose)--yet she begged and prayed That, when no longer she could supervise The House, it should become a Hospital: For the support whereof, lands, goods, and cash Alike will go, in happy guardianship, To yonder church, La Ravissante: who debt To God and man undoubtedly will pay.

"Not of the world, your heroine!"

Do you know I saw her yesterday--set eyes upon The veritable personage, no dream? I in the morning strolled this way, as oft, And stood at entry of the avenue. When, out from that first garden-gate, we gazed Upon and through, a small procession swept-- Madame Miranda with attendants five. First, of herself: she wore a soft and white Engaging dress, with velvet stripes and squares Severely black, yet scarce discouraging: Fresh Paris-manufacture! (Vire's would do? I doubt it, but confess my ignorance.) Her figure? somewhat small and darling-like. Her face? well, singularly colorless, For first thing: which scarce suits a blonde, you know. Pretty you would not call her: though perhaps Attaining to the ends of prettiness, And somewhat more, suppose enough of soul. Then she is forty full: you cannot judge What beauty was her portion at eighteen, The age she married at. So, colorless I stick to, and if featureless I add, Your notion grows completer: for, although I noticed that her nose was aquiline, The whole effect amounts with me to--blank! I never saw what I could less describe. The eyes, for instance, unforgettable Which ought to be, are out of mind as sight.

Yet is there not conceivably a face, A set of wax-like features, blank at first, Which, as you bendingly grow warm above, Begins to take impressment from your breath? Which, as your will itself were plastic here Nor needed exercise of handicraft, From formless moulds itself to correspond With all you think and feel and are--in fine Grows a new revelation of yourself, Who know now for the first time what you want? Here has been something that could wait awhile, Learn your requirement, nor take shape before, But, by adopting it, make palpable Your right to an importance of your own, Companions somehow were so slow to see! --Far delicater solace to conceit Than should some absolute and final face, Fit representative of soul inside, Summon you to surrender--in no way Your breath's impressment, nor, in stranger's guise, Yourself--or why of force to challenge you? Why should your soul's reflection rule your soul? ("You" means not you, nor me, nor any one Framed, for a reason I shall keep suppressed, To rather want a master than a slave: The slavish still aspires to dominate!) So, all I say is, that the face, to me One blur of blank, might flash significance To who had seen his soul reflected there By that symmetric silvery phantom-like Figure, with other five processional. The first, a black-dressed matron--maybe, maid-- Mature, and dragonish of aspect,--marched; Then four came tripping in a joyous flock, Two giant goats and two prodigious sheep Pure as the arctic fox that suits the snow, Tripped, trotted, turned the march to merriment, But ambled at their mistress' heel--for why? A rod of guidance marked the Châtelaine, And ever and anon would sceptre wave, And silky subject leave meandering. Nay, one great naked sheep-face stopped to ask Who was the stranger, snuffed inquisitive My hand that made acquaintance with its nose, Examined why the hand--of man at least-- Patted so lightly, warmly, so like life! Are they such silly natures after all? And thus accompanied, the paled-off space, Isleted shrubs and verdure, gained the group; Till, as I gave a furtive glance, and saw Her back-hair was a block of solid gold, The gate shut out my harmless question--Hair So young and yellow, crowning sanctity, And claiming solitude ... can hair be false?

"Shut in the hair and with it your last hope, Yellow might on inspection pass for Red!-- Red, Red, where is the tinge of promised Red In this old tale of town and country life, This rise and progress of a family? First comes the bustling man of enterprise, The fortune-founding father, rightly rough, As who must grub and grab, play pioneer. Then, with a light and airy step, succeeds The son, surveys the fabric of his sire, And enters home, unsmirched from top to toe. Polish and education qualify Their fortunate possessor to confine His occupancy to the first-floor suite Rather than keep exploring needlessly Where dwelt his sire content with cellarage: Industry bustles underneath, no doubt, And supervisors should not sit too close. Next, rooms built, there 's the furniture to buy, And what adornment like a worthy wife? In comes she like some foreign cabinet, Purchased indeed, but purifying quick What space receives it from all traffic-taint. She tells of other habits, palace-life; Royalty may have pried into those depths Of sandal-wooded drawer, and set a-creak That pygmy portal pranked with lazuli. More fit by far the ignoble we replace By objects suited to such visitant, Than that we desecrate her dignity By neighborhood of vulgar table, chair, Which haply helped old age to smoke and doze. The end is, an exchange of city stir And too intrusive burgess-fellowship, For rural isolated elegance, Careless simplicity, how preferable! There one may fairly throw behind one's back The used-up worn-out Past, we want away, And make a fresh beginning of stale life. 'In just the place'--does any one object?-- 'Where aboriginal gentility Will scout the upstart, twit him with each trick Of townish trade-mark that stamps word and deed, And most of all resent that here town-dross He daubs with money-color to deceive!' Rashly objected! Is there not the Church To intercede and bring benefic truce At outset? She it is shall equalize The laborers i' the vineyard, last as first. Pay court to her, she stops impertinence. 'Duke, once your sires crusaded it, we know: Our friend the newcomer observes, no less, Your chapel, rich with their emblazonry, Wants roofing--might he but supply the means! Marquise, you gave the honor of your name, Titular patronage, abundant will To what should be an Orphan Institute: Gave everything but funds, in brief; and these, Our friend, the lady newly resident, Proposes to contribute, by your leave!' Brothers and sisters lie they in thy lap, Thou none-excluding, all-collecting Church! Sure, one has half a foot i' the hierarchy Of birth, when 'Nay, my dear,' laughs out the Duke, 'I 'm the crown's cushion-carrier, but the crown-- Who gave its central glory, I or you?' When Marquise jokes, 'My quest, forsooth? Each doit I scrape together goes for Peter-pence To purvey bread and water in his bonds For Peter's self imprisoned--Lord, how long? Yours, yours alone the bounty, dear my dame, You plumped the purse, which, poured into the plate, Made the Archbishop open brows so broad! And if you really mean to give that length Of lovely lace to edge the robe!' ... Ah, friends, Gem better serves so than by calling crowd, Round shop-front to admire the million's-worth! Lace gets more homage than from lorgnette-stare, And comment coarse to match, (should one display One's robe a trifle o'er the baignoire-edge,) 'Well may she line her slippers with the like, If minded so! their shop it was produced That wonderful _parure_, the other day, Whereof the Baron said, it beggared him.' And so the paired Mirandas built their house, Enjoyed their fortune, sighed for family, Found friends would serve their purpose quite as well, And come, at need, from Paris--anyhow, With evident alacrity, from Vire-- Endeavor at the chase, at least succeed In smoking, eating, drinking, laughing, and Preferring country, oh so much to town! Thus lived the husband; though his wife would sigh In confidence, when Countesses were kind, 'Cut off from Paris and society!' White, White, I once more round you in the ears! Though you have marked it, in a corner, yours Henceforth,--Red-lettered 'Failure,' very plain, I shall acknowledge, on the snowy hem Of ordinary Night-cap! Come, enough! We have gone round its cotton vastitude, Or half-round, for the end 's consistent still, A _cul-de-sac_ with stoppage at the sea. Here we return upon our steps. One look May bid good-morning--properly good-night-- To civic bliss, Miranda and his mate! Are we to rise and go?"

No, sit and stay! Now comes my moment, with the thrilling throw Of curtain from each side a shrouded case. Don't the rings shriek an ominous "Ha! ha! So you take Human Nature upon trust"? List but with like trust to an incident Which speedily shall make quite Red enough Burn out of yonder spotless napery! Sit on the little mound here, whence you seize The whole of the gay front sun-satisfied, One laugh of color and embellishment! Because it was there,--past those laurustines, On that smooth gravel-sweep 'twixt flowers and sward,-- There tragic death befell; and not one grace Outspread before you but is registered In that sinistrous coil these last two years Were occupied in winding smooth again.

"True?" Well, at least it was concluded so, Sworn to be truth, allowed by Law as such, (With my concurrence, if it matter here,) A month ago: at Vire they tried the case.

II

Monsieur Léonce Miranda, then, ... but stay! Permit me a preliminary word, And, after, all shall go so straight to end!

Have you, the travelled lady, found yourself Inside a ruin, fane or bath or cirque, Renowned in story, dear through youthful dream? If not,--imagination serves as well. Try fancy-land, go back a thousand years, Or forward, half the number, and confront Some work of art gnawn hollow by Time's tooth,-- Hellenic temple, Roman theatre, Gothic cathedral, Gallic Tuileries, But ruined, one and whichsoe'er you like. Obstructions choke what still remains intact, Yet proffer change that 's picturesque in turn; Since little life begins where great life ends, And vegetation soon amalgamates, Smooths novel shape from out the shapeless old, Till broken column, battered cornice-block, The centre with a bulk half weeds and flowers, Half relics you devoutly recognize. Devoutly recognizing,--hark, a voice Not to be disregarded! "Man worked here Once on a time; here needs again to work; Ruins obstruct, which man must remedy." Would you demur "Let Time fulfil his task, And, till the scythe-sweep find no obstacle, Let man be patient"?

The reply were prompt: "Glisteningly beneath the May-night moon, Herbage and floral coverture bedeck Yon splintered mass amidst the solitude: Wolves occupy the background, or some snake Glides by at distance: picturesque enough! Therefore, preserve it? Nay, pour daylight in,-- The mound proves swarming with humanity. There never was a thorough solitude, Now you look nearer: mortal busy life First of all brought the crumblings down on pate, Which trip man's foot still, plague his passage much, And prove--what seems to you so picturesque To him is ... but experiment yourself On how conducive to a happy home Will be the circumstance, your bed for base Boasts tessellated pavement,--equally Affected by the scorpion for his nest,-- While what o'er-roofs bed is an architrave, Marble, and not unlikely to crush man To mummy, should its venerable prop, Some figtree-stump, play traitor underneath. Be wise! Decide! For conservation's sake, Clear the arena forthwith! lest the tread Of too-much-tried impatience trample out Solid and unsubstantial to one blank Mud-mixture, picturesque to nobody,-- And, task done, quarrel with the parts intact Whence came the filtered fine dust, whence the crash Bides but its time to follow. Quick conclude Removal, time effects so tardily, Of what is plain obstruction; rubbish cleared, Let partial-ruin stand while ruin may, And serve world's use, since use is manifold. Repair wreck, stanchion wall to heart's content, But never think of renovation pure And simple, which involves creation too: Transform and welcome! Yon tall tower may help (Though built to be a belfry and naught else) Some Father Secchi, to tick Venus off In transit: never bring there bell again, To damage him aloft, brain us below, When new vibrations bury both in brick!"

Monsieur Léonce Miranda, furnishing The application at his cost, poor soul! Was instanced how,--because the world lay strewn With ravage of opinions in his path, And neither he, nor any friendly wit, Knew and could teach him which was firm, which frail, In his adventure to walk straight through life The partial-ruin,--in such enterprise, He straggled into rubbish, struggled on, And stumbled out again observably. "Yon buttress still can back me up," he judged: And at a touch down came both he and it. "A certain statue, I was warned against, Now, by good fortune, lies well underfoot, And cannot tempt to folly any more:" So, lifting eye, aloft since safety lay, What did he light on? the Idalian shape, The undeposed, erectly Victrix still! "These steps ascend the labyrinthine stair Whence, darkling and on all-fours, out I stand Exalt and safe, and bid low earth adieu-- For so instructs 'Advice to who would climb:'" And all at once the climbing landed him --Where, is my story.

Take its moral first. Do you advise a climber? Have respect To the poor head, with more or less of brains To spill, should breakage follow your advice! Head-break to him will be heart-break to you For having preached "Disturb no ruins here! Are not they crumbling of their own accord? Meantime, let poets, painters keep a prize! Beside, a sage pedestrian picks his way." A sage pedestrian--such as you and I! What if there trip, in merry carelessness, And come to grief, a weak and foolish child? Be cautious how you counsel climbing, then!

Are you adventurous and climb yourself? Plant the foot warily, accept a staff, Stamp only where you probe the standing-point, Move forward, well assured that move you may: Where you mistrust advance, stop short, there stick! This makes advancing slow and difficult? Hear what comes of the endeavor of brisk youth To foot it fast and easy! Keep this same Notion of outside mound and inside mash, Towers yet intact round turfy rottenness, Symbolic partial-ravage,--keep in mind! Here fortune placed his feet who first of all Found no incumbrance, till head found ... But hear!

This son and heir then of the jeweller, Monsieur Léonce Miranda, at his birth, Mixed the Castilian passionate blind blood With answerable gush, his mother's gift, Of spirit, French and critical and cold. Such mixture makes a battle in the brain, Ending as faith or doubt gets uppermost; Then will has way a moment, but no more: So nicely balanced are the adverse strengths, That victory entails reverse next time. The tactics of the two are different And equalize the odds: for blood comes first, Surrounding life with undisputed faith. But presently a new antagonist, By scarce-suspected passage in the dark, Steals spirit, fingers at each crevice found Athwart faith's stronghold, fronts the astonished man: "Such pains to keep me far, yet here stand I, Your doubt inside the faith-defence of you!"

With faith it was friends bulwarked him about From infancy to boyhood; so, by youth, He stood impenetrably circuited, Heaven-high and low as hell: what lacked he thus, Guarded against aggression, storm or sap? What foe would dare approach? Historic Doubt? Ay, were there some half-knowledge to attack! Batter doubt's best, sheer ignorance will beat. Acumen metaphysic?--drills its way Through what, I wonder! A thick feather-bed Of thoughtlessness, no operating tool-- Framed to transpierce the flint-stone--fumbles at, With chance of finding an impediment! This Ravissante, now: when he saw the church For the first time, and to his dying-day, His firm belief was that the name fell fit From the Delivering Virgin, niched and known; As if there wanted records to attest The appellation was a pleasantry, A pious rendering of Rare Vissante, The proper name which erst our province bore. He would have told you that Saint Aldabert Founded the church, (Heaven early favored France,) About the second century from Christ; Though the true man was Bishop of Raimbaux, Eleventh in succession, Eldobert, Who flourished after some six hundred years. He it was brought the image "from afar," (Made out of stone the place produces still,) "Infantine Art divinely artless," (Art In the decrepitude of Decadence,) And set it up a-working miracles Until the Northmen's fury laid it low, Not long, however: an egregious sheep, Zealous with scratching hoof and routing horn, Unearthed the image in good Mailleville's time, Count of the country. "If the tale be false, Why stands it carved above the portal plain?" Monsieur Léonce Miranda used to ask. To Londres went the prize in solemn pomp, But, liking old abode and loathing new, Was borne--this time, by angels--back again. And, reinaugurated, miracle Succeeded miracle, a lengthy list, Until indeed the culmination came-- Archbishop Chaumont prayed a prayer and vowed A vow--gained prayer and paid vow properly-- For the conversion of Prince Vertgalant. These facts, sucked in along with mother's-milk, Monsieur Léonce Miranda would dispute As soon as that his hands were flesh and bone, Milk-nourished two-and-twenty years before. So fortified by blind Castilian blood, What say you to the chances of French cold Critical spirit, should Voltaire besiege "Alp, Apennine, and fortified redoubt"? Ay, would such spirit please to play faith's game Faith's way, attack where faith defends so well! But then it shifts, tries other strategy. Coldness grows warmth, the critical becomes Unquestioning acceptance. "Share and share Alike in facts, to truth add other truth! Why with old truth needs new truth disagree?"

Thus doubt was found invading faith, this time, By help of not the spirit but the flesh: Fat Rabelais chuckled, where faith lay in wait For lean Voltaire's grimace--French, either foe. Accordingly, while round about our friend Ran faith without a break which learned eye Could find at two-and-twenty years of age, The twenty-two-years-old frank footstep soon Assured itself there spread a standing-space Flowery and comfortable, nowise rock Nor pebble-pavement roughed for champion's tread Who scorns discomfort, pacing at his post. Tall, long-limbed, shoulder right and shoulder left, And 'twixt _acromia_ such a latitude, Black heaps of hair on head, and blacker bush O'er-rioting chin, cheek and throat and chest,-- His brown meridional temperament Told him--or rather pricked into his sense Plainer than language--"Pleasant station here! Youth, strength, and lustihood can sleep on turf Yet pace the stony platform afterward: First signal of a foe and up they start! Saint Eldobert, at all such vanity, Nay--sinfulness, had shaken head austere. Had he? But did Prince Vertgalant? And yet, After how long a slumber, of what sort, Was it, he stretched octogenary joints, And, nigh on Day-of-Judgment trumpet-blast, Jumped up and manned wall, brisk as any bee?"

Nor Rabelais nor Voltaire, but Sganarelle, You comprehend, was pushing through the chink! That stager in the saint's correct costume, Who ever has his speech in readiness For thick-head juvenility at fault: "Go pace yon platform and play sentinel! You won't? The worse! but still a worse might hap. Stay then, provided that you keep in sight The battlement, one bold leap lands you by! Resolve not desperately 'Wall or turf, Choose this, choose that, but no alternative!' No! Earth left once were left for good and all: 'With Heaven you may accommodate yourself.'"

Saint Eldobert--I much approve his mode; With sinner Vertgalant I sympathize; But histrionic Sganarelle, who prompts While pulling back, refuses yet concedes,-- Whether he preach in chair, or print in book, Or whisper due sustainment to weak flesh, Counting his sham beads threaded on a lie-- Surely, one should bid pack that mountebank! Surely, he must have momentary fits Of self-sufficient stage-forgetfulness, Escapings of the actor-lassitude When he allows the grace to show the grin, Which ought to let even thickheads recognize (Through all the busy and benefic part,-- Bridge-building, or rock-riving, or good clean Transport of church and congregation both From this to that place with no harm at all,) The Devil, that old stager, at his trick Of general utility, who leads Downward, perhaps, but fiddles all the way!

Therefore, no sooner does our candidate For saintship spotlessly emerge soul-cleansed From First Communion to mount guard at post, Paris-proof, top to toe, than up there start The Spirit of the Boulevard--you know Who-- With jocund "So, a structure fixed as fate, Faith's tower joins on to tower, no ring more round, Full fifty years at distance, too, from youth! Once reach that precinct and there fight your best, As looking back you wonder what has come Of daisy-dappled turf you danced across! Few flowers that played with youth shall pester age, However age esteem the courtesy; And Eldobert was something past his prime, Stocked Caen with churches ere he tried hand here. Saint-Sauveur, Notre-Dame, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Jean Attest his handiwork commenced betimes. He probably would preach that turf is mud. Suppose it mud, through mud one picks a way, And when, clay-clogged, the struggler steps to stone, He uncakes shoe, arrives in manlier guise Than carried pick-a-back by Eldobert Big-baby-fashion, lest his leathers leak! All that parade about Prince Vertgalant Amounts to--your Castilian helps enough-- _Inveni ovem quæ perierat_. But ask the pretty votive statue-thing What the lost sheep's meantime amusements were Till the Archbishop found him! That stays blank: They washed the fleece well and forgot the rest. Make haste, since time flies, to determine, though!"

Thus opportunely took up parable,-- Admonishing Miranda just emerged Pure from The Ravissante and Paris-proof,-- Saint Sganarelle: then slipped aside, changed mask, And made re-entry as a gentleman Born of the Boulevard, with another speech, I spare you.

So, the year or two revolved, And ever the young man was dutiful To altar and to hearth: had confidence In the whole Ravissantish history. Voltaire? Who ought to know so much of him,-- Old sciolist, whom only boys think sage,-- As one whose father's house upon the Quai Neighbored the very house where that Voltaire Died mad and raving, not without a burst Of squibs and crackers too significant? Father and mother hailed their best of sons, Type of obedience, domesticity, Never such an example inside doors! Outside, as well not keep too close a watch; Youth must be left to some discretion there. And what discretion proved, I find deposed At Vire, confirmed by his own words: to wit, How, with the spriteliness of twenty-five, Five--and not twenty, for he gave their names With laudable precision--were the few Appointed by him unto mistress-ship; While, meritoriously the whole long week A votary of commerce only, week Ended, "at shut of shop on Saturday, Do I, as is my wont, get drunk," he writes In airy record to a confidant. "Bragging and lies!" replies the apologist: "And do I lose by that?" laughed Somebody, At the Court-edge a-tiptoe, 'mid the crowd, In his own clothes, a-listening to men's Law.

Thus while, prospectively a combatant, The volunteer bent brows, clenched jaws, and fierce Whistled the march-tune "Warrior to the wall!" Something like flowery laughters round his feet Tangled him of a sudden with "Sleep first!" And fairly flat upon the turf sprawled he, And let strange creatures make his mouth their home.

Anyhow, 't is the nature of the soul To seek a show of durability, Nor, changing, plainly be the slave of change. Outside the turf, the towers: but, round the turf, A tent may rise, a temporary shroud, Mock-faith to suit a mimic dwelling-place: Tent which, while screening jollity inside From the external circuit--evermore A menace to who lags when he should march-- Yet stands a-tremble, ready to collapse At touch of foot: turf is acknowledged grass, And grass, though pillowy, held contemptible Compared with solid rock, the rampired ridge. To truth a pretty homage thus we pay By testifying--what we dally with, Falsehood, (which, never fear we take for truth!) We may enjoy, but then--how we despise!

Accordingly, on weighty business bound, Monsieur Léonce Miranda stooped to play, But, with experience, soon reduced the game To principles, and thenceforth played by rule: Rule, dignifying sport as sport, proclaimed No less that sport was sport, and nothing more. He understood the worth of womankind,-- To furnish man--provisionally--sport: Sport transitive--such earth's amusements are: But, seeing that amusements pall by use, Variety therein is requisite. And since the serious work of life were wronged Should we bestow importance on our play, It follows, in such womankind-pursuit, Cheating is lawful chase. We have to spend An hour--they want a lifetime thrown away: We seek to tickle sense--they ask for soul, As if soul had no higher ends to serve! A stag-hunt gives the royal creature law: Bat-fowling is all fair with birds at roost, The lantern and the clap-net suit the hedge. Which must explain why, bent on Boulevard game, Monsieur Léonce Miranda decently Was prudent in his pleasure--passed himself Off on the fragile fair about his path As the gay devil rich in mere good looks, Youth, hope--what matter though the purse be void? "If I were only young Miranda, now, Instead of a poor clerkly drudge at desk All day, poor artist vainly bruising brush On palette, poor musician scraping gut With horsehair teased that no harmonics come! Then would I love with liberality, Then would I pay!--who now shall be repaid, Repaid alike for present pain and past, If Mademoiselle permit the contre-danse, Sing 'Gay in garret youth at twenty lives,' And afterward accept a lemonade!"

Such sweet facilities of intercourse Afford the Winter-Garden and Mabille! "Oh, I unite"--runs on the confidence, Poor fellow, that was read in open Court, --"Amusement with discretion: never fear My escapades cost more than market-price! No durably-attached Miranda-dupe, Sucked dry of substance by two clinging lips, Promising marriage, and performing it! Trust me, I know the world, and know myself, And know where duty takes me--in good time!"

Thus fortified and realistic, then, At all points thus against illusion armed, He wisely did New Year inaugurate By playing truant to the favored five: And sat installed at "The Varieties,"-- Playhouse appropriately named,--to note (Prying amid the turf that 's flowery there) What primrose, firstling of the year, might push The snows aside to deck his buttonhole-- Unnoticed by that outline sad, severe, (Though fifty good long years removed from youth,) That tower and tower,--our image bear in mind!

No sooner was he seated than, behold, Out burst a polyanthus! He was 'ware Of a young woman niched in neighborhood; And ere one moment flitted, fast was he Found captive to the beauty evermore, For life, for death, for heaven, for hell, her own. Philosophy, bewail thy fate! Adieu, Youth realistic and illusion-proof! Monsieur Léonce Miranda,--hero late Who "understood the worth of womankind," "Who found therein--provisionally--sport,"-- Felt, in the flitting of a moment, fool Was he, and folly all that seemed so wise, And the best proof of wisdom's birth would be That he made all endeavor, body, soul, By any means, at any sacrifice Of labor, wealth, repute, and (--well, the time For choosing between heaven on earth, and heaven In heaven, was not at hand immediately--) Made all endeavor, without loss incurred Of one least minute, to obtain her love. "Sport transitive?" "Variety required?" "In loving were a lifetime thrown away?" How singularly may young men mistake! The fault must be repaired with energy. Monsieur Léonce Miranda ate her up With eye-devouring; when the unconscious fair Passed from the close-packed hall, he pressed behind; She mounted vehicle, he did the same, Coach stopped, and cab fast followed, at one door-- Good house in unexceptionable street. Out stepped the lady,--never think, alone! A mother was not wanting to the maid, Or, maybe, wife, or widow, might one say? Out stepped and properly down flung himself Monsieur Léonce Miranda at her feet-- And never left them after, so to speak, For twenty years, till his last hour of life, When he released them, as precipitate. Love proffered and accepted then and there! Such potency in word and look has truth.

Truth I say, truth I mean: this love was true, And the rest happened by due consequence. By which we are to learn that there exists A falsish false, for truth 's inside the same, And truth that 's only half true, falsish truth. The better for both parties! folks may taunt That half your rock-built wall is rubble-heap: Answer them, half their flowery turf is stones! Our friend had hitherto been decking coat If not with stones, with weeds that stones befit, With dandelions--"primrose-buds," smirked he; This proved a polyanthus on his breast, Prize-lawful or prize-lawless, flower the same. So with his other instance of mistake: Was Christianity the Ravissante?

And what a flower of flowers he chanced on now! To primrose, polyanthus I prefer As illustration, from the fancy-fact That out of simple came the composite By culture: that the florist bedded thick His primrose-root in ruddle, bullock's blood, Ochre and devils'-dung, for aught I know, Until the pale and pure grew fiery-fine, Ruby and topaz, rightly named anew. This lady was no product of the plain; Social manure had raised a rarity. Clara de Millefleurs (note the happy name) Blazed in the full-blown glory of her Spring. Peerlessly perfect, form and face: for both-- "Imagine what, at seventeen, may have proved Miss Pages, the actress: Pages herself, my dear!" Noble she was, the name denotes: and rich? "The apartment in this Coliseum Street, Furnished, my dear, with such an elegance, Testifies wealth, my dear, sufficiently! What quality, what style and title, eh? Well now, waive nonsense, you and I are boys No longer: somewhere must a screw be slack! Don't fancy, Duchesses descend at door From carriage-step to stranger prostrate stretched, And bid him take heart, and deliver mind, March in and make himself at ease forthwith,-- However broad his chest and black his beard, And comely his belongings,--all through love Protested in a world of ways save one-- Hinting at marriage!"--marriage which yet means Only the obvious method, easiest help To satisfaction of love's first demand, That love endure eternally: "my dear, Somewhere or other must a screw be slack!"

Truth is the proper policy: from truth-- Whate'er the force wherewith you fling your speech,-- Be sure that speech will lift you, by rebound, Somewhere above the lowness of a lie! Monsieur Léonce Miranda heard too true A tale--perhaps I may subjoin, too trite! As the meek martyr takes her statued stand Above our pity, claims our worship just Because of what she puts in evidence, Signal of suffering, badge of torture borne In days gone by, shame then, but glory now, Barb, in the breast, turned aureole for the front! So, half timidity, composure half, Clara de Millefleurs told her martyrdom.

Of poor though noble parentage, deprived Too early of a father's guardianship, What wonder if the prodigality Of nature in the girl, whose mental gifts Matched her external dowry, form and face-- If these suggested a too prompt resource To the resourceless mother? "Try the Stage, And so escape starvation! Prejudice Defames Mimetic Art: be yours to prove That gold and dross may meet and never mix, Purity plunge in pitch yet soil no plume!"

All was prepared in London--(you conceive The natural shrinking from publicity In Paris, where the name excites remark)-- London was ready for the grand début; When some perverse ill-fortune, incident To art mimetic, some malicious thrust Of Jealousy who sidles 'twixt the scenes, Or pops up sudden from the prompter's hole,-- Somehow the brilliant bubble burst in suds. Want followed: in a foreign land, the pair! Oh, hurry over the catastrophe-- Mother too sorely tempted, daughter tried Scarcely so much as circumvented, say! Caged unsuspecting artless innocence!

Monsieur Léonce Miranda tell the rest!-- The rather that he told it in a style To puzzle Court Guide students, much more me. "Brief, she became the favorite of Lord N., An aged but illustrious Duke, thereby Breaking the heart of his competitor, The Prince of O. Behold her palaced straight In splendor, clothed in diamonds," (phrase how fit!) "Giving tone to the City by the Thames! Lord N., the aged but illustrious Duke, Was even on the point of wedding her-- Giving his name to her" (why not to us?) "But that her better angel interposed. She fled from such a fate to Paris back. A fortnight since: conceive Lord N.'s despair! Duke as he is, there 's no invading France. He must restrict pursuit to postal plague Of writing letters daily, duly read As darlingly she hands them to myself, The privileged supplanter, who therewith Light a cigar and see abundant blue"-- (Either of heaven or else Havana-smoke,) "Think! she, who helped herself to diamonds late, In passion of disinterestedness Now--will accept no tribute of my love Beyond a paltry ring, three Louis'-worth! Little she knows I have the rummaging Of old Papa's shop in the Place Vendôme!" So wrote entrancedly to confidant, Monsieur Léonce Miranda. Surely now, If Heaven, that see all, understands no less, It finds temptation pardonable here, It mitigates the promised punishment, It recognizes that to tarry just An April hour amid such dainty turf Means no rebellion against task imposed Of journey to the distant wall one day? Monsieur Léonce Miranda puts the case! Love, he is purposed to renounce, abjure; But meanwhile, is the case a common one? Is it the vulgar sin, none hates as he? Which question, put directly to "his dear" (His brother--I will tell you in a trice), Was doubtless meant, by due meandering, To reach, to fall not unobserved before The auditory cavern 'neath the cope Of Her, the placable, the Ravissante. But here 's the drawback, that the image smiles, Smiles on, smiles ever, says to supplicant "Ay, ay, ay"--like some kindly weathercock Which, stuck fast at Set Fair, Favonian Breeze, Still warrants you from rain, though Auster's lead Bring down the sky above your cloakless mirth. Had he proposed this question to, nor "dear" Nor Ravissante, but prompt to the Police, The Commissary of his Quarter, now-- There had been shaggy eyebrows elevate With twinkling apprehension in each orb Beneath, and when the sudden shut of mouth Relaxed,--lip pressing lip, lest out should plump The pride of knowledge in too frank a flow,-- Then, fact on fact forthcoming, dose were dealt Of truth remedial, in sufficiency To save a chicken threatened with the pip, Head-staggers and a tumble from its perch.

Alack, it was the lady's self that made The revelation, after certain days --Nor so unwisely! As the haschisch-man Prepares a novice to receive his drug, Adroitly hides the soil with sudden spread Of carpet ere he seats his customer: Then shows him how to smoke himself about With Paradise; and only when, at puff Of pipe, the Houri dances round the brain Of dreamer, does he judge no need is now For circumspection and punctiliousness; He may resume the serviceable scrap That made the votary unaware of muck. Just thus the lady, when her brewage--love-- Was well a-fume about the novice-brain, Saw she might boldly pluck from underneath Her lover the preliminary lie.

Clara de Millefleurs, of the noble race, Was Lucie Steiner, child to Dominique And Magdalen Commercy; born at Sierck, About the bottom of the Social Couch. The father having come and gone again, The mother and the daughter found their way To Paris, and professed mode-merchandise, Were milliners, we English roughlier say; And soon a fellow-lodger in the house, Monsieur Ulysse Muhlhausen, young and smart, Tailor by trade, perceived his house-mate's youth, Smartness, and beauty over and above. Courtship was brief, and marriage followed quick, And quicklier--impecuniosity. The young pair quitted Paris to reside At London: which repaid the compliment But scurvily, since not a whit the more Trade prospered by the Thames than by the Seine. Failing all other, as a last resource, "He would have trafficked in his wife,"--she said. If for that cause they quarrelled, 't was, I fear, Rather from reclamation of her rights To wifely independence, than as wronged Otherwise by the course of life proposed: Since, on escape to Paris back again, From horror and the husband,--ill-exchanged For safe maternal home recovered thus,-- I find her domiciled and dominant In that apartment, Coliseum Street, Where all the splendid magic met and mazed Monsieur Léonce Miranda's venturous eye. Only, the same was furnished at the cost Of some one notable in days long since, Carlino Centofanti: he it was, Found entertaining unawares--if not An angel, yet a youth in search of one.

Why this revealment after reticence? Wherefore, beginning "Millefleurs," end at all Steiner, Muhlhausen, and the ugly rest? Because the unsocial purse-controlling wight, Carlino Centofanti, made aware By misadventure that his bounty, crumbs From table, comforted a visitant, Took churlish leave, and left, too, debts to pay. Loaded with debts, the lady needs must bring Her soul to bear assistance from a friend Beside that paltry ring, three Louis'-worth; And therefore might the little circumstance That Monsieur Léonce had the rummaging Of old Papa's shop in the Place Vendôme, Pass, perhaps, not so unobservably.

Frail shadow of a woman in the flesh, These very eyes of mine saw yesterday, Would I re-tell this story of your woes, Would I have heart to do you detriment By pinning all this shame and sorrow plain To that poor chignon,--staying with me still, Though form and face have well-nigh faded now,-- But that men read it, rough in brutal print, As two years since some functionary's voice Rattled all this--and more by very much-- Into the ear of vulgar Court and crowd? Whence, by reverberation, rumblings grew To what had proved a week-long roar in France Had not the dreadful cannonry drowned all. Was, now, the answer of your advocate More than just this? "The shame fell long ago, The sorrow keeps increasing: God forbid We judge man by the faults of youth in age!" Permit me the expression of a hope Your youth proceeded like your avenue, Stepping by bush, and tree, and taller tree, Until, columnar, at the house they end. So might your creeping youth columnar rise And reach, by year and year, symmetrical, To where all shade stops short, shade's service done. Bushes on either side, and boughs above, Darken, deform the path else sun would streak; And, cornered halfway somewhere, I suspect Stagnation and a horse-pond: hurry past! For here 's the house, the happy half-and-half Existence--such as stands for happiness True and entire, howe'er the squeamish talk! Twenty years long, you may have loved this man; He must have loved you; that 's a pleasant life, Whatever was your right to lead the same. The white domestic pigeon pairs secure, Nay, does mere duty by bestowing egg In authorized compartment, warm and safe, Boarding about, and gilded spire above, Hoisted on pole, to dogs' and eats' despair! But I have spied a veriest trap of twigs On tree-top, every straw a thievery, Where the wild dove--despite the fowler's snare, The sportsman's shot, the urchin's stone--crooned gay, And solely gave her heart to what she hatched, Nor minded a malignant world below. _I_ throw first stone forsooth? 'T is mere assault Of playful sugarplum against your cheek, Which, if it makes cheek tingle, wipes off rouge! _You_, my worst woman? Ah, that touches pride, Puts on his mettle the exhibitor Of Night-caps, if you taunt him "This, no doubt,-- Now we have got to Female-garniture,-- Crowns your collection, Reddest of the row!" O unimaginative ignorance Of what dye's depth keeps best apart from worst In womankind!--how heaven's own pure may seem To blush aurorally beside such blanched Divineness as the women-wreaths named White: While hell, eruptive and fuliginous, Sickens to very pallor as I point Her place to a Red clout called woman too! Hail, heads that ever had such glory once Touch you a moment, like God's cloven tongues Of fire! your lambent aureoles lost may leave You marked yet, dear beyond true diadems! And hold, each foot, nor spurn, to man's disgrace, What other twist of fetid rag may fall! Let slink into the sewer the cupping-cloth!

Lucie, much solaced, I re-finger you, The medium article; if ruddy-marked With iron-mould, your cambric,--clean at least From poison-speck of rot and purulence! Lucie Muhlhausen said--"Such thing am I: Love me, or love me not!" Miranda said, "I do love, more than ever, most for this." The revelation of the very truth Proved the concluding necessary shake Which bids the tardy mixture crystallize Or else stay ever liquid: shoot up shaft, Durably diamond, or evaporate-- Sluggish solution through a minute's slip. Monsieur Léonce Miranda took his soul In both his hands, as if it were a vase, To see what came of the convulsion there, And found, amid subsidence, love new-born So sparklingly resplendent, old was new. "Whatever be my lady's present, past, Or future, this is certain of my soul, I love her! in despite of all I know, Defiance of the much I have to fear, I venture happiness on what I hope, And love her from this day forevermore! No prejudice to old profound respect For certain Powers! I trust they bear in mind A most peculiar case, and straighten out What 's crooked there, before we close accounts. Renounce the world for them--some day I will: Meantime, to me let her become the world!"

Thus, mutely might our friend soliloquize Over the tradesmen's bills, his Clara's gift-- In the apartment, Coliseum Street, Carlino Centofanti's legacy, Provided rent and taxes were discharged-- In face of Steiner now, De Millefleurs once, The tailor's wife and runaway confessed.

On such a lady if election light, (According to a social prejudice,) If henceforth "all the world" she constitute For any lover,--needs must he renounce Our world in ordinary, walked about By couples loving as its laws prescribe,-- Renunciation sometimes difficult. But, in this instance, time and place and thing Combined to simplify experiment, And make Miranda, in the current phrase, Master the situation passably.

For first facility, his brother died-- Who was, I should have told you, confidant, Adviser, referee, and substitute, All from a distance: but I knew how soon This younger brother, lost in Portugal, Had to depart and leave our friend at large. Cut off abruptly from companionship With brother-soul of bulk about as big, (Obvious recipient--by intelligence And sympathy, poor little pair of souls-- Of much affection and some foolishness,) Monsieur Léonce Miranda, meant to lean By nature, needs must shift the leaning-place To his love's bosom from his brother's neck, Or fall flat unrelieved of freight sublime.

Next died the lord of the Aladdin's cave, Master o' the mint, and keeper of the keys Of chests chokefull with gold and silver changed By Art to forms where wealth forgot itself, And caskets where reposed each pullet-egg Of diamond, slipping flame from fifty slants. In short, the father of the family Took his departure also from our scene, Leaving a fat succession to his heir Monsieur Léonce Miranda,--"fortunate, If ever man was, in a father's death," (So commented the world,--not he, too kind, Could that be, rather than scarce kind enough) Indisputably fortunate so far, That little of incumbrance in his path, Which money kicks aside, would lie there long.

And finally, a rough but wholesome shock, An accident which comes to kill or cure, A jerk which mends a dislocated joint! Such happy chance, at cost of twinge, no doubt, Into the socket back again put truth, And stopped the limb from longer dragging lie. For love suggested, "Better shamble on, And bear your lameness with what grace you may!" And but for this rude wholesome accident, Continuance of disguise and subterfuge, Retention of first falsehood as to name And nature in the lady, might have proved Too necessary for abandonment. Monsieur Léonce Miranda probably Had else been loath to cast the mask aside, So politic, so self-preservative, Therefore so pardonable--though so wrong! For see the bugbear in the background! Breathe But ugly name, and wind is sure to waft The husband news of the wife's whereabout: From where he lies perdue in London town, Forth steps the needy tailor on the stage, Deity-like from dusk machine of fog, And claims his consort, or his consort's worth In rubies which her price is far above. Hard to propitiate, harder to oppose,-- Who but the man's self came to banish fear, A pleasant apparition, such as shocks A moment, tells a tale, then goes for good!

Monsieur Ulysse Muhlhausen proved no less Nor more than "Gustave," lodging opposite Monsieur Léonce Miranda's diamond-cave And ruby-mine, and lacking little thence Save that its gnome would keep the captive safe, Never return his Clara to his arms. For why? He was become the man in vogue, The indispensable to who went clothed Nor cared encounter Paris fashion's blame,-- Such miracle could London absence work. Rolling in riches--so translate "the vogue"-- Rather his object was to keep off claw Should griffin scent the gold, should wife lay claim To lawful portion at a future day, Than tempt his partner from her private spoils. Best forage each for each, nor coupled hunt!

Pursuantly, one morning,--knock at door With knuckle, dry authoritative cough, And easy stamp of foot, broke startlingly On household slumber, Coliseum Street: "Admittance in the name of Law!" In marched The Commissary and subordinate. One glance sufficed them. "A marital pair: We certify, and bid good morning, sir! Madame, a thousand pardons!" Whereupon Monsieur Ulysse Muhlhausen, otherwise Called "Gustave" for conveniency of trade, Deposing in due form complaint of wrong, Made his demand of remedy--divorce From bed, board, share of name, and part in goods. Monsieur Léonce Miranda owned his fault, Protested his pure ignorance, from first To last, of rights infringed in "Gustave's" case: Submitted him to judgment. Law decreed "Body and goods be henceforth separate!" And thereupon each party took its way, This right, this left, rejoicing, to abide Estranged yet amicable, opposites In life as in respective dwelling-place. Still does one read on his establishment Huge-lettered "Gustave,"--gold out-glittering "Miranda, goldsmith," just across the street-- "A first-rate hand at riding-habits"--say The instructed--"special cut of chamber-robes."

Thus by a rude in seeming--rightlier judged Beneficent surprise, publicity Stopped further fear and trembling, and what tale Cowardice thinks a covert: one bold splash Into the mid-shame, and the shiver ends, Though cramp and drowning may begin perhaps.

To cite just one more point which crowned success: Madame, Miranda's mother, most of all An obstacle to his projected life In license, as a daughter of the Church, Duteous, exemplary, severe by right-- Moreover one most thoroughly beloved Without a rival till the other sort Possessed her son,--first storm of anger spent, She seemed, though grumblingly and grudgingly, To let be what needs must be, acquiesce. "With heaven--accommodation possible!" Saint Sganarelle had preached with such effect, She saw now mitigating circumstance. "The erring one was most unfortunate, No question: but worse Magdalens repent. Were Clara free, did only Law allow, What fitter choice in marriage could have made Léonce or anybody?" 'T is alleged And evidenced, I find, by advocate, "Never did she consider such a tie As baleful, springe to snap whate'er the cost." And when the couple were in safety once At Clairvaux, motherly, considerate, She shrank not from advice. "Since safe you be, Safely abide! for winter, I know well, Is troublesome in a cold country-house. I recommend the south room that we styled, Your sire and I, the winter-chamber."

Chance Or purpose,--who can read the mystery?-- Combined, I say, to bid "Intrench yourself, Monsieur Léonce Miranda, on this turf, About this flower, so firmly that, as tent Rises on every side around you both, The question shall become,--Which arrogates Stability, this tent or those far towers? May not the temporary structure suit The stable circuit, co-exist in peace?-- Always until the proper time, no fear! 'Lay flat your tent!' is easier said than done."

So, with the best of auspices, betook Themselves Léonce Miranda and his bride-- Provisionary--to their Clairvaux house, Never to leave it--till the proper time.

I told you what was Clairvaux-Priory Ere the improper time: an old demesne With memories,--relic half, and ruin whole,-- The very place, then, to repair the wits Worn out with Paris-traffic, when its lord, Miranda's father, took his month of ease Purchased by industry. What contrast here! Repose, and solitude, and healthy ways! That ticking at the back of head, he took For motion of an inmate, stopped at once, Proved nothing but the pavement's rattle left Behind at Paris: here was holiday! Welcome the quaint succeeding to the spruce, The large and lumbersome and--might he breathe In whisper to his own ear--dignified And gentry-fashioned old-style haunts of sleep! Palatial gloomy chambers for parade, And passage-lengths of lost significance, Never constructed as receptacle, At his odd hours, for him their actual lord By dint of diamond-dealing, goldsmithry. Therefore Miranda's father chopped and changed Nor roof-tile nor yet floor-brick, undismayed By rains a-top or rats at bottom there. Such contrast is so piquant for a month! But now arrived quite other occupants Whose cry was "Permanency,--life and death Here, here, not elsewhere, change is all we dread!" Their dwelling-place must be adapted, then, To inmates, no mere truants from the town, No temporary sojourners, forsooth, At Clairvaux: change it into Paradise!

Fair friend,--who listen and let talk, alas!-- You would, in even such a state of things, Pronounce,--or am I wrong?--for bidding stay The old-world inconvenience, fresh as found. All folk of individuality Prefer to be reminded, now and then, Though at the cost of vulgar cosiness, That the shell-outside only harbors man The vital and progressive, meant to build, When build he may, with quite a difference, Some time, in that far land we dream about, Where every man is his own architect. But then the couple here in question, each At one in project for a happy life, Were by no acceptation of the word So individual that they must aspire To architecture all-appropriate, And, therefore, in this world impossible: They needed house to suit the circumstance, Proprietors, not tenants for a term. Despite a certain marking, here and there, Of fleecy black or white distinguishment, These vulgar sheep wore the flock's uniform. _They_ love the country, _they_ renounce the town? They gave a kick, as our Italians say, To Paris ere it turned and kicked themselves! Acquaintances might prove too hard to seek, Or the reverse of hard to find, perchance, Since Monsieur Gustave's apparition there. And let me call remark upon the list Of notabilities invoked, in Court At Vire, to witness, by their phrases culled From correspondence, what was the esteem Of those we pay respect to, for "the pair Whereof they knew the inner life," 't is said. Three, and three only, answered the appeal. First Monsieur Vaillant, music-publisher, "Begs Madame will accept civilities." Next Alexandre Dumas,--sire, not son,-- "Sends compliments to Madame and to you." And last--but now prepare for England's voice! I will not mar nor make--here 's word for word-- "A rich proprietor of Paris, he To whom belonged that beauteous _Bagatelle_ Close to the wood of Boulogne, Hertford hight, Assures of homages and compliments Affectionate"--not now Miranda but "Madame Muhlhausen." (Was this friend, the Duke Redoubtable in rivalry before?) Such was the evidence when evidence Was wanted, then if ever, to the worth Whereat acquaintances in Paris prized Monsieur Léonce Miranda's household charm. No wonder, then, his impulse was to live, In Norman solitude, the Paris life: Surround himself with Art transported thence, And nature like those famed Elysian Fields: Then, warm up the right color out of both, By Boulevard friendships tempted to come taste How Paris lived again in little there.

Monsieur Léonce Miranda practised Art. Do let a man for once live as man likes! Politics? Spend your life, to spare the world's: Improve each unit by some particle Of joy the more, deteriorate the orb Entire, your own: poor profit, dismal loss! Write books, paint pictures, or make music--since Your nature leans to such life-exercise! Ay, but such exercise begins too soon, Concludes too late, demands life whole and sole, Artistry being battle with the age It lives in! Half life,--silence, while you learn What has been done; the other half,--attempt At speech, amid world's wail of wonderment-- "Here 's something done was never done before!" To be the very breath that moves the age Means not to have breath drive you bubble-like Before it--but yourself to blow: that 's strain; Strain's worry through the lifetime, till there 's peace; We know where peace expects the artist-soul.

Monsieur Léonce Miranda knew as much. Therefore in Art he nowise cared to be Creative; but creation, that had birth In storminess long years before was born Monsieur Léonce Miranda,--Art, enjoyed Like fleshly objects of the chase that tempt In cookery, not in capture--these might feast The dilettante, furnish tavern-fare Open to all with purses open too. To sit free and take tribute seigneur-like-- Now, not too lavish of acknowledgment, Now, self-indulgently profuse of pay. Always Art's seigneur, not Art's serving-man, Whate'er the style and title and degree,-- That is the quiet life and easy death Monsieur Léonce Miranda would approve Wholly--provided (back I go again To the first simile) that while glasses clink, And viands steam, and banqueting laughs high, All that 's outside the temporary tent, The dim grim outline of the circuit-wall, Forgets to menace "Soon or late will drop Pavilion, soon or late you needs must march, And laggards will be sorry they were slack! Always--unless excuse sound plausible!"

Monsieur Léonce Miranda knew as much: Whence his determination just to paint So creditably as might help the eye To comprehend how painter's eye grew dim Ere it produced L'Ingegno's piece of work-- So to become musician that his ear Should judge, by its own tickling and turmoil, Who made the Solemn Mass might well die deaf-- So cultivate a literary knack That, by experience how it wiles the time, He might imagine how a poet, rapt In rhyming wholly, grew so poor at last By carelessness about his banker's-book, That the Sieur Boileau (to provoke our smile) Began abruptly,--when he paid devoir To Louis Quatorze as he dined in state,-- "Sire, send a drop of broth to Pierre Corneille Now dying and in want of sustenance!" --I say, these half-hour playings at life's toil, Diversified by billiards, riding, sport-- With now and then a visitor--Dumas, Hertford--to check no aspiration's flight-- While Clara, like a diamond in the dark, Should extract shining from what else were shade, And multiply chance rays a million-fold,-- How could he doubt that all offence outside,-- Wrong to the towers, which, pillowed on the turf, He thus shut eyes to,--were as good as gone?

So, down went Clairvaux-Priory to dust, And up there rose, in lieu, yon structure gay Above the Norman ghosts: and where the stretch Of barren country girdled house about, Behold the Park, the English preference! Thus made undoubtedly a desert smile Monsieur Léonce Miranda.

Ay, but she? One should not so merge soul in soul, you think? And I think: only, let us wait, nor want Two things at once--her turn will come in time. A cork-float danced upon the tide, we saw, This morning, blinding-bright with briny dews: There was no disengaging soaked from sound, Earth-product from the sister-element. But when we turn, the tide will turn, I think, And bare on beach will lie exposed the buoy: A very proper time to try, with foot And even finger, which was buoying wave, Which merely buoyant substance,--power to lift, And power to be sent skyward passively. Meanwhile, no separation of the pair!

III

And so slipt pleasantly away five years Of Paradisiac dream; till, as there flit Premonitory symptoms, pricks of pain, Because the dreamer has to start awake And find disease dwelt active all the while In head or stomach through his night-long sleep,-- So happened here disturbance to content.

Monsieur Léonce Miranda's last of cares, Ere he composed himself, had been to make Provision that, while sleeping safe he lay, Somebody else should, dragon-like, let fall Never a lid, coiled round the apple-stem, But watch the precious fruitage. Somebody Kept shop, in short, played Paris substitute. Himself, shrewd, well-trained, early-exercised, Could take in, at an eye-glance, luck or loss-- Know commerce throve, though lazily uplift On elbow merely: leave his bed forsooth? Such active service was the substitute's.

But one October morning, at first drop Of appled gold, first summons to be grave Because rough Autumn's play turns earnest now, Monsieur Léonce Miranda was required In Paris to take counsel, face to face, With Madame-mother: and be rated, too, Roundly at certain items of expense Whereat the government provisional, The Paris substitute and shopkeeper, Shook head, and talked of funds inadequate: Oh, in the long run,--not if remedy Occurred betimes! Else,--tap the generous bole Too near the quick,--it withers to the root-- Leafy, prolific, golden apple-tree, "Miranda," sturdy in the Place Vendôme!

"What is this reckless life you lead?" began Her greeting she whom most he feared and loved, Madame Miranda. "Luxury, extravagance Sardanapalus' self might emulate,-- Did your good father's money go for this? Where are the fruits of education, where The morals which at first distinguished you, The faith which promised to adorn your age? And why such wastefulness outbreaking now, When heretofore you loved economy? Explain this pulling-down and building-up Poor Clairvaux, which your father bought because Clairvaux he found it, and so left to you, Not a gilt-gingerbread big baby-house! True, we could somehow shake head and shut eye To what was past prevention on our part-- This reprehensible illicit bond: We, in a manner, winking, watched consort Our modest well-conducted pious son With Delilah: we thought the smoking flax Would smoulder soon away and end in snuff! Is spark to strengthen, prove consuming fire? No lawful family calls Clairvaux 'home'-- Why play that fool of Scripture whom the voice Admonished 'Whose to-night shall be those things Provided for thy morning jollity?' To take one specimen of pure caprice Out of the heap conspicuous in the plan,-- Puzzle of change, I call it,--titled big 'Clairvaux Restored:' what means this Belvedere? This Tower, stuck like a fool's-cap on the roof-- Do you intend to soar to heaven from thence? Tower, truly! Better had you planted turf-- More fitly would you dig yourself a hole Beneath it for the final journey's help! O we poor parents--could we prophesy!" Léonce was found affectionate enough To man, to woman, child, bird, beast, alike; But all affection, all one fire of heart Flaming toward Madame-mother. Had she posed The question plainly at the outset "Choose! Cut clean in half your all-the-world of love, The mother and the mistress: then resolve, Take me or take her, throw away the one!"-- He might have made the choice and marred my tale. But, much I apprehend, the problem put Was, "Keep both halves, yet do no detriment To either! Prize each opposite in turn!" Hence, while he prized at worth the Clairvaux-life With all its tolerated naughtiness, He, visiting in fancy Quai Rousseau, Saw, cornered in the cosiest nook of all, That range of rooms through number Thirty-three, The lady-mother bent o'er her Bézique While Monsieur Curé This, and Sister That,-- Superior of no matter what good House-- Did duty for Duke Hertford and Dumas, Nay--at his mother's age--for Clara's self. At Quai Rousseau, things comfortable thus, Why should poor Clairvaux prove so troublesome? She played at cards, he built a Belvedere. But here 's the difference: she had reached the Towers And there took pastime: he was still on Turf-- Though fully minded that, when once he marched, No sportive fancy should distract him more.

In brief, the man was angry with himself, With her, with all the world and much beside: And so the unseemly words were interchanged Which crystallize what else evaporates, And make mere misty petulance grow hard And sharp inside each softness, heart and soul. Monsieur Léonce Miranda flung at last Out of doors, fever-flushed: and there the Seine Rolled at his feet, obsequious remedy For fever, in a cold autumnal flow. "Go and be rid of memory in a bath!" Craftily whispered Who besets the ear On such occasions.

Done as soon as dreamed. Back shivers poor Léonce to bed--where else? And there he lies a month 'twixt life and death, Raving. "Remorse of conscience!" friends opine. "Sirs, it may partly prove so," represents Beaumont--(the family physician, he Whom last year's Commune murdered, do you mind?) Beaumont reports, "There is some active cause, More than mere pungency of quarrel past,-- Cause that keeps adding other food to fire. I hear the words and know the signs, I say! Dear Madame, you have read the Book of Saints, How Antony was tempted? As for me, Poor heathen, 't is by pictures I am taught. I say then, I see standing here,--between Me and my patient, and that crucifix You very properly would interpose-- A certain woman-shape, one white appeal, 'Will you leave me, then, me, me, me for her?' Since cold Seine could not quench this flame, since flare Of fever does not redden it away,-- Be rational, indulgent, mute--should chance Come to the rescue--Providence, I mean-- The while I blister and phlebotomize!"

Well, somehow rescued by whatever power, At month's end, back again conveyed himself Monsieur Léonce Miranda, worn to rags, Nay, tinder: stuff irreparably spoiled, Though kindly hand should stitch and patch its best. Clairvaux in Autumn is restorative. A friend stitched on, patched ever. All the same, Clairvaux looked grayer than a month ago. Unglossed was shrubbery, unglorified Each copse, so wealthy once; the garden-plots. The orchard-walks, showed dearth and dreariness. The sea lay out at distance crammed by cloud Into a leaden wedge; and sorrowful Sulked field and pasture with persistent rain. Nobody came so far from Paris now: Friends did their duty by an invalid Whose convalescence claimed entire repose. Only a single ministrant was stanch At quiet reparation of the stuff-- Monsieur Léonce Miranda, worn to rags: But she was Clara and the world beside.

Another month, the year packed up his plagues And sullenly departed, peddler-like, As apprehensive old-world ware might show To disadvantage when the newcomer, Merchant of novelties, young 'Sixty-eight, With brand-new bargains, whistled o'er the lea. Things brightened somewhat o'er the Christmas hearth, As Clara plied assiduously her task.

"Words are but words and wind. Why let the wind Sing in your ear, bite, sounding, to your brain? Old folk and young folk, still at odds, of course! Age quarrels because Spring puts forth a leaf While Winter has a mind that boughs stay bare; Or rather--worse than quarrel--age descries Propriety in preaching life to death. 'Enjoy nor youth, nor Clairvaux, nor poor me?' Dear Madame, you enjoy your age, 't is thought! Your number Thirty-three on Quai Rousseau Cost fifty times the price of Clairvaux, tipped Even with our prodigious Belvedere; You entertain the Curé,--we, Dumas: We play charades, while you prefer Bézique: Do lead your own life and let ours alone! Cross Old Year shall have done his worst, my friend! Here comes gay New Year with a gift, no doubt! Look up and let in light that longs to shine-- One flash of light, and where will darkness hide? Your cold makes me too cold, love! Keep me warm!"

Whereat Léonce Miranda raised his head From his two white thin hands, and forced a smile, And spoke: "I do look up, and see your light Above me! Let New Year contribute warmth-- I shall refuse no fuel that may blaze." Nor did he. Three days after, just a spark From Paris, answered by a snap at Caen Or whither reached the telegraphic wire: "Quickly to Paris! On arrival, learn Why you are wanted!" Curt and critical!

Off starts Léonce, one fear from head to foot; Caen, Rouen, Paris, as the railway helps; Then come the Quai and Number Thirty-three. "What is the matter, concierge?"--a grimace! He mounts the staircase, makes for the main seat Of dreadful mystery which draws him there-- Bursts in upon a bedroom known too well-- There lies all left now of the mother once. Tapers define the stretch of rigid white, Nor want there ghastly velvets of the grave. A blackness sits on either side at watch, Sisters, good souls but frightful all the same, Silent: a priest is spokesman for his corpse. "Dead, through Léonce Miranda! stricken down Without a minute's warning, yesterday! What did she say to you, and you to her, Two months ago? This is the consequence! The doctors have their name for the disease; I, you, and God say--heart-break, nothing more!" Monsieur Léonce Miranda, like a stone Fell at the bedfoot and found respite so, While the priest went to tell the company. What follows you are free to disbelieve. It may be true or false that this good priest Had taken his instructions,--who shall blame?-- From quite another quarter than, perchance, Monsieur Léonce Miranda might suppose Would offer solace in such pressing need. All he remembered of his kith and kin Was, they were worthily his substitutes In commerce, did their work and drew their pay. But _they_ remembered, in addition, this-- They fairly might expect inheritance, As nearest kin, called Family by law And gospel both. Now, since Miranda's life Showed nothing like abatement of distaste For conjugality, but preference Continued and confirmed of that smooth chain Which slips and leaves no knot behind, no heir-- Presumption was, the man, become mature, Would at a calculable day discard His old and outworn ... what we blush to name, And make society the just amends; Scarce by a new attachment--Heaven forbid! Still less by lawful marriage: that 's reserved For those who make a proper choice at first-- Not try both courses and would grasp in age The very treasure, youth preferred to spurn! No! putting decently such thought aside, The penitent must rather give his powers To such a reparation of the past As, edifying kindred, makes them rich. Now, how would it enrich prospectively The Cousins, if he lavished such expense On Clairvaux?--pretty as a toy, but then As toy, so much productive and no more! If all the outcome of the goldsmith's shop Went to gild Clairvaux, where remain the funds For Cousinry to spread out lap and take? This must be thought of and provided for. I give it you a mere conjecture, mind! To help explain the wholesome unannounced Intelligence, the shock that startled guilt, The scenic show, much yellow, black and white By taper-shine, the nuns--portentous pair, And, more than all, the priest's admonishment-- "No flattery of self! You murdered her! The gray lips, silent now, reprove by mine. You wasted all your living, rioted In harlotry--she warned and I repeat! No warning had she, for she needed none: If this should be the last yourself receive?" Done for the best, no doubt, though clumsily,-- Such, and so startling, the reception here. You hardly wonder if down fell at once The tawdry tent, pictorial, musical, Poetical, besprent with hearts and darts; Its cobweb-work, betinselled stitchery, Lay dust about our sleeper on the turf, And showed the outer towers distinct and dread.

Senseless he fell, and long he lay, and much Seemed salutary in his punishment To planners and performers of the piece. When pain ends, pardon prompt may operate. There was a good attendance close at hand, Waiting the issue in the great saloon, Cousins with consolation and advice.

All things thus happily performed to point, No wonder at success commensurate. Once swooning stopped, once anguish subsequent Raved out,--a sudden resolution chilled His blood and changed his swimming eyes to stone, As the poor fellow raised himself upright, Collected strength, looked, once for all, his look, Then, turning, put officious help aside And passed from out the chamber. "For affairs!" So he announced himself to the saloon: "We owe a duty to the living too!"-- Monsieur Léonce Miranda tried to smile. How did the hearts of Cousinry rejoice At their stray sheep returning thus to fold, As, with a dignity, precision, sense, All unsuspected in the man before, Monsieur Léonce Miranda made minute Detail of his intended scheme of life Thenceforward and forever. "Vanity Was ended: its redemption must begin-- And, certain, would continue; but since life Was awfully uncertain--witness here!-- Behooved him lose no moment but discharge Immediate burden of the world's affairs On backs that kindly volunteered to crouch. Cousins, with easier conscience, blamelessly Might carry on the goldsmith's trade, in brief, Uninterfered with by its lord who late Was used to supervise and take due tithe. A stipend now sufficed his natural need: Themselves should fix what sum allows man live. But half a dozen words concisely plain Might, first of all, make sure that, on demise, Monsieur Léonce Miranda's property Passed by bequeathment, every particle, To the right heirs, the cousins of his heart. As for that woman--they would understand! This was a step must take her by surprise! It were too cruel did he snatch away Decent subsistence. She was young, and fair, And ... and attractive! Means must be supplied To save her from herself, and from the world, And ... from anxieties might haunt him else When he were fain have other thoughts in mind."

It was a sight to melt a stone, that thaw Of rigid disapproval into dew Of sympathy, as each extended palm Of cousin hasted to enclose those five Cold fingers, tendered so mistrustfully, Despairingly of condonation now! You would have thought,--at every fervent shake, In reassurance of those timid tips,-- The penitent had squeezed, considerate, By way of fee into physician's hand For physicking his soul, some diamond knob.

And now let pass a week. Once more behold The same assemblage in the same saloon, Waiting the entry of protagonist Monsieur Léonce Miranda. "Just a week Since the death-day,--was ever man transformed Like this man?" questioned cousin of his mate.

Last seal to the repentance had been set Three days before, at Sceaux in neighborhood Of Paris where they laid with funeral pomp Mother by father. Let me spare the rest: How the poor fellow, in his misery, Buried hot face and bosom, where heaped snow Offered assistance, at the grave's black edge, And there lay, till uprooted by main force From where he prayed to grow and ne'er again Walk earth unworthily as heretofore. It is not with impunity priests teach The doctrine he was dosed with from his youth-- "Pain to the body--profit to the soul; Corporeal pleasure--so much woe to pay When disembodied spirit gives account."

However, woe had done its worst, this time. Three days allow subsidence of much grief. Already, regular and equable, Forward went purpose to effect. At once The testament was written, signed and sealed. Disposer of the commerce--that took time, And would not suffer by a week's delay; But the immediate, the imperious need, The call demanding of the Cousinry Co-operation, what convened them thus, Was--how and when should deputation march To Coliseum Street, the old abode Of wickedness, and there acquaint--oh, shame! Her, its old inmate, who had followed up And lay in wait in the old haunt for prey-- That they had rescued, they possessed Léonce, Whose loathing at recapture equalled theirs-- Upbraid that sinner with her sinfulness, Impart the fellow-sinner's firm resolve Never to set eyes on her face again: Then, after stipulations strict but just, Hand her the first instalment--moderate Enough, no question--of her salary: Admonish for the future, and so end.-- All which good purposes, decided on Sufficiently, were waiting full effect When presently the culprit should appear.

Somehow appearance was delayed too long; Chatting and chirping sunk inconsciously To silence, nay, uneasiness, at length Alarm, till--anything for certitude!-- A peeper was commissioned to explore, At keyhole, what the laggard's task might be-- What caused so palpable a disrespect!

Back came the tiptoe cousin from his quest. "Monsieur Léonce was busy," he believed, "Contemplating--those love-letters, perhaps, He always carried, as if precious stones, About with him. He read, one after one, Some sort of letters. But his back was turned. The empty coffer open at his side, He leant on elbow by the mantelpiece Before the hearth-fire; big and blazing too."

"Better he shovelled them all in at once, And burned the rubbish!" was a cousin's quip, Warming his own hands at the fire the while, I told you, snow had fallen outside, I think.

When suddenly a cry, a host of cries, Screams, hubbub and confusion thrilled the room. All by a common impulse rushed thence, reached The late death-chamber, tricked with trappings still, Skulls, crossbones, and such moral broidery. Madame Muhlhausen might have played the witch, Dropped down the chimney and appalled Léonce By some proposal, "Parting touch of hand!" If she but touched his foolish hand, you know!

Something had happened quite contrariwise. Monsieur Léonce Miranda, one by one, Had read the letters and the love they held, And, that task finished, had required his soul To answer frankly what the prospect seemed Of his own love's departure--pledged to part! Then, answer being unmistakable, He had replaced the letters quietly, Shut coffer, and so, grasping either side By its convenient handle, plunged the whole-- Letters and coffer and both hands to boot-- Into the burning grate and held them there. "Burn, burn, and purify my past!" said he, Calmly, as if he felt no pain at all.

In vain they pulled him from the torture-place: The strong man, with the soul of tenfold strength, Broke from their clutch: and there again smiled he, The miserable hands re-bathed in fire-- Constant to that ejaculation, "Burn, Burn, purify!" And when, combining force. They fairly dragged the victim out of reach Of further harm, he had no hands to hurt-- Two horrible remains of right and left, "Whereof the bones, phalanges formerly, Carbonized, were still crackling with the flame," Said Beaumont. And he fought them all the while: "Why am I hindered when I would be pure? Why leave the sacrifice still incomplete? She holds me, I must have more hands to burn!" They were the stronger, though, and bound him fast.

Beaumont was in attendance presently. "What did I tell you? Preachment to the deaf! I wish he had been deafer when they preached, Those priests! But wait till next Republic comes!"

As for Léonce, a single sentiment Possessed his soul and occupied his tongue-- Absolute satisfaction at the deed. Never he varied, 't is observable, Nor in the stage of agonies (which proved Absent without leave,--science seemed to think), Nor yet in those three months' febricity Which followed,--never did he vary tale-- Remaining happy beyond utterance. "Ineffable beatitude"--I quote The words, I cannot give the smile--"such bliss Abolished pain! Pain might or might not be: He felt in heaven, where flesh desists to fret. Purified now and henceforth, all the past Reduced to ashes with the flesh defiled! Why all those anxious faces round his bed? What was to pity in their patient, pray, When doctor came and went, and Cousins watched? --Kindness, but in pure waste!" he said and smiled. And if a trouble would at times disturb The ambrosial mood, it came from other source Than the corporeal transitory pang. "If sacrifice be incomplete!" cried he-- "If ashes have not sunk reduced to dust, To nullity! If atoms coalesce Till something grow, grow, get to be a shape I hate, I hoped to burn away from me! She is my body, she and I are one, Yet, all the same, there, there at bedfoot stands The woman wound about my flesh and blood, There, the arms open, the more wonderful, The whiter for the burning ... Vanish thou! Avaunt, fiend's self found in the form I wore!"

"Whereat," said Beaumont, "since his hands were gone, The patient in a frenzy kicked and kicked To keep off some imagined visitant. So will it prove as long as priests may preach Spiritual terrors!" groaned the evidence Of Beaumont that his patient was stark mad-- Produced in time and place: of which anon. "Mad, or why thus insensible to pain? Body and soul are one thing, with two names For more or less elaborated stuff."

Such is the new _Religio Medici_. Though antiquated faith held otherwise, Explained that body is not soul, but just Soul's servant: that, if soul be satisfied, Possess already joy or pain enough, It uses to ignore, as master may, What increase, joy or pain, its servant brings-- Superfluous contribution: soul, once served, Has naught to do with body's service more. Each, speculated on exclusively, As if its office were the only one, Body or soul, either shows service paid In joy and pain, that 's blind and objectless-- A servant's toiling for no master's good-- Or else shows good received and put to use, As if within soul's self grew joy and pain, Nor needed body for a ministrant. I note these old unscientific ways: Poor Beaumont cannot: for the Commune ruled Next year, and ere they shot his priests, shot him.

Monsieur Léonce Miranda raved himself To rest; lay three long months in bliss or bale, Inactive, anyhow: more need that heirs, His natural protectors, should assume The management, bestir their cousinship, And carry out that purpose of reform Such tragic work now made imperative. A deputation, with austerity, Nay, sternness, bore her sentence to the fiend Aforesaid,--she at watch for turn of wheel And fortune's favor, Street--you know the name. A certain roughness seemed appropriate: "You-- Steiner, Muhlhausen, whatsoe'er your name, Cause whole and sole of this catastrophe!"-- And so forth, introduced the embassage.

"Monsieur Léonce Miranda was divorced Once and forever from his--ugly word. Himself had gone for good to Portugal; They came empowered to act and stipulate. Hold! no discussion! Terms were settled now: So much of present and prospective pay, But also--good engagement in plain terms She never seek renewal of the past!"

This little harmless tale produced effect. Madame Muhlhausen owned her sentence just, Its execution gentle. "Stern their phrase, These kinsfolk with a right she recognized-- But kind its import probably, which now Her agitation, her bewilderment, Rendered too hard to understand, perhaps. Let them accord the natural delay, And she would ponder and decide. Meantime, So far was she from wish to follow friend Who fled her, that she would not budge from place-- Now that her friend was fled to Portugal,-- Never! _She_ leave this Coliseum Street? No, not a footstep!" she assured them.

So-- They saw they might have left that tale untold When, after some weeks more were gone to waste, Recovery seemed incontestable, And the poor mutilated figure, once The gay and glancing fortunate young spark, Miranda, humble and obedient took The doctor's counsel, issued sad and slow From precincts of the sick-room, tottered down, And out, and into carriage for fresh air, And so drove straight to Coliseum Street, And tottered upstairs, knocked, and in a trice Was clasped in the embrace of whom you know-- With much asseveration, I omit, Of constancy henceforth till life should end. When all this happened,--"What reward," cried she, "For judging her Miranda by herself! For never having entertained a thought Of breaking promise, leaving home forsooth, To follow who was fled to Portugal! As if she thought they spoke a word of truth! She knew what love was, knew that he loved her; The Cousinry knew nothing of the kind."

I will not scandalize you and recount How matters made the morning pass away. Not one reproach, not one acknowledgment, One explanation: all was understood! Matters at end, the home-uneasiness Cousins were feeling at this jaunt prolonged Was ended also by the entry of-- Not simply him whose exit had been made By mild command of doctor "Out with you! I warrant we receive another man!" But--would that I could say, the married pair! And, quite another man assuredly, Monsieur Léonce Miranda took on him Forthwith to bid the trio, priest and nuns, Constant in their attendance all this while, Take his thanks and their own departure too; Politely but emphatically. Next, The Cousins were dismissed: "No protest, pray! Whatever I engaged to do is done, Or shall be--I but follow your advice: Love I abjure: the lady, you behold, Is changed as I myself; her sex is changed: This is my Brother--He will tend me now, Be all my world henceforth as brother should. Gentlemen, of a kinship I revere, Your interest in trade is laudable; I purpose to indulge it: manage mine, My goldsmith-business in the Place Vendôme, Wholly--through purchase at the price adjudged By experts I shall have assistance from. If, in conformity with sage advice, I leave a busy world of interests I own myself unfit for--yours the care That any world of other aims, wherein I hope to dwell, be easy of access Through ministration of the moneys due, As we determine, with all proper speed, Since I leave Paris to repair my health. Say farewell to our Cousins, Brother mine!"

And, all submissiveness, as brother might, The lady curtsied gracefully, and dropt More than mere curtsey, a concluding phrase So silver-soft, yet penetrative too, That none of it escaped the favored ears: "Had I but credited one syllable, I should to-day be lying stretched on straw, The produce of your miserable _rente!_ Whereas, I hold him--do you comprehend?" Cousin regarded cousin, turned up eye, And took departure, as our Tuscans laugh, Each with his added palm-breadth of long nose,-- Curtailed but imperceptibly, next week, When transfer was accomplished, and the trade In Paris did indeed become their own, But bought by them and sold by him on terms 'Twixt man and man,--might serve 'twixt wolf and wolf, Substitute "bit and clawed" for "signed and sealed"-- Our ordinary business-terms, in short. Another week, and Clairvaux broke in bloom At end of April, to receive again Monsieur Léonce Miranda, gentleman, Ex-jeweller and goldsmith: never more-- According to the purpose he professed-- To quit this paradise, his property, This Clara, his companion: so it proved.

The Cousins, each with elongated nose, Discussed their bargain, reconciled them soon To hard necessity, disbursed the cash, And hastened to subjoin, wherever type Proclaimed "Miranda" to the public, "Called Now Firm-Miranda." There, a colony, They flourish underneath the name that still Maintains the old repute, I understand. They built their Clairvaux, dream-Château, in Spain, Perhaps--but Place Vendôme is waking worth: Oh, they lost little!--only, man and man Hardly conclude transactions of the kind As cousin should with cousin,--cousins think. For the rest, all was honorably done, So, ere buds break to blossom, let us breathe! Never suppose there was one particle Of recrudescence--wound, half-healed before, Set freshly running--sin, repressed as such, New loosened as necessity of life! In all this revocation and resolve, Far be sin's self-indulgence from your thought! The man had simply made discovery, By process I respect if not admire, That what was, was:--that turf, his feet had touched, Felt solid just as much as yonder towers He saw with eyes, but did not stand upon, And could not, if he would, reach in a leap. People had told him flowery turf was false To footstep, tired the traveller soon, beside: That was untrue. They told him "One fair stride Plants on safe platform, and secures man rest." That was untrue. Some varied the advice: "Neither was solid, towers no more than turf:" Double assertion, therefore twice as false. "I like these amateurs"--our friend had laughed, Could he turn what he felt to what he thought, And, that again, to what he put in words: "I like their pretty trial, proof of paste Or precious stone, by delicate approach Of eye askance, fine feel of finger-tip, Or touch of tongue inquisitive for cold. I tried my jewels in a crucible: Fierce fire has felt them, licked them, left them sound. Don't tell me that my earthly love is sham, My heavenly fear a clever counterfeit! Each may oppose each, yet be true alike!"

To build up, independent of the towers, A durable pavilion o'er the turf, Had issued in disaster. "What remained Except, by tunnel, or else gallery, To keep communication 'twixt the two, Unite the opposites, both near and far, And never try complete abandonment Of one or other?" so he thought, not said. And to such engineering feat, I say, Monsieur Léonce Miranda saw the means Precisely in this revocation prompt Of just those benefits of worldly wealth Conferred upon his Cousinry--all but!

This Clairvaux--you would know, were you at top Of yonder crowning grace, its Belvedere-- Is situate in one angle-niche of three, At equidistance from Saint-Rambert--there Behind you, and The Ravissante, beside-- There: steeple, steeple, and this Clairvaux-top (A sort of steeple) constitute a trine, With not a tenement to break each side, Two miles or so in length, if eye can judge.

Now this is native land of miracle. Oh, why, why, why, from all recorded time, Was miracle not wrought once, only once, To help whoever wanted help indeed? If on the day when Spring's green girlishness Grew nubile, and she trembled into May, And our Miranda climbed to clasp the Spring A-tiptoe o'er the sea, those wafts of warmth, Those cloudlets scudding under the bare blue, And all that new sun, that fresh hope about His airy place of observation,--friend, Feel with me that if just then, just for once, Some angel,--such as the authentic pen Yonder records a daily visitant Of ploughman Claude, rheumatic in the joints, And spinster Jeanne, with megrim troubled sore,-- If such an angel, with naught else to do, Had taken station on the pinnacle And simply said, "Léonce, look straight before! Neither to right hand nor to left: for why? Being a stupid soul, you want a guide To turn the goodness in you to account And make stupidity submit itself. Go to Saint-Rambert! Straightway get such guide! There stands a man of men. You, jeweller, Must needs have heard how once the biggest block Of diamond now in Europe lay exposed 'Mid specimens of stone and earth and ore, On huckster's stall,--Navona names the Square, And Rome the city for the incident,-- Labelled 'quartz-crystal, price one halfpenny.' Haste and secure that ha'p'worth, on your life! That man will read you rightly head to foot, Mark the brown face of you, the bushy beard, The breadth 'twixt shoulderblades, and through each black Castilian orbit, see into your soul. Talk to him for five minutes--nonsense, sense, No matter what--describe your horse, your hound,-- Give your opinion of the policy Of Monsieur Rouher,--will he succor Rome? Your estimate of what may outcome be From Œcumenical Assemblage there! After which samples of intelligence, Rapidly run through those events you call Your past life, tell what once you tried to do, What you intend on doing this next May! There he stands, reads an English newspaper, Stock-still, and now, again upon the move, Paces the beach to taste the Spring, like you, Since both are human beings in God's eye. He will have understood you, I engage. Endeavor, for your part, to understand He knows more, and loves better, than the world That never heard his name, and never may. He will have recognized, ere breath be spent And speech at end, how much that 's good in man, And generous, and self-devoting, makes Monsieur Léonce Miranda worth his help; While sounding to the bottom ignorance Historical and philosophical And moral and religious, all one couch Of crassitude, a portent of its kind. Then, just as he would pityingly teach Your body to repair maltreatment, give Advice that you should make those stumps to stir With artificial hands of caoutchouc, So would he soon supply your crippled soul With crutches, from his own intelligence, Able to help you onward in the path Of rectitude whereto your face is set, And counsel justice--to yourself, the first, To your associate, very like a wife Or something better,--to the world at large, Friends, strangers, horses, hounds, and Cousinry-- All which amount of justice will include Justice to God. Go and consult his voice!" Since angel would not say this simple truth, What hinders that my heart relieve itself, Milsand, who makest warm my wintry world, And wise my heaven, if there we consort too? Monsieur Léonce Miranda turned, alas, Or was turned, by no angel, t' other way, And got him guidance of The Ravissante.

Now, into the originals of faith, Yours, mine, Miranda's, no inquiry here! Of faith, as apprehended by mankind, The causes, were they caught and catalogued, Would too distract, too desperately foil Inquirer. How may analyst reduce Quantities to exact their opposites, Value to zero, then bring zero back To value of supreme preponderance? How substitute thing meant for thing expressed? Detect the wire-thread through that fluffy silk Men call their rope, their real compulsive power? Suppose effected such anatomy, And demonstration made of what belief Has moved believer--were the consequence Reward at all? would each man straight deduce, From proved reality of cause, effect Conformable--believe and unbelieve According to your True thus disengaged From all his heap of False called reason first?

No: hand once used to hold a soft thick twist, Cannot now grope its way by wire alone: Childhood may catch the knack, scarce Youth, not Age! That 's the reply rewards you. Just as well Remonstrate to yon peasant in the blouse That, had he justified the true intent Of Nature who composed him thus and thus, Weakly or strongly, here he would not stand Struggling with uncongenial earth and sky, But elsewhere tread the surface of the globe, Since one meridian suits the faulty lungs, Another bids the sluggish liver work. "Here I was born, for better or for worse: I did not choose a climate for myself; Admit, my life were healthy, led elsewhere," (He answers,) "how am I to migrate, pray?"

Therefore the course to take is--spare your pains, And trouble uselessly with discontent Nor soul nor body, by parading proof That neither haply had known ailment, placed Precisely where the circumstance forbade Their lot should fall to either of the pair. But try and, what you find wrong, remedy, Accepting the conditions: never ask "How came you to be born here with those lungs, That liver?" But bid asthma smoke a pipe, Stramonium, just as if no Tropics were, And ply with calomel the sluggish duct, Nor taunt "The born Norwegian breeds no bile!" And as with body, so proceed with soul: Nor less discerningly, where faith you found, However foolish and fantastic, grudge To play the doctor and amend mistake, Because a wisdom were conceivable Whence faith had sprung robust above disease. Far beyond human help, that source of things! Since, in the first stage, so to speak,--first stare Of apprehension at the invisible,-- Begins divergency of mind from mind, Superior from inferior: leave this first! Little you change there! What comes afterward-- From apprehended thing, each inference With practicality concerning life, This you may test and try, confirm the right Or contravene the wrong which reasons there. The offspring of the sickly faith must prove Sickly act also: stop a monster-birth! When water 's in the cup, and not the cloud, Then is the proper time for chemic test: Belief permits your skill to operate When, drop by drop condensed from misty heaven, 'T is wrung out, lies a bowl-full in the fleece. How dew by spoonfuls came, let Gideon say: What purpose water serves, your word or two May teach him, should he fancy it lights fire.

Concerning, then, our vaporous Ravissante-- How fable first precipitated faith.-- Silence you get upon such point from me. But when I see come posting to the pair At Clairvaux, for the cure of soul-disease, This Father of the Mission, Parish-priest, This Mother of the Convent, Nun I know-- They practise in that second stage of things; They boast no fresh distillery of faith; 'T is dogma in the bottle, bright and old, They bring; and I pretend to pharmacy. They undertake the cure with all my heart! He trusts them, and they surely trust themselves. I ask no better. Never mind the cause, _Fons et origo_ of the malady: Apply the drug with courage! Here 's our case. Monsieur Léonce Miranda asks of God, --May a man, living in illicit tie, Continue, by connivance of the Church, No matter what amends he please to make Short of forthwith relinquishing the sin? Physicians, what do you propose for cure?

Father and Mother of The Ravissante, Read your own records, and you find prescribed As follows, when a couple out of sorts Rather than gravely suffering, sought your skill And thereby got their health again. Perpend! Two and a half good centuries ago, Luc de la Maison Rouge, a nobleman Of Claise, (the river gives this country name,) And, just as noblewoman, Maude his wife, Having been married many happy years Spent in God's honor and man's service too, Conceived, while yet in flower of youth and hope, The project of departing each from each Forever, and dissolving marriage-bonds That both might enter a religious life. Needing, before they came to such resolve, Divine illumination,--course was clear,-- They visited your church in pilgrimage, On Christmas morn: communicating straight, They heard three Masses proper for the day, "It is incredible with what effect"-- Quoth the Cistercian monk I copy from-- And, next day, came, again communicants, Again heard Masses manifold, but now With added thanks to Christ for special grace And consolation granted: in the night, Had been divorce from marriage, manifest By signs and tokens. So, they made great gifts, Left money for more Masses, and returned Homeward rejoicing--he, to take the rules, As Brother Dionysius, Capucin! She, to become first postulant, then nun According to the rules of Benedict, Sister Scolastica: so ended they, And so do I--not end nor yet commence One note or comment. What was done was done. Now, Father of the Mission, here 's your case! And, Mother of the Convent, here 's its cure! If separation was permissible, And that decree of Christ "What God hath joined Let no man put asunder" nullified Because a couple, blameless in the world, Had the conceit that, still more blamelessly, Out of the world, by breach of marriage-vow, Their life was like to pass,--you oracles Of God,--since holy Paul says such you are,-- Hesitate, not one moment, to pronounce When questioned by the pair now needing help, "Each from the other go, you guilty ones, Preliminary to your least approach Nearer the Power that thus could strain a point In favor of a pair of innocents Who thought their wedded hands not clean enough To touch and leave unsullied their souls' snow Are not your hands found filthy by the world, Mere human law and custom? Not a step Nearer till hands be washed and purified!"

What they did say is immaterial, since Certainly it was nothing of the kind. There was no washing hands of him (alack, You take me?--in the figurative sense!) But, somehow, gloves were drawn o'er dirt and all, And practice with the Church procured thereby. Seeing that,--all remonstrance proved in vain, Persuasives tried and terrors put to use, I nowise question,--still the guilty pair Only embraced the closelier, obstinate,-- Father and Mother went from Clairvaux back Their weary way, with heaviness of heart, I grant you, but each palm well crossed with coin, And nothing like a smutch perceptible. Monsieur Léonce Miranda might compound For sin?--no, surely! but by gifts--prepare His soul the better for contrition, say!

Gift followed upon gift, at all events. Good counsel was rejected, on one part: Hard money, on the other--may we hope Was unreflectingly consigned to purse?

Two years did this experiment engage Monsieur Léonce Miranda: how, by gifts To God and to God's poor, a man might stay In sin and yet stave off sin's punishment. No salve could be conceived more nicely mixed For this man's nature: generosity,-- Susceptibility to human ills, Corporeal, mental,--self-devotedness Made up Miranda--whether strong or weak Elsewhere, may be inquired another time. In mercy he was strong, at all events. Enough! he could not see a beast in pain, Much less a man, without the will to aid; And where the will was, oft the means were too, Since that good bargain with the Cousinry.

The news flew fast about the countryside That, with the kind man, it was ask and have; And ask and have they did. To instance you:-- A mob of beggars at The Ravissante Clung to his skirts one day, and cried "We thirst!" Forthwith he bade a cask of wine be broached To satisfy all comers, till, dead-drunk So satisfied, they strewed the holy place. For this was grown religious and a rite: Such slips of judgment, gifts irregular, Showed but as spillings of the golden grist On either side the hopper, through blind zeal; Steadily the main stream went pouring on From mill to mouth of sack--held wide and close By Father of the Mission, Parish-priest, And Mother of the Convent, Nun I know, With such effect that, in the sequel, proof Was tendered to the Court at Vire, last month, That in these same two years, expenditure At quiet Clairvaux rose to the amount Of Forty Thousand English Pounds: whereof A trifle went, no inappropriate close Of bounty, to supply the Virgin's crown With that stupendous jewel from New York, Now blazing as befits the Star of Sea.

Such signs of grace, outward and visible, I rather give you, for your sake and mine, Than put in evidence the inward strife, Spiritual effort to compound for fault By payment of devotion--thank the phrase! That payment was as punctual, do not doubt, As its far easier fellow. Yesterday I trudged the distance from The Ravissante To Clairvaux, with my two feet: but our friend, The more to edify the country-folk, Was wont to make that journey on both knees. "Maliciously perverted incident!" Snarled the retort, when this was told at Vire: "The man paid mere devotion as he passed, Knelt decently at just each wayside shrine!" Alas, my lawyer, I trudged yesterday-- On my two feet, and with both eyes wide ope,-- The distance, and could find no shrine at all! According to his lights, I praise the man. Enough! incessant was devotion, say-- With her, you know of, praying at his side. Still, there be relaxations of the tense: Or life indemnifies itself for strain, Or finds its very strain grow feebleness. Monsieur Léonce Miranda's days were passed Much as of old, in simple work and play. His first endeavor, on recovery From that sad ineffectual sacrifice, Had been to set about repairing loss: Never admitting, loss was to repair. No word at any time escaped his lips --Betrayed a lurking presence, in his heart, Of sorrow; no regret for mischief done-- Punishment suffered, he would rather say. Good-tempered schoolboy-fashion, he preferred To laugh away his flogging, fair price paid For pleasure out of bounds: if needs must be, Get pleasure and get flogged a second time! A sullen subject would have nursed the scars And made excuse, for throwing grammar by, That bench was grown uneasy to the seat. No: this poor fellow cheerfully got hands Fit for his stumps, and what hands failed to do, The other members did in their degree-- Unwonted service. With his mouth alone He wrote, nay, painted pictures--think of that! He played on a piano pedal-keyed, Kicked out--if it was Bach's--good music thence. He rode, that 's readily conceivable, But then he shot and never missed his bird, With other feats as dexterous: I infer He was not ignorant what hands are worth, When he resolved on ruining his own. So the two years passed somehow--who shall say Foolishly,--as one estimates mankind, The work they do, the play they leave undone?-- Two whole years spent in that experiment I told you of, at Clairvaux all the time, From April on to April: why that month More than another, notable in life? Does the awakening of the year arouse Man to new projects, nerve him for fresh feats Of what proves, for the most part of mankind Playing or working, novel folly too? At any rate, I see no slightest sign Of folly (let me tell you in advance), Nothing but wisdom meets me manifest In the procedure of the Twentieth Day Of April, 'Seventy,--folly's year in France.

It was delightful Spring, and out of doors Temptation to adventure. Walk or ride? There was a wild young horse to exercise, And teach the way to go, and pace to keep: Monsieur Léonce Miranda chose to ride. So, while they clapped soft saddle straight on back, And bitted jaw to satisfaction,--since The partner of his days must stay at home, Teased by some trifling legacy of March To throat or shoulder,--visit duly paid And "farewell" given and received again,-- As chamber-door considerately closed Behind him, still five minutes were to spend. How better, than by clearing, two and two, The staircase-steps and coming out aloft Upon the platform yonder (raise your eyes!) And tasting, just as those two years before, Spring's bright advance upon the tower a-top, The feature of the front, the Belvedere?

Look at it for a moment while I breathe.

IV

Ready to hear the rest? How good you are!

Now for this Twentieth splendid day of Spring, All in a tale,--sun, wind, sky, earth and sea,-- To bid man, "Up, be doing!" Mount the stair, Monsieur Léonce Miranda mounts so brisk, And look--ere his elastic foot arrive-- Your longest, far and wide, o'er fronting space. Yon white streak--Havre lighthouse! Name and name, How the mind runs from each to each relay, Town after town, till Paris' self be touched, Superlatively big with life and death To all the world, that very day perhaps! He who stepped out upon the platform here, Pinnacled over the expanse, gave thought Neither to Rouher nor Ollivier, Roon Nor Bismarck, Emperor nor King, but just To steeple, church, and shrine, The Ravissante!

He saw Her, whom myself saw, but when Spring Was passing into Fall: not robed and crowned As, thanks to him, and her you know about, She stands at present; but She smiled the same. Thither he turned--to never turn away.

He thought ...

(Suppose I should prefer "He said"? Along with every act--and speech is act-- There go, a multitude impalpable To ordinary human faculty, The thoughts which give the act significance. Who is a poet needs must apprehend Alike both speech and thoughts which prompt to speak. Part these, and thought withdraws to poetry: Speech is reported in the newspaper.)

He said, then, probably no word at all, But thought as follows--in a minute's space-- One particle of ore beats out such leaf!

"This Spring-morn I am forty-three years old: In prime of life, perfection of estate Bodily, mental, nay, material too,-- My whole of worldly fortunes reach their height. Body and soul alike on eminence: It is not probable I ever raise Soul above standard by increase of worth, Nor reasonably may expect to lift Body beyond the present altitude.

"Behold me, Lady called The Ravissante! Such as I am, I--gave myself to you So long since, that I cannot say 'I give.' All my belongings, what is summed in life, I have submitted wholly--as man might, At least, as _I_ might, who am weak, not strong,-- Wholly, then, to your rule and governance, So far as I had strength. My weakness was-- I felt a fascination, at each point And pore of me, a Power as absolute Claiming that soul should recognize her sway. Oh, you were no whit clearlier Queen, I see, Throughout the life that rolls out ribbon-like Its shot-silk length behind me, than the strange Mystery--how shall I denominate The unrobed One? Robed you go and crowned as well, Named by the nations: she is hard to name, Though you have spelt out certain characters Obscure upon what fillet binds her brow, _Lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, life's pride_. 'So call her, and contemn the enchantress!'--'Crush The despot, and recover liberty!' Cried despot and enchantress at each ear. You were conspicuous and pre-eminent, Authoritative and imperial,--you Spoke first, claimed homage: did I hesitate? Born for no mastery, but servitude, Men cannot serve two masters, says the Book; Master should measure strength with master, then, Before on servant is imposed a task. You spoke first, promised best, and threatened most; The other never threatened, promised, spoke A single word, but, when your part was done, Lifted a finger, and I, prostrate, knew Films were about me, though you stood aloof Smiling or frowning 'Where is power like mine To punish or reward thee? Rise, thou fool! Will to be free, and, lo, I lift thee loose!' Did I not will, and could I rise a whit? Lay I, at any time, content to lie? 'To lie, at all events, brings pleasure: make Amends by undemanded pain!' I said. Did not you prompt me? 'Purchase now by pain Pleasure hereafter in the world to come!' I could not pluck my heart out, as you bade: Unbidden, I burned off my hands at least. My soul retained its treasure; but my purse Lightened itself with much alacrity. Well, where is the reward? what promised fruit Of sacrifice in peace, content? what sense Of added strength to bear or to forbear? What influx of new light assists me now Even to guess you recognize a gain In what was loss enough to mortal me? But she, the less authoritative voice, Oh, how distinct enunciating, how Plain dealing! Gain she gave was gain indeed! That, you deny: that, you contemptuous call Acorns, swine's food not man's meat! 'Spurn the draff!' Ay, but those life-tree apples I prefer, Am I to die of hunger till they drop? Husks keep flesh from starvation, anyhow. Give those life-apples!--one, worth woods of oak, Worth acorns by the wagon-load,--one shoot Through heart and brain, assurance bright and brief That you, my Lady, my own Ravissante, Feel, through my famine, served and satisfied, Own me, your starveling, soldier of a sort! Your soldier! do I read my title clear Even to call myself your friend, not foe? What is the pact between us but a truce? At best I shall have staved off enmity, Obtained a respite, ransomed me from wrath. I pay, instalment by instalment, life, Earth's tribute-money, pleasures great and small, Whereof should at the last one penny piece Fall short, the whole heap becomes forfeiture. You find in me deficient soldiership: Want the whole life or none. I grudge that whole, Because I am not sure of recompense: Because I want faith. Whose the fault? I ask. If insufficient faith have done thus much, Contributed thus much of sacrifice, More would move mountains, you are warrant. Well, Grant, you, the grace, I give the gratitude! And what were easier? 'Ask and have' folk call Miranda's method: 'Have, nor need to ask!' So do they formulate your quality Superlative beyond my human grace. The Ravissante, you ravish men away From puny aches and petty pains, assuaged By man's own art with small expenditure Of pill or potion, unless, put to shame, Nature is roused and sets things right herself. Your miracles are grown our commonplace; No day but pilgrim hobbles his last mile, Kneels down and rises up, flings crutch away, Or else appends it to the reverend heap Beneath you, votive cripple-carpentry. Some few meet failure--oh, they wanted faith, And may betake themselves to La Salette, Or seek Lourdes, so that hence the scandal limp! The many get their grace and go their way Rejoicing, with a tale to tell,--most like, A staff to borrow, since the crutch is gone, Should the first telling happen at my house, And teller wet his whistle with my wine. _I_ tell this to a doctor and he laughs: 'Give me permission to cry--Out of bed, You loth rheumatic sluggard! Cheat yon chair Of laziness, its gouty occupant!-- You should see miracles performed! But now, I give advice, and take as fee ten francs, And do as much as does your Ravissante. Send her that case of cancer to be cured I have refused to treat for any fee, Bring back my would-be patient sound and whole, And see me laugh on t'other side my mouth!' Can he be right, and are you hampered thus! Such pettiness restricts a miracle Wrought by the Great Physician, who hears prayer, Visibly seated in your mother-lap! He, out of nothing, made sky, earth, and sea, And all that in them is, man, beast, bird, fish, Down to this insect on my parapet. Look how the marvel of a minim crawls! Were I to kneel among the halt and maimed, And pray 'Who mad'st the insect with ten legs, Make me one finger grow where ten were once!' The very priests would thrust me out of church. 'What folly does the madman dare expect? No faith obtains--in this late age, at least-- Such cure as that! We ease rheumatics, though!'

"Ay, bring the early ages back again, What prodigy were unattainable? I read your annals. Here came Louis Onze, Gave thrice the sum he ever gave before At one time, some three hundred crowns, to wit-- On pilgrimage to pray for--health, he found? Did he? I do not read it in Commines. Here sent poor joyous Marie-Antoinette To thank you that a Dauphin dignified Her motherhood--called Duke of Normandy And Martyr of the Temple, much the same As if no robe of hers had dressed you rich; No silver lamps, she gave, illume your shrine! Here, following example, fifty years Ago, in gratitude for birth again Of yet another destined King of France, Did not the Duchess fashion with her hands, And frame in gold and crystal, and present A bouquet made of artificial flowers? And was he King of France, and is not he Still Count of Chambord?

"Such the days of faith, And such their produce to encourage mine! What now, if I too count without my host? I too have given money, ornament, And 'artificial flowers'--which, when I plucked, Seemed rooting at my heart and real enough: What if I gain thereby nor health of mind, Nor youth renewed which perished in its prime, Burnt to a cinder 'twixt the red-hot bars, Nor gain to see my second baby-hope Of managing to live on terms with both Opposing potentates, the Power and you, Crowned with success? I dawdle out my days In exile here at Clairvaux, with mock love, That gives, while whispering 'Would I dared refuse!'-- What the loud voice declares my heart's free gift! Mock worship, mock superiority O'er those I style the world's benighted ones, That irreligious sort I pity so, Dumas and even Hertford, who is Duke.

"Impiety? Not if I know myself! Not if you know the heart and soul I bare, I bid you cut, hack, slash, anatomize, Till peccant part be found and flung away! Demonstrate where I need more faith! Describe What act shall evidence sufficiency Of faith, your warrant for such exercise Of power, in my behalf, as all the world, Except poor praying me, declares profuse? Poor me? It is that world, not me alone, That world which prates of fixed laws and the like, I fain would save, poor world so ignorant! And your part were--what easy miracle? Oh, Lady, could I make your want like mine!"

Then his face grew one luminosity.

"Simple, sufficient! Happiness at height! I solve the riddle, I persuade mankind. I have been just the simpleton who stands-- Summoned to claim his patrimonial rights-- At shilly-shally, may he knock or no At his own door in his own house and home Whereof he holds the very title-deeds! Here is my title to this property, This power you hold for profit of myself And all the world at need--which need is now!

"My title--let me hear who controverts! Count Mailleville built yon church. Why did he so? Because he found your image. How came that? His shepherd told him that a certain sheep Was wont to scratch with hoof and scrape with horn At ground where once the Danes had razed a church. Thither he went, and there he dug, and thence He disinterred the image he conveyed In pomp to Londres yonder, his domain. You liked the old place better than the new. The Count might surely have divined as much: He did not; some one might have spoke a word: No one did. A mere dream had warned enough, That back again in pomp you best were borne: No dream warned, and no need of convoy was; An angel caught you up and clapped you down,-- No mighty task; you stand one metre high, And people carry you about at times. Why, then, did you despise the simple course? Because you are the Queen of Angels: when You front us in a picture, there flock they, Angels around you, here and everywhere.

"Therefore, to prove indubitable faith, Those angels that acknowledge you their queen, I summon them to bear me to your feet From Clairvaux through the air, an easy trip! Faith without flaw! I trust your potency, Benevolence, your will to save the world-- By such a simplest of procedures, too! Not even by affording angel-help, Unless it please you: there 's a simpler mode: Only suspend the law of gravity, And, while at back, permitted to propel, The air helps onward, let the air in front Cease to oppose my passage through the midst!

"Thus I bestride the railing, leg o'er leg, Thus, lo, I stand, a single inch away, At dizzy edge of death,--no touch of fear, As safe on tower above as turf below! Your smile enswathes me in beatitude, You lift along the votary--who vaults, Who, in the twinkling of an eye, revives, Dropt safely in the space before the church-- How crowded, since this morn is market-day! I shall not need to speak. The news will run Like wild-fire. 'Thousands saw Miranda's flight!' 'T is telegraphed to Paris in a trice. The Boulevard is one buzz--'Do you believe? Well, this time, thousands saw Miranda's flight: You know him, goldsmith in the Place Vendôme.' In goes the Empress to the Emperor: 'Now--will you hesitate to make disgorge Your wicked King of Italy his gains, Give the Legations to the Pope once more?' Which done,--why, grace goes back to operate, They themselves set a good example first, Resign the empire twenty years usurped, And Henry, the Desired One, reigns o'er France! Regenerated France makes all things new! My house no longer stands on Quai Rousseau, But Quai rechristened Alacoque: a quai Where Renan burns his book, and Veuillot burns Renan beside, since Veuillot rules the roast, Re-edits now indeed 'The Universe.' O blessing, O superlatively big With blessedness beyond all blessing dreamed By man! for just that promise has effect, 'Old things shall pass away and all be new!' Then, for a culminating mercy-feat, Wherefore should I dare dream impossible That I too have my portion in the change? My past with all its sorrow, sin and shame, Becomes a blank, a nothing! There she stands, Clara de Millefleurs, all deodorized, Twenty years' stain wiped off her innocence! There never was Muhlhausen, nor at all Duke Hertford: naught that was, remains, except The beauty,--yes, the beauty is unchanged! Well, and the soul too, that must keep the same! And so the trembling little virgin hand Melts into mine, that 's back again, of course! --Think not I care about my poor old self! I only want my hand for that one use, To take her hand, and say 'I marry you-- Men, women, angels, you behold my wife! There is no secret, nothing wicked here, Nothing she does not wish the world to know!' None of your married women have the right To mutter 'Yes, indeed, she beats us all In beauty,--but our lives are pure at least!' Bear witness, for our marriage is no thing Done in a corner! 'T is The Ravissante Repairs the wrong of Paris. See, She smiles, She beckons, She bids 'Hither, both of you!' And may we kneel? And will you bless us both? And may I worship you, and yet love her? Then!"-- A sublime spring from the balustrade About the tower so often talked about, A flash in middle air, and stone-dead lay Monsieur Léonce Miranda on the turf.

A gardener who watched, at work the while Dibbling a flower-bed for geranium-shoots, Saw the catastrophe, and, straightening back, Stood up and shook his brows. "Poor soul, poor soul, Just what I prophesied the end would be! Ugh--the Red Night-cap!" (as he raised the head) "This must be what he meant by those strange words While I was weeding larkspurs, yesterday, 'Angels would take him!' Mad!"

No! sane, I say Such being the conditions of his life, Such end of life was not irrational. Hold a belief, you only half-believe, With all-momentous issues either way,-- And I advise you imitate this leap, Put faith to proof, be cured or killed at once! Call you men, killed through cutting cancer out, The worse for such an act of bravery? That 's more than _I_ know. In my estimate, Better lie prostrate on his turf at peace, Than, wistful, eye, from out the tent, the tower, Racked with a doubt, "Will going on bare knees All the way to The Ravissante and back, Saying my Ave Mary all the time, Somewhat excuse if I postpone my march? --Make due amends for that one kiss I gave In gratitude to her who held me out Superior Fricquot's sermon, hot from press, A-spread with hands so sinful yet so smooth?"

And now, sincerely do I pray she stand, Clara, with interposing sweep of robe, Between us and this horror! Any screen Turns white by contrast with the tragic pall; And her dubiety distracts at least, As well as snow, from such decided black. With womanhood, at least, we have to do: Ending with Clara--is the word too kind?

Let pass the shock! There 's poignancy enough When what one parted with, a minute since, Alive and happy, is returned a wreck-- All that was, all that seemed about to be, Razed out and ruined now forevermore, Because a straw descended on this scale Rather than that, made death o'erbalance life. But think of cage-mates in captivity, Inured to day-long, night-long vigilance Each of the other's tread and angry turn If behind prison bars the jailer knocked: These whom society shut out, and thus Penned in, to settle down and regulate By the strange law, the solitary life-- When death divorces such a fellowship, Theirs may pair off with that prodigious woe Imagined of a ghastly brotherhood-- One watcher left in lighthouse out at sea, With leagues of surf between the land and him, Alive with his dead partner on the rock; One galley-slave, whom curse and blow compel To labor on, ply oar--beside his chain, Encumbered with a corpse-companion now. Such these: although, no prisoners, self-entrenched, They kept the world off from their barricade.

Memory, gratitude, was poignant, sure, Though pride brought consolation of a kind. Twenty years long had Clara been--of whom The rival, nay, the victor, past dispute? What if in turn The Ravissante at length Proved victor--which was doubtful--anyhow, Here lay the inconstant with, conspicuous too, The fruit of his good fortune!

"Has he gained By leaving me?" she might soliloquize: "All love could do, I did for him. I learned By heart his nature, what he loved and loathed. Leaned to with liking, turned from with distaste. No matter what his least velleity, I was determined he should want no wish, And in conformity administered To his requirement; most of joy I mixed With least of sorrow in life's daily draught, Twenty years long, life's proper average. And when he got to quarrel with my cup, Would needs out-sweeten honey, and discard That gall-drop we require lest nectar cloy,-- I did not call him fool, and vex my friend, But quietly allowed experiment, Encouraged him to spice his drink, and now Grate _lignum vitæ_" now bruise so-called grains Of Paradise, and pour now, for perfume, Distilment rare, the rose of Jericho, Holy-thorn, passion-flower, and what know I? Till beverage obtained the fancied smack. 'T was wild-flower-wine that neither helped nor harmed Who sipped and held it for restorative-- What harm? But here has he been through the hedge Straying in search of simples, while my back Was turned a minute, and he finds a prize, Monkshood and belladonna! O my child, My truant little boy, despite the beard, The body two feet broad and six feet long, And what the calendar counts middle age-- You wanted, did you, to enjoy a flight? Why not have taken into confidence Me, that was mother to you?--never mind What mock disguise of mistress held you mine! Had you come laughing, crying, with request, 'Make me fly, mother!' I had run upstairs And held you tight the while I danced you high In air from tower-top, singing 'Off we go (On pilgrimage to Lourdes some day next month), And swift we soar (to Rome with Peter-pence), And low we light (at Paris where we pick Another jewel from our store of stones And send it for a present to the Pope)!' So, dropt indeed you were, but on my knees, Rolling and crowing, not a whit the worse For journey to your Ravissante and back. Now, no more Clairvaux--which I made you build, And think an inspiration of your own-- No more fine house, trim garden, pretty park, Nothing I used to busy you about, And make believe you worked for my surprise! What weariness to me will work become Now that I need not seem surprised again! This boudoir, for example, with the doves (My stupid maid has damaged, dusting one) Embossed in stucco o'er the looking-glass Beside the toilet-table! dear--dear me!"

Here she looked up from her absorbing grief, And round her, crow-like grouped, the Cousinry, (She grew aware) sat witnesses at watch. For, two days had elapsed since fate befell The courser in the meadow, stretched so stark. They did not cluster on the tree-tops, close Their sooty ranks, caw and confabulate For nothing: but, like calm determined crows, They came to take possession of their corpse. And who shall blame them? Had not they the right? One spoke. "They would be gentle, not austere. They understood, and were compassionate. Madame Muhlhausen lay too abject now For aught but the sincerest pity; still, Since plain speech salves the wound it seems to make, They must speak plainly--circumstances spoke! Sin had conceived and brought forth death indeed. As the commencement, so the close of things: Just what might be expected all along! Monsieur Léonce Miranda launched his youth Into a cesspool of debauchery, And, if he thence emerged all dripping slime, --Where was the change except from thin to thick, One warm rich mud-bath, Madame?--you, in place Of Paris-drainage and distilment, you He never needed budge from, boiled to rags! True, some good instinct left the natural man, Some touch of that deep dye wherewith imbued By education, in his happier day, The hopeful offspring of high parentage Was fleece-marked moral and religious sheep,-- Some ruddle, faint reminder (we admit), Stuck to Miranda, rubbed he ne'er so rude Against the goatly coarseness: to the last, Moral he styled himself, religious too! Which means--what ineradicable good You found, you never left till good's self proved Perversion and distortion, nursed to growth So monstrous, that the tree-stock, dead and dry, Were seemlier far than such a heap grotesque Of fungous nourishing excrescence. Here, Sap-like affection, meant for family, Stole off to feed one sucker fat--yourself; While branchage, trained religiously aloft To rear its head in reverence to the sun, Was pulled down earthward, pegged and picketed, By topiary contrivance, till the tree Became an arbor where, at vulgar ease, Sat superstition grinning through the loops. Still, nature is too strong or else too weak For cockney treatment: either, tree springs back To pristine shape, or else degraded droops, And turns to touchwood at the heart. So here-- Body and mind, at last the man gave way. His body--there it lies, what part was left Unmutilated! for, the strife commenced Two years ago, when, both hands burnt to ash, --A branch broke loose, by loss of what choice twigs! As for his mind--behold our register Of all its moods, from the incipient mad, Nay, mere erratic, to the stark insane, Absolute idiocy or what is worse! All have we catalogued--extravagance In worldly matters, luxury absurd, And zeal as crazed in its expenditure Of nonsense called devotion. Don't we know --We Cousins, bound in duty to our kin,-- What mummeries were practised by you two At Clairvaux? Not a servant got discharge But came and told his grievance, testified To acts which turn religion to a farce. And as the private mock, so patent--see-- The public scandal! Ask the neighborhood-- Or rather, since we asked them long ago, Read what they answer, depositions down, Signed, sealed and sworn to! Brief, the man was mad. We are his heirs and claim our heritage. Madame Muhlhausen,--whom good taste forbids We qualify as do these documents,-- Fear not lest justice stifle mercy's prayer! True, had you lent a willing ear at first, Had you obeyed our call two years ago, Restrained a certain insolence of eye, A volubility of tongue, that time, Your prospects had been none the worse, perhaps. Still, fear not but a decent competence Shall smooth the way for your declining age! What we propose, then" ...

Clara dried her eyes, Sat up, surveyed the consistory, spoke After due pause, with something of a smile.

"Gentlemen, kinsfolk of my friend defunct, In thus addressing me--of all the world!-- You much misapprehend what