Robert Browning

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene: It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth, Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek, And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu: Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest, Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth, Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xi, From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now at peace: Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name. I may not write it, but I make a cross To show I wait His coming, with the rest, And leave off here: beginneth Pamphylax.] I said, "If one should wet his lips with wine, "And slip the broadest plantain-leaf we find, "Or else the lappet of a linen robe, "Into the water-vessel, lay it right, "And cool his forehead just above the eyes, "The while a brother, kneeling either side, "Should chafe each hand and try to make it warm,— "He is not so far gone but he might speak." This did not happen in the outer cave, Nor in the secret chamber of the rock Where, sixty days since the decree was out, We had him, bedded on a camel-skin, And waited for his dying all the while; But in the midmost grotto: since noon's light Reached there a little, and we would not lose The last of what might happen on his face. I at the head, and Xanthus at the feet, With Valens and the Boy, had lifted him, And brought him from the chamber in the depths, And laid him in the light where we might see: For certain smiles began about his mouth, And his lids moved, presageful of the end. Beyond, and half way up the mouth o' the cave The Bactrian convert, having his desire, Kept watch, and made pretence to graze a goat That gave us milk, on rags of various herb, Plantain and quitch, the rocks' shade keeps alive: So that if any thief or soldier passed (Because the persecution was aware, Yielding the goat up promptly with his life, Such man might pass on, joyful at a prize, Nor care to pry into the cool o' the cave. Outside was all noon and the burning blue. "Here is wine," answered Xanthus,—dropped a drop; I stooped and placed the lap of cloth aright, Then chafed his right hand, and the Boy his left: But Valens had bethought him, and produced And broke a ball of nard, and made perfume. Only, he did—not so much wake, as—turn And smile a little, as a sleeper does If any dear one call him, touch his face— And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed. Then Xanthus said a prayer, but still he slept: It is the Xanthus that escaped to Rome, Was burned, and could not write the chronicle. Then the Boy sprang up from his knees, and ran, Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought, And fetched the seventh plate of graven lead Out of the secret chamber, found a place, Pressing with finger on the deeper dints, And spoke, as 'twere his mouth proclaiming first, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once, And sat up of himself, and looked at us; And thenceforth nobody pronounced a word: Only, outside, the Bactrian cried his cry Like the lone desert-bird that wears the ruff, As signal we were safe, from time to time. First he said, "If a friend declared to me, "This my son Valens, this my other son, "Were James and Peter,—nay, declared as well "This lad was very John,—I could believe! "—Could, for a moment, doubtlessly believe: "So is myself withdrawn into my depths, "The soul retreated from the perished brain "Whence it was wont to feel and use the world "Through these dull members, done with long ago. "Yet I myself remain; I feel myself: "And there is nothing lost. Let be, awhile!" [This is the doctrine he was wont to teach, How divers persons witness in each man, Three souls which make up one soul: first, to wit, A soul of each and all the bodily parts, Seated therein, which works, and is what Does, And has the use of earth, and ends the man Downward: but, tending upward for advice, Grows into, and again is grown into By the next soul, which, seated in the brain, Useth the first with its collected use, And feeleth, thinketh, willeth,—is what Knows: Which, duly tending upward in its turn, Grows into, and again is grown into By the last soul, that uses both the first, Subsisting whether they assist or no, And, constituting man's self, is what Is— And leans upon the former, makes it play, As that played off the first: and, tending up, Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man Upward in that dread point of intercourse, Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him. What Does, what Knows, what Is; three souls, one man. I give the glossa of Theotypas.] And then, "A stick, once fire from end to end; "Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark! "Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself "A little where the fire was: thus I urge "The soul that served me, till it task once more "What ashes of my brain have kept their shape, "And these make effort on the last o' the flesh, "Trying to taste again the truth of things—" (He smiled)—"their very superficial truth; "As that ye are my sons, that it is long "Since James and Peter had release by death, "And I am only he, your brother John, "Who saw and heard, and could remember all. "Remember all! It is not much to say. "What if the truth broke on me from above "As once and oft-times? Such might hap again: "Doubtlessly He might stand in presence here, "With head wool-white, eyes flame, and feet like brass, "The sword and the seven stars, as I have seen— "I who now shudder only and surmise "How did your brother bear that sight and live?' "If I live yet, it is for good, more love "Through me to men: be nought but ashes here "That keep awhile my semblance, who was John,— "Still, when they scatter, there is left on earth "No one alive who knew (consider this!) "—Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands "That which was from the first, the Word of Life. "How will it be when none more saith 'I saw'? "Such ever was love's way: to rise, it stoops. "Since I, whom Christ's mouth taught, was bidden teach, "I went, for many years, about the world, "Saying 'It was so; so I heard and saw,' "Speaking as the case asked: and men believed. "Afterward came the message to myself "In Patmos isle; I was not bidden teach, "But simply listen, take a book and write, "Nor set down other than the given word, "With nothing left to my arbitrament "To choose or change: I wrote, and men believed. "Then, for my time grew brief, no message more, "No call to write again, I found a way, "And, reasoning from my knowledge, merely taught "Men should, for love's sake, in love's strength believe; "Or I would pen a letter to a friend "And urge the same as friend, nor less nor more: "Friends said I reasoned rightly, and believed. "But at the last, why, I seemed left alive "Like a sea jelly weak on Patmos strand, "To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared "When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things; "Left to repeat, 'I saw, I heard, I knew,' "And go all over the old ground again, "With Antichrist already in the world, "And many Antichrists, who answered prompt " Am I not Jasper as thyself art John? " Nay, young, whereas through age thou mayest forget; " Wherefore, explain, or how shall we believe? "I never thought to call down fire on such, "Or, as in wonderful and early days, "Pick up the scorpion, tread the serpent dumb; "But patient stated much of the Lord's life "Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work: "Since much that at the first, in deed and word, "Lay simply and sufficiently exposed, "Had grown (or else my soul was grown to match, "Fed through such years, familiar with such light, "Guarded and guided still to see and speak) "Of new significance and fresh result; "What first were guessed as points, I now knew stars, "And named them in the Gospel I have writ. "For men said, 'It is getting long ago: " Where is the promise of His coming?'—asked "These young ones in their strength, as loth to wait, "Of me who, when their sires were born, was old. "I, for I loved them, answered, joyfully, "Since I was there, and helpful in my age; "And, in the main, I think such men believed. "Finally, thus endeavouring, I fell sick, "Ye brought me here, and I supposed the end, "And went to sleep with one thought that, at least, "Though the whole earth should lie in wickedness, "We had the truth, might leave the rest to God. "Yet now I wake in such decrepitude "As I had slidden down and fallen afar, "Past even the presence of my former self, "Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap, "Till I am found away from my own world, Feeling for foot-hold through a blank profound, "Along with unborn people in strange lands, "Who say—I hear said or conceive they say— " Was John at all, and did he say he saw? " Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!' "And how shall I assure them? Can they share "—They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength "About each spirit, that needs must bide its time, "Living and learning still as years assist "Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see— "With me who hardly am withheld at all, "But shudderingly, scarce a shred between, "Lie bare to the universal prick of light? "Is it for nothing we grow old and weak, "We whom God loves? When pain ends, gain ends too. "To me, that story—ay, that Life and Death "Of which I wrote 'it was'—to me, it is; "—Is, here and now: I apprehend nought else. Is not God now i' the world His power first made? "Is not His love at issue still with sin, "Visibly when a wrong is done on earth? "Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around? "Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise "To the right hand of the throne—what is it beside, "When such truth, breaking bounds, o'erfloods my soul, And, as I saw the sin and death, even so "See I the need yet transiency of both, "The good and glory consummated thence? "I saw the power; I see the Love, once weak, "Resume the Power: and in this word 'I see,' "Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both "That moving o'er the spirit of man, unblinds "His eye and bids him look. These are, I see; "But ye, the children, His beloved ones too, "Ye need,—as I should use an optic glass I wondered at erewhile, somewhere i' the world, "It had been given a crafty smith to make; "A tube, he turned on objects brought too close, Lying confusedly insubordinate "For the unassisted eye to master once: "Look through his tube, at distance now they lay, "Become succinct, distinct, so small, so clear! "Just thus, ye needs must apprehend what truth "I see, reduced to plain historic fact, "Diminished into clearness, proved a point "And far away: ye would withdraw your sense From out eternity, strain it upon time, "Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, "Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread, As though a star should open out, all sides, Grow the world on you, as it is my world. "For life, with all it yields of joy and woe "And hope and fear,—believe the aged friend,— Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love, "How love might be, hath been indeed, and is; "And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost "Such prize despite the envy of the world, And, having gained truth, keep truth: that is all. "But see the double way wherein we are led, "How the soul learns diversely from the flesh! "With flesh, that hath so little time to stay, "And yields mere basement for the soul's emprise, "Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the light, "And warmth was cherishing and food was choice "To every man's flesh, thousand years ago, "As now to yours and mine; the body sprang "At once to the height, and stayed: but the soul,—no! "Since sages who, this noontide, meditate "In Rome or Athens, may descry some point "Of the eternal power, hid yestereve; "And, as thereby the power's whole mass extends, "So much extends the æther floating o'er, "The love that tops the might, the Christ in God. "Then, as new lessons shall be learned in these "Till earth's work stop and useless time run out, "So duly, daily, needs provision be "For keeping the soul's prowess possible, "Building new barriers as the old decay, "Saving us from evasion of life's proof, "Putting the question ever, 'Does God love, " And will ye hold that truth against the world?' "Ye know there needs no second proof with good "Gained for our flesh from any earthly source: "We might go freezing, ages,—give us fire, "Thereafter we judge fire at its full worth, "And guard it safe through every chance, ye know! "That fable of Prometheus and his theft, "How mortals gained Jove's fiery flower, grows old "(I have been used to hear the pagans own) "And out of mind; but fire, howe'er its birth, "Here is it, precious to the sophist now "Who laughs the myth of Æschylus to scorn, "As precious to those satyrs of his play, "Who touched it in gay wonder at the thing. "While were it so with the soul,—this gift of truth "Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure "To prosper as the body's gain is wont,— "Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth "Crumble; for he both reasons and decides, "Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire "For gold or purple once he knows its worth? "Could he give Christ up were His worth as plain? "Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift, "Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact, "And straightway in his life acknowledge it, "As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire. "Sigh ye, 'It had been easier once than now'? "To give you answer I am left alive; "Look at me who was present from the first! "Ye know what things I saw; then came a test, "My first, befitting me who so had seen: " Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, Him " Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life? " What should wring this from thee!'—ye laugh and ask. "What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a noise, "The sudden Roman faces, violent hands, "And fear of what the Jews might do! Just that, "And it is written, 'I forsook and fled': "There was my trial, and it ended thus. "Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow: "Another year or two,—what little child, "What tender woman that had seen no least "Of all my sights, but barely heard them told, "Who did not clasp the cross with a light laugh, "Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God? "Well, was truth safe for ever, then? Not so. "Already had begun the silent work "Whereby truth, deadened of its absolute blaze, "Might need love's eye to pierce the o'erstretched doubt. "Teachers were busy, whispering 'All is true " As the aged ones report; but youth can reach " Where age gropes dimly, weak with stir and strain, " And the full doctrine slumbers till to-day.' "Thus, what the Roman's lowered spear was found, "A bar to me who touched and handled truth, "Now proved the glozing of some new shrewd tongue, "This Ebion, this Cerinthus or their mates, "Till imminent was the outcry Save our Christ!' "Whereon I stated much of the Lord's life "Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work. "Such work done, as it will be, what comes next? "What do I hear say, or conceive men say, " Was John at all, and did he say he saw? " Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!' "Is this indeed a burthen for late days, "And may I help to bear it with you all, "Using my weakness which becomes your strength? "For if a babe were born inside this grot, "Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun, "Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light's place,— "One loving him and wishful he should learn, "Would much rejoice himself was blinded first "Month by month here, so made to understand "How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss: "I think I could explain to such a child "There was more glow outside than gleams he caught, "Ay, nor need urge 'I saw it, so believe!' "It is a heavy burthen you shall bear "In latter days, new lands, or old grown strange, "Left without me, which must be very soon. "What is the doubt, my brothers? Quick with it! "I see you stand conversing, each new face, "Either in fields, of yellow summer eves, "On islets yet unnamed amid the sea; "Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico "Out of the crowd in some enormous town "Where now the larks sing in a solitude; "Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand "Idly conjectured to be Ephesus: "And no one asks his fellow any more " Where is the promise of His coming?' but " Was he revealed in any of His lives, " As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul?' "Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out, "And let us ask and answer and be saved! "My book speaks on, because it cannot pass; "One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads " Here is a tale of things done ages since; " What truth was ever told the second day? " Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for nought. " Remains the doctrine, love; well, we must love, " And what we love most, power and love in one, " Let us acknowledge on the record here, " Accepting these in Christ: must Christ then be? " Has He been? Did not we ourselves make Him? " Our mind receives but what it holds, no more. " First of the love, then; we acknowledge Christ— " A proof we comprehend His love, a proof " We had such love already in ourselves, " Knew first what else we should not recognize. "   'Tis mere projection from man's inmost mind, " And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back, " Becomes accounted somewhat out of him; " He throws it up in air, it drops down earth's, " With shape, name, story added, man's old way. " How prove you Christ came otherwise at least? " Next try the power: He made and rules the world: " Certes there is a world once made, now ruled, " Unless things have been ever as we see. " Our sires declared a charioteer's yoked steeds " Brought the sun up the east and down the west, " Which only of itself now rises, sets, " As if a hand impelled it and a will,— " Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands: " But the new question's whisper is distinct, " Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves? " We have the hands, the will; what made and drives " The sun is force, is law, is named, not known, " While will and love we do know; marks of these, " Eye-witnesses attest, so books declare— " As that, to punish or reward our race, " The sun at undue times arose or set " Or else stood still: what do not men affirm? " But earth requires as urgently reward " Or punishment to-day as years ago, " And none expects the sun will interpose: " Therefore it was mere passion and mistake, " Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth. " Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things; " Ever the will, the intelligence, the love, " Man's!—which he gives, supposing he but finds, " As late he gave head, body, hands and feet, " To help these in what forms he called his gods. " First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were swept away, " But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride continued long; " As last, will, power, and love discarded these, " So law in turn discards power, love, and will. " What proveth God is otherwise at least? " All else, projection from the mind of man!' "Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong, "But place my gospel where I put my hands. "I say that man was made to grow, not stop; "That help, he needed once, and needs no more, "Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn: "For he hath new needs, and new helps to these. "This imports solely, man should mount on each "New height in view; the help whereby he mounts, "The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall, "Since all things suffer change save God the Truth. "Man apprehends Him newly at each stage "Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done; "And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved. "You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs "To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn, "And check the careless step would spoil their birth; "But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go, "Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds, "It is no longer for old twigs ye look, "Which proved once underneath lay store of seed, "But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast, "For what fruit's signs are. This book's fruit is plain, "Nor miracles need prove it any more. "Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade 'ware "At first of root and stem, saved both till now "From trampling ox, rough boar and wanton goat. "What? Was man made a wheelwork to wind up, "And be discharged, and straight wound up anew? "No!—grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: "May learn a thousand things, not twice the same. "This might be pagan teaching: now hear mine. "I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile, "Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself, "So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth: "When they can eat, babe's-nurture is withdrawn. "I fed the babe whether it would or no: "I bid the boy or feed himself or starve. "I cried once, 'That ye may believe in Christ, " Behold this blind man shall receive his sight!' "I cry now, 'Urgest thou,for I am shrewd " And smile at stories how John's word could cure— " Repeat that miracle and take my faith?' "I say, that miracle was duly wrought "When, save for it, no faith was possible. "Whether a change were wrought i' the shows o' the world, "Whether the change came from our minds which see "Of shows o' the world so much as and no more "Than God wills for His purpose,—(what do I "See now, suppose you, there where you see rock "Round us?)—I know not; such was the effect, "So faith grew, making void more miracles "Because too much; they would compel, not help. "I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ "Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee "All questions in the earth and out of it, "And has so far advanced thee to be wise. "Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved? "In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof, "Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung? "Thou hast it; use it and forthwith, or die! "For I say, this is death and the sole death, "When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, "Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, "And lack of love from love made manifest; "A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes; "A stomach's when, surcharged with food, it starves. "With Ignorance was surety of a cure. "When man, appalled at nature, questioned first " What if there lurk a might behind this might?' "He needed satisfaction God could give, "And did give, as ye have the written word: "But when he finds might still redouble might, "Yet asks, Since all is might, what use of will?' "—Will, the one source of might,—he being man "With a man's will and a man's might, to teach "In little how the two combine in large,— "That man has turned round on himself and stands, "Which in the course of nature is, to die. "And when man questioned, 'What if there be love " Behind the will and might, as real as they?'— "He needed satisfaction God could give, "And did give, as ye have the written word: "But when, beholding that love everywhere, He reasons, Since such love is everywhere, " And since ourselves can love and would be loved, " We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not,'— "How shall ye help this man who knows himself, "That he must love and would be loved again, "Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ, "Rejecteth Christ though very need of Him? "The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags "Loaded with nurture, and that man's soul dies. "If he rejoin, But this was all the while " A trick; the fault was, first of all, in thee, " Thy story of the places, names and dates " Where, when and how the ultimate truth had rise, " —Thy prior truth, at last discovered none, " Whence now the second suffers detriment. " What good of giving knowledge if, because " O' the manner of the gift, its profit fail? " And why refuse what modicum of help " Had stopped the after-doubt, impossible " I' the face of truth—truth absolute, uniform? " Why must I hit of this and miss of that, " Distinguish just as I be weak or strong, " And not ask of thee and have answer prompt, " Was this once, was it not once?—then and now " And evermore, plain truth from man to man. " Is John's procedure just the heathen bard's? " Put question of his famous play again " How for the ephemerals' sake Jove's fire was filched, " And carried in a cane and brought to earth: "The fact is in the fable, cry the wise, "Mortals obtained the boon, so much is fact, "Though fire be spirit and produced on earth. " As with the Titan's, so now with thy tale: " Why breed in us perplexity, mistake, " Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words?' "I answer, Have ye yet to argue out "The very primal thesis, plainest law, "—Man is not God but hath God's end to serve, "A master to obey, a course to take, "Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become? "Grant this, then man must pass from old to new, "From vain to real, from mistake to fact, "From what once seemed good, to what now proves best. "How could man have progression otherwise? "Before the point was mooted 'What is God?' "No savage man inquired 'What am myself?' "Much less replied, First, last, and best of things.' "Man takes that title now if he believes "Might can exist with neither will nor love, "In God's case—what he names now Nature's Law— "While in himself he recognizes love "No less than might and will: and rightly takes. "Since if man prove the sole existent thing "Where these combine, whatever their degree, "However weak the might or will or love, "So they be found there, put in evidence,— "He is as surely higher in the scale "Than any might with neither love nor will, "As life, apparent in the poorest midge, "(When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wing) "Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' self— "Given to the nobler midge for resting-place! "Thus, man proves best and highest—God, in fine, "And thus the victory leads but to defeat, "The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall, "His life becomes impossible, which is death. "But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch "He is mere man, and in humility "Neither may know God nor mistake himself; "I point to the immediate consequence "And say, by such confession straight he falls "Into man's place, a thing nor God nor beast, "Made to know that he can know and not more: "Lower than God who knows all and can all, "Higher than beasts which know and can so far "As each beast's limit, perfect to an end, "Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more; "While man knows partly but conceives beside, "Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact, "And in this striving, this converting air "Into a solid he may grasp and use, "Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, "Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are, "Man partly is and wholly hopes to be. "Such progress could no more attend his soul "Were all it struggles after found at first "And guesses changed to knowledge absolute, "Than motion wait his body, were all else "Than it the solid earth on every side, "Where now through space he moves from rest to rest. "Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect "He could not, what he knows now, know at first; "What he considers that he knows to-day, "Come but to-morrow, he will find misknown; "Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns "Because he lives, which is to be a man, "Set to instruct himself by his past self: "First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn, "Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind, "Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law. "God's gift was that man should conceive of truth "And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake, "As midway help till he reach fact indeed. "The statuary ere he mould a shape "Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and next The aspiration to produce the same; "So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout, "Cries ever Now I have the thing I see': "Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought, "From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself. "How were it had he cried 'I see no face, " No breast, no feet i' the ineffectual clay'? "Rather commend him that he clapped his hands, "And laughed 'It is my shape and lives again!' ''EnJoyed the falsehood, touched it on to truth, "Until yourselves applaud the flesh indeed "In what is still flesh-imitating clay. "Right in you, right in him, such way be man's! "God only makes the live shape at a jet. "Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship? "The pattern on the Mount subsists no more, "Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness; "But copies, Moses strove to make thereby, "Serve still and are replaced as time requires: "By these, make newest vessels, reach the type! "If ye demur, this judgment on your head, "Never to reach the ultimate, angel's law, "Indulging every instinct of the soul "There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing! "Such is the burthen of the latest time. "I have survived to hear it with my ears, "Answer it with my lips: does this suffice? "For if there be a further woe than such, "Wherein my brothers struggling need a hand, "So long as any pulse is left in mine, "May I be absent even longer yet, "Plucking the blind ones back from the abyss, "Though I should tarry a new hundred years!" But he was dead; 't was about noon, the day Somewhat declining: we five buried him That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways, And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus. By this, the cave's mouth must be filled with sand. Valens is lost, I know not of his trace; The Bactrian was but a wild childish man, And could not write nor speak, but only loved: So, lest the memory of this go quite, Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts, I tell the same to Phœbas, whom believe! For many look again to find that face, Beloved John's to whom I ministered, Somewhere in life about the world; they err: Either mistaking what was darkly spoke At ending of his book, as he relates, Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose. Believe ye will not see him any more About the world with his divine regard! For all was as I say, and now the man Lies as he lay once, breast to breast with God. [Cerinthus read and mused; one added this: "If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men "Mere man, the first and best but nothing more,— "Account Him, for reward of what He was, "Now and for ever, wretchedest of all. "For see; Himself conceived of life as love, "Conceived of love as what must enter in, "Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved. "Thus much for man's joy, all men's joy for Him. "Well, He is gone, thou sayest, to fit reward. "But by this time are many souls set free, "And very many still retained alive: "Nay, should His coming be delayed awhile, "Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute) "See if, for every finger of thy hands, "There be not found, that day the world shall end, "Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ's word "That He will grow incorporate with all, "With me as Pamphylax, with him as John, "Groom for each bride!  Can a mere man do this? "Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do. "Call Christ, then, the illimitable God, "Or lost!" But 't was Cerinthus that is lost.]

Christ God who savest man, save most Of men Count Gismond who saved me! Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, Chose time and place and company To suit it; when he struck at length My honour, 't was with all his strength. And doubtlessly, ere he could draw All points to one, he must have schemed! That miserable morning saw Few half so happy as I seemed, While being dressed in queen's array To give our tourney prize away. I thought they loved me, did me grace To please themselves; 't was all their deed; God makes, or fair or foul, our face; If showing mine so caused to bleed My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped. They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen By virtue of her brow and breast; Not needing to be crowned, I mean, As I do. E'en when I was dressed, Had either of them spoke, instead Of glancing sideways with still head! But no: they let me laugh, and sing My birthday song quite through, adjust The last rose in my garland, fling A last look on the mirror, trust My arms to each an arm of theirs, And so descend the castle-stairs- And come out on the morning troop Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, And called me queen, and made me stoop Under the canopy-(a streak That pierced it, of the outside sun, Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun)- And they could let me take my state And foolish throne amid applause Of all come there to celebrate My queen's-day-Oh I think the cause Of much was, they forgot no crowd Makes up for parents in their shroud! However that be, all eyes were bent Upon me, when my cousins cast Theirs down; 't was time I should present The victor's crown, but ... there, 't will last No long time ... the old mist again Blinds me as then it did. How vain! See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk With his two boys: I can proceed. Well, at that moment, who should stalk Forth boldly-to my face, indeed- But Gauthier? and he thundered "Stay!" And all stayed. "Bring no crowns, I say! "Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet "About her! Let her shun the chaste, "Or lay herself before their feet! "Shall she, whose body I embraced "A night long, queen it in the day? "For honour's sake no crowns, I say!" I? What I answered? As I live, I never fancied such a thing As answer possible to give. What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it? No more says the soul. Till out strode Gismond; then I knew That I was saved. I never met His face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set Himself to Satan; would who spend A minute's mistrust on the end? He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, And damned, and truth stood up instead. This glads me most, that I enjoyed The heart o' the joy, with my content In watching Gismond unalloyed By any doubt of the event: God took that on him-I was bid Watch Gismond for my part: I did. Did I not watch him while he let His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while! His foot ... my memory leaves No least stamp out nor how anon He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. And e'en before the trumpet's sound Was finished, prone lay the false knight, Prone as his lie, upon the ground: Gismond flew at him, used no sleight O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, Cleaving till out the truth he clove. Which done, he dragged him to my feet And said, "Here die, but end thy breath "In full confession, lest thou fleet "From my first, to God's second death! "Say, hast thou lied? "And, "I have lied "To God and her,"he said, and died. Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked -What safe my heart holds, though no word Could I repeat now, if I tasked My powers for ever, to a third Dear even as you are. Pass the rest Until I sank upon his breast. Over my head his arm he flung Against the world; and scarce I felt His sword (that dripped by me and swung) A little shifted in its belt: For he began to say the while How South our home lay many a mile. So, 'mid the shouting multitude We two walked forth to never more Return. My cousins have pursued Their life, untroubled as before I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place God lighten! May his soul find grace! Our elder boy has got the clear Great brow, tho' when his brother's black Full eye shows scorn, it ... Gismond here? And have you brought my tercel back? I was just telling Adela How many birds it struck since May.

What is he buzzing in my ears? "Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears?" Ah, reverend sir, not I! What I viewed there once, what I view again Where the physic bottles stand On the table's edge,—is a suburb lane, With a wall to my bedside hand. That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry O'er the garden-wall; is the curtain blue Or green to a healthy eye? To mine, it serves for the old June weather Blue above lane and wall; And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether" Is the house o'ertopping all. At a terrace, somewhere near the stopper, There watched for me, one June, A girl: I know, sir, it's improper, My poor mind's out of tune. Only, there was a way... you crept Close by the side, to dodge Eyes in the house, two eyes except: They styled their house "The Lodge." What right had a lounger up their lane? But, by creeping very close, With the good wall's help,—their eyes might strain And stretch themselves to Oes, Yet never catch her and me together, As she left the attic, there, By the rim of the bottle labelled "Ether," And stole from stair to stair, And stood by the rose-wreathed gate. Alas, We loved, sir—used to meet: How sad and bad and mad it was— But then, how it was sweet!

"As certain also of your own poets have said"— (Acts 17.28) Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles, Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")— To Protus in his Tyranny: much health! They give thy letter to me, even now: I read and seem as if I heard thee speak. The master of thy galley still unlades Gift after gift; they block my court at last And pile themselves along its portico Royal with sunset, like a thought of thee: And one white she-slave from the group dispersed Of black and white slaves (like the chequer-work Pavement, at once my nation's work and gift, Now covered with this settle-down of doves), One lyric woman, in her crocus vest Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands Commends to me the strainer and the cup Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine. Well-counselled, king, in thy munificence! For so shall men remark, in such an act Of love for him whose song gives life its joy,— Thy recognition of the use of life; Nor call thy spirit barely adequate To help on life in straight ways, broad enough For vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest. Thou, in the daily building of thy tower,— Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil, Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth, Or when the general work 'mid good acclaim Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect,— Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's sake— Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope Of some eventual rest a-top of it, Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed, Thou first of men might'st look out to the East: The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun. For this, I promise on thy festival To pour libation, looking o'er the sea, Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak Thy great words, and describe thy royal face— Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most, Within the eventual element of calm. Thy letter's first requirement meets me here. It is as thou hast heard: in one short life I, Cleon, have effected all those things Thou wonderingly dost enumerate. That epos on thy hundred plates of gold Is mine,—and also mine the little chant, So sure to rise from every fishing-bark When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net. The image of the sun-god on the phare, Men turn from the sun's self to see, is mine; The Pœcile o'er-storied its whole length, As thou didst hear, with painting, is mine too. I know the true proportions of a man And woman also, not observed before; And I have written three books on the soul, Proving absurd all written hitherto, And putting us to ignorance again. For music,—why, I have combined the moods, Inventing one. In brief, all arts are mine; Thus much the people know and recognize, Throughout our seventeen islands. Marvel not. We of these latter days, with greater mind Than our forerunners, since more composite, Look not so great, beside their simple way, To a judge who only sees one way at once, One mind-point and no other at a time,— Compares the small part of a man of us With some whole man of the heroic age, Great in his way—not ours, nor meant for ours. And ours is greater, had we skill to know: For, what we call this life of men on earth, This sequence of the soul's achievements here Being, as I find much reason to conceive, Intended to be viewed eventually As a great whole, not analyzed to parts, But each part having reference to all,— How shall a certain part, pronounced complete, Endure effacement by another part? Was the thing done?—then, what's to do again? See, in the chequered pavement opposite, Suppose the artist made a perfect rhomb, And next a lozenge, then a trapezoid— He did not overlay them, superimpose The new upon the old and blot it out, But laid them on a level in his work, Making at last a picture; there it lies. So, first the perfect separate forms were made, The portions of mankind; and after, so, Occurred the combination of the same. For where had been a progress, otherwise? Mankind, made up of all the single men,— In such a synthesis the labour ends. Now mark me! those divine men of old time Have reached, thou sayest well, each at one point The outside verge that rounds our faculty; And where they reached, who can do more than reach? It takes but little water just to touch At some one point the inside of a sphere, And, as we turn the sphere, touch all the rest In due succession: but the finer air Which not so palpably nor obviously, Though no less universally, can touch The whole circumference of that emptied sphere, Fills it more fully than the water did; Holds thrice the weight of water in itself Resolved into a subtler element. And yet the vulgar call the sphere first full Up to the visible height—and after, void; Not knowing air's more hidden properties. And thus our soul, misknown, cries out to Zeus To vindicate his purpose in our life: Why stay we on the earth unless to grow? Long since, I imaged, wrote the fiction out, That he or other god descended here And, once for all, showed simultaneously What, in its nature, never can be shown, Piecemeal or in succession;—showed, I say, The worth both absolute and relative Of all his children from the birth of time, His instruments for all appointed work. I now go on to image,—might we hear The judgment which should give the due to each, Show where the labour lay and where the ease, And prove Zeus' self, the latent everywhere! This is a dream:—but no dream, let us hope, That years and days, the summers and the springs, Follow each other with unwaning powers. The grapes which dye thy wine are richer far, Through culture, than the wild wealth of the rock; The suave plum than the savage-tasted drupe; The pastured honey-bee drops choicer sweet; The flowers turn double, and the leaves turn flowers; That young and tender crescent-moon, thy slave, Sleeping above her robe as buoyed by clouds, Refines upon the women of my youth. What, and the soul alone deteriorates? I have not chanted verse like Homer, no— Nor swept string like Terpander, no—nor carved And painted men like Phidias and his friend: I am not great as they are, point by point. But I have entered into sympathy With these four, running these into one soul, Who, separate, ignored each other's art. Say, is it nothing that I know them all? The wild flower was the larger; I have dashed Rose-blood upon its petals, pricked its cup's Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit, And show a better flower if not so large: I stand myself. Refer this to the gods Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare (All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext That such a gift by chance lay in my hand, Discourse of lightly or depreciate? It might have fallen to another's hand: what then? I pass too surely: let at least truth stay! And next, of what thou followest on to ask. This being with me as I declare, O king, My works, in all these varicoloured kinds, So done by me, accepted so by men— Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men's hearts) I must not be accounted to attain The very crown and proper end of life? Inquiring thence how, now life closeth up, I face death with success in my right hand: Whether I fear death less than dost thyself The fortunate of men? "For" (writest thou) "Thou leavest much behind, while I leave nought. Thy life stays in the poems men shall sing, The pictures men shall study; while my life, Complete and whole now in its power and joy, Dies altogether with my brain and arm, Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself? The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave, Set on the promontory which I named. And that—some supple courtier of my heir Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps, To fix the rope to, which best drags it down. I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!" Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind. Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief, That admiration grows as knowledge grows? That imperfection means perfection hid, Reserved in part, to grace the after-time? If, in the morning of philosophy, Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived, Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have looked On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird, Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage— Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, and deduced The perfectness of others yet unseen. Conceding which,—had Zeus then questioned thee, "Shall I go on a step, improve on this, Do more for visible creatures than is done?" Thou wouldst have answered, "Ay, by making each Grow conscious in himself—by that alone. All's perfect else: the shell sucks fast the rock, The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight, Till life's mechanics can no further go— And all this joy in natural life is put Like fire from off thy finger into each, So exquisitely perfect is the same. But 'tis pure fire, and they mere matter are; It has them, not they it: and so I choose For man, thy last premeditated work (If I might add a glory to the scheme), That a third thing should stand apart from both, A quality arise within his soul, Which, intro-active, made to supervise And feel the force it has, may view itself, And so be happy." Man might live at first The animal life: but is there nothing more? In due time, let him critically learn How he lives; and, the more he gets to know Of his own life's adaptabilities, The more joy-giving will his life become. Thus man, who hath this quality, is best. But thou, king, hadst more reasonably said: "Let progress end at once,—man make no step Beyond the natural man, the better beast, Using his senses, not the sense of sense." In man there's failure, only since he left The lower and inconscious forms of life. We called it an advance, the rendering plain Man's spirit might grow conscious of man's life, And, by new lore so added to the old, Take each step higher over the brute's head. This grew the only life, the pleasure-house, Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul, Which whole surrounding flats of natural life Seemed only fit to yield subsistence to; A tower that crowns a country. But alas, The soul now climbs it just to perish there! For thence we have discovered ('tis no dream— We know this, which we had not else perceived) That there's a world of capability For joy, spread round about us, meant for us, Inviting us; and still the soul craves all, And still the flesh replies, "Take no jot more Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad! Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought Deduction to it." We struggle, fain to enlarge Our bounded physical recipiency, Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life, Repair the waste of age and sickness: no, It skills not! life's inadequate to joy, As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take. They praise a fountain in my garden here Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow Thin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise. What if I told her, it is just a thread From that great river which the hills shut up, And mock her with my leave to take the same? The artificer has given her one small tube Past power to widen or exchange—what boots To know she might spout oceans if she could? She cannot lift beyond her first thin thread: And so a man can use but a man's joy While he sees God's. Is it for Zeus to boast, "See, man, how happy I live, and despair— That I may be still happier—for thy use!" If this were so, we could not thank our lord, As hearts beat on to doing; 'tis not so— Malice it is not. Is it carelessness? Still, no. If care—where is the sign? I ask, And get no answer, and agree in sum, O king, with thy profound discouragement, Who seest the wider but to sigh the more. Most progress is most failure: thou sayest well. The last point now:—thou dost except a case— Holding joy not impossible to one With artist-gifts—to such a man as I Who leave behind me living works indeed; For, such a poem, such a painting lives. What? dost thou verily trip upon a word, Confound the accurate view of what joy is (Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine) With feeling joy? confound the knowing how And showing how to live (my faculty) With actually living?—Otherwise Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king? Because in my great epos I display How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act— Is this as though I acted? if I paint, Carve the young Phoebus, am I therefore young? Methinks I'm older that I bowed myself The many years of pain that taught me art! Indeed, to know is something, and to prove How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more: But, knowing nought, to enjoy is something too. Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there, Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I. I can write love-odes: thy fair slave's an ode. I get to sing of love, when grown too grey For being beloved: she turns to that young man, The muscles all a-ripple on his back. I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king! "But," sayest thou—(and I marvel, I repeat, To find thee trip on such a mere word) "what Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die: Sappho survives, because we sing her songs, And Aeschylus, because we read his plays!" Why, if they live still, let them come and take Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup, Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive? Say rather that my fate is deadlier still, In this, that every day my sense of joy Grows more acute, my soul (intensified By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen; While every day my hairs fall more and more, My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase— The horror quickening still from year to year, The consummation coming past escape, When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy— When all my works wherein I prove my worth, Being present still to mock me in men's mouths, Alive still, in the praise of such as thou, I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man, The man who loved his life so over-much, Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible, I dare at times imagine to my need Some future state revealed to us by Zeus, Unlimited in capability For joy, as this is in desire for joy, —To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us: That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait On purpose to make prized the life at large— Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death, We burst there as the worm into the fly, Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no! Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas, He must have done so, were it possible! Live long and happy, and in that thought die: Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest, I cannot tell thy messenger aright Where to deliver what he bears of thine To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame Indeed, if Christus be not one with him— I know not, nor am troubled much to know. Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew, As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised, Hath access to a secret shut from us? Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king, In stooping to inquire of such an one, As if his answer could impose at all! He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write. Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ; And (as I gathered from a bystander) Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself." (David, Psalms 50.21) ['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: And while above his head a pompion-plant, Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, And now a flower drops with a bee inside, And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,— He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross And recross till they weave a spider-web (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) And talks to his own self, howe'er he please, Touching that other, whom his dam called God. Because to talk about Him, vexes—ha, Could He but know! and time to vex is now, When talk is safer than in winter-time. Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep In confidence he drudges at their task, And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.] Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos! 'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon. 'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match, But not the stars; the stars came otherwise; Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that: Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same. 'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease: He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; Only, she ever sickened, found repulse At the other kind of water, not her life, (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun) Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, And in her old bounds buried her despair, Hating and loving warmth alike: so He. 'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing. Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue That pricks deep into oak warts for a worm, And says a plain word when she finds her prize, But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks About their hole—He made all these and more, Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else? He could not, Himself, make a second self To be His mate; as well have made Himself: He would not make what He mislikes or slights, An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains: But did, in envy, listlessness or sport, Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be— Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, Things He admires and mocks too,—that is it. Because, so brave, so better though they be, It nothing skills if He begin to plague. Look, now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,— Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme, And wanton, wishing I were born a bird. Put case, unable to be what I wish, I yet could make a live bird out of clay: Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban Able to fly?—for, there, see, he hath wings, And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire, And there, a sting to do his foes offence, There, and I will that he begin to live, Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns Of grigs high up that make the merry din, Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not. In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, And he lay stupid-like,—why, I should laugh; And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,— Well, as the chance were, this might take or else Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry, And give the mankin three sound legs for one, Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg And lessoned he was mine and merely clay. Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme, Drinking the mash, with brain become alive, Making and marring clay at will? So He. 'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord. 'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs That march now from the mountain to the sea; 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. 'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, And two worms he whose nippers end in red; As it likes me each time, I do: so He. Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main, Placable if His mind and ways were guessed, But rougher than His handiwork, be sure! Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself, And envieth that, so helped, such things do more Than He who made them! What consoles but this? That they, unless through Him, do nought at all, And must submit: what other use in things? 'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue: Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt: Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth "I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing, I make the cry my maker cannot make With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!' Would not I smash it with my foot? So He. But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease? Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, What knows,—the something over Setebos That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought, Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance. There may be something quiet o'er His head, Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief, Since both derive from weakness in some way. I joy because the quails come; would not joy Could I bring quails here when I have a mind: This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. 'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch, But never spends much thought nor care that way. It may look up, work up,—the worse for those It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos The many-handed as a cuttle-fish, Who, making Himself feared through what He does, Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar To what is quiet and hath happy life; Next looks down here, and out of very spite Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real, These good things to match those as hips do grapes. 'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport. Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle: Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words; Has peeled a wand and called it by a name; Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe The eyed skin of a supple oncelot; And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole, A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch, Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye, And saith she is Miranda and my wife: 'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge; Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared, Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame, And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban; A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. 'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way, Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He. His dam held that the Quiet made all things Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so. Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex. Had He meant other, while His hand was in, Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick, Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow, Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint Like an orc's armour? Ay,—so spoil His sport! He is the One now: only He doth all. 'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him. Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why? 'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose, But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes. Also it pleaseth Setebos to work, Use all His hands, and exercise much craft, By no means for the love of what is worked. 'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world When all goes right, in this safe summer-time, And he wants little, hungers, aches not much, Than trying what to do with wit and strength. 'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs, And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk, And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each, And set up endwise certain spikes of tree, And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top, Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill. No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake; 'Shall some day knock it down again: so He. 'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof! One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope. He hath a spite against me, that I know, Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why? So it is, all the same, as well I find. 'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave, Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck, Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue, And licked the whole labour flat: so much for spite. 'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies) Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade: Often they scatter sparkles: there is force! 'Dug up a newt He may have envied once And turned to stone, shut up Inside a stone. Please Him and hinder this?—What Prosper does? Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He! There is the sport: discover how or die! All need not die, for of the things o' the isle Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees; Those at His mercy,—why, they please Him most When . . . when . . . well, never try the same way twice! Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth. You must not know His ways, and play Him off, Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself: 'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears But steals the nut from underneath my thumb, And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence: 'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, Curls up into a ball, pretending death For fright at my approach: the two ways please. But what would move my choler more than this, That either creature counted on its life To-morrow and next day and all days to come, Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart, "Because he did so yesterday with me, And otherwise with such another brute, So must he do henceforth and always."—Ay? Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means! 'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He. 'Conceiveth all things will continue thus, And we shall have to live in fear of Him So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change, If He have done His best, make no new world To please Him more, so leave off watching this,— If He surprise not even the Quiet's self Some strange day,—or, suppose, grow into it As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we, And there is He, and nowhere help at all. 'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop. His dam held different, that after death He both plagued enemies and feasted friends: Idly! He doth His worst in this our life, Giving just respite lest we die through pain, Saving last pain for worst,—with which, an end. Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself, Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink, Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both. 'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball On head and tail as if to save their lives: Moves them the stick away they strive to clear. Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose This Caliban strives hard and ails no less, And always, above all else, envies Him; Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights, Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh, And never speaks his mind save housed as now: Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here, O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?" 'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off, Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best, Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree, Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste: While myself lit a fire, and made a song And sung it, " What I hate, be consecrate To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate For Thee; what see for envy in poor me? " Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend, Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime, That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch And conquer Setebos, or likelier He Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die. [What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once! Crickets stop hissing: not a bird—or, yes, There scuds His raven that has told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze— A tree's head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there, His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! 'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip, Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]

Rome, 15— Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews—sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well— She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! What's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church —What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ... Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast ... Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father's globe on both His hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black— 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables . . . but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve. My bath must needs be left behind, alas! One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world— And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? —That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line— Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! And then how I shall lie through centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, —Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart? Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul, Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, To comfort me on my entablature Whereon I am to lie till I must ask "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there! For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone— Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— And no more lapis to delight the world! Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers— Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was!

But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart? I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the money into this small hand When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly? Oh, I'll content him,—but to-morrow, Love! I often am much wearier than you think, This evening more than usual, and it seems As if—forgive now—should you let me sit Here by the window with your hand in mine And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole, Both of one mind, as married people use, Quietly, quietly the evening through, I might get up to-morrow to my work Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this! Your soft hand is a woman of itself, And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve For each of the five pictures we require: It saves a model. So! keep looking so— My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds! —How could you ever prick those perfect ears, Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet— My face, my moon, my everybody's moon, Which everybody looks on and calls his, And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, While she looks—no one's: very dear, no less. You smile? why, there's my picture ready made, There's what we painters call our harmony! A common greyness silvers everything,— All in a twilight, you and I alike —You, at the point of your first pride in me (That's gone you know),—but I, at every point; My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; That length of convent-wall across the way Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; So free we seem, so fettered fast we are! I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie! This chamber for example—turn your head— All that's behind us! You don't understand Nor care to understand about my art, But you can hear at least when people speak: And that cartoon, the second from the door —It is the thing, Love! so such things should be— Behold Madonna!—I am bold to say. I can do with my pencil what I know, What I see, what at bottom of my heart I wish for, if I ever wish so deep— Do easily, too—when I say, perfectly, I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge, Who listened to the Legate's talk last week, And just as much they used to say in France. At any rate 'tis easy, all of it! No sketches first, no studies, that's long past: I do what many dream of, all their lives, —Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, And fail in doing. I could count twenty such On twice your fingers, and not leave this town, Who strive—you don't know how the others strive To paint a little thing like that you smeared Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,— Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, (I know his name, no matter)—so much less! Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. There burns a truer light of God in them, In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know, Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, Enter and take their place there sure enough, Though they come back and cannot tell the world. My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. The sudden blood of these men! at a word— Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. I, painting from myself and to myself, Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame Or their praise either. Somebody remarks Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey, Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! I know both what I want and what might gain, And yet how profitless to know, to sigh "Had I been two, another and myself, "Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt. Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth The Urbinate who died five years ago. ('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) Well, I can fancy how he did it all, Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see, Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and through his art—for it gives way; That arm is wrongly put—and there again— A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, Its body, so to speak: its soul is right, He means right—that, a child may understand. Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: But all the play, the insight and the stretch— (Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out? Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul, We might have risen to Rafael, I and you! Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think— More than I merit, yes, by many times. But had you—oh, with the same perfect brow, And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth, And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged "God and the glory! never care for gain. "The present by the future, what is that? "Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo! "Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!" I might have done it for you. So it seems: Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules. Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; The rest avail not. Why do I need you? What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo? In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat—somewhat, too, the power— And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict, That I am something underrated here, Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. The best is when they pass and look aside; But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time, And that long festal year at Fontainebleau! I surely then could sometimes leave the ground, Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear, In that humane great monarch's golden look,— One finger in his beard or twisted curl Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile, One arm about my shoulder, round my neck, The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, I painting proudly with his breath on me, All his court round him, seeing with his eyes, Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,— And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, This in the background, waiting on my work, To crown the issue with a last reward! A good time, was it not, my kingly days? And had you not grown restless... but I know— 'Tis done and past: 'twas right, my instinct said: Too live the life grew, golden and not grey, And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. How could it end in any other way? You called me, and I came home to your heart. The triumph was—to reach and stay there; since I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost? Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine! "Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; "The Roman's is the better when you pray, "But still the other's Virgin was his wife—" Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows My better fortune, I resolve to think. For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives, Said one day Agnolo, his very self, To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . . (When the young man was flaming out his thoughts Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see, Too lifted up in heart because of it) "Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub "Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how, "Who, were he set to plan and execute "As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings, "Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!" To Rafael's!—And indeed the arm is wrong. I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, Give the chalk here—quick, thus, the line should go! Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out! Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, (What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo? Do you forget already words like those?) If really there was such a chance, so lost,— Is, whether you're—not grateful—but more pleased. Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed! This hour has been an hour! Another smile? If you would sit thus by me every night I should work better, do you comprehend? I mean that I should earn more, give you more. See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall, The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. Come from the window, love,—come in, at last, Inside the melancholy little house We built to be so gay with. God is just. King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, The walls become illumined, brick from brick Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold, That gold of his I did cement them with! Let us but love each other. Must you go? That Cousin here again? he waits outside? Must see you—you, and not with me? Those loans? More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that? Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend? While hand and eye and something of a heart Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth? I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit The grey remainder of the evening out, Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly How I could paint, were I but back in France, One picture, just one more—the Virgin's face, Not yours this time! I want you at my side To hear them—that is, Michel Agnolo— Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. I take the subjects for his corridor, Finish the portrait out of hand—there, there, And throw him in another thing or two If he demurs; the whole should prove enough To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, What's better and what's all I care about, Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff! Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he, The Cousin! what does he to please you more? I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less. Since there my past life lies, why alter it? The very wrong to Francis!—it is true I took his coin, was tempted and complied, And built this house and sinned, and all is said. My father and my mother died of want. Well, had I riches of my own? you see How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: And I have laboured somewhat in my time And not been paid profusely. Some good son Paint my two hundred pictures—let him try! No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night. This must suffice me here. What would one have? In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance— Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me To cover—the three first without a wife, While I have mine! So—still they overcome Because there's still Lucrezia,—as I choose. Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth, This autumn morning! How he sets his bones To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth; Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true; Such is life’s trial, as old earth smiles and knows. If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you: Make the low nature better by your throes! Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly,—alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,— Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved! Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise! Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise! And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest: For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night— Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight. In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth, Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky: Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far. Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last; Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new: What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon; And what is,—shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too. All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth, All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole, Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth: Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause, Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws, Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:— But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can, Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are! And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star. Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought; It is everywhere in the world—loud, soft, and all is said: Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought: And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head! Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared; Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow; For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared, That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go. Never to be again! But many more of the kind As good, nay, better, perchance: is this your comfort to me? To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be. Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name? Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands! What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same? Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands? There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round. All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by. And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized? Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear, Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear; The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know. Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign: I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor,—yes, And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep; Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.