Chapter 4
NOTES: "The Italian in England." An Italian patriot who has taken part in an unsuccessful revolt against Austrian dominance, reflects upon the incidents of his escape and flight from Italy to the end that if he ever should have a thought beyond the welfare of Italy, he would wish first for the discomfiture of his enemies and then to go and see once more the noble woman who at the risk of her own life helped him to escape. Though there is no exact historical incident upon which this poem is founded, it has a historical background. The Charles referred to (lines 8, 11, 20, 116, 125) is Charles Albert, Prince of Carignano, of the younger branch of the house of Savoy. His having played with the patriot in his youth, as the poem says, is quite possible, for Charles was brought up as a simple citizen in a public school, and one of his chief friends was Alberta Nota, a writer of liberal principles, whom he made his secretary. As indicated in the poem, Charles at first declared himself in sympathy, though in a somewhat lukewarm manner, with the rising led by Santa Rosa against Austrian domination in 1823, and upon the abdication of Victor Emanuel he became regent of Turin. But when the king Charles Felix issued a denunciation against the new government, Charles Albert succumbed to the king's threats and left his friends in the lurch. Later the Austrians marched into the country, Santa Rosa was forced to retreat from Turin, and, with his friends, he who might well have been the very patriot of the poem was obliged to fly from Italy.
19. Metternich: the distinguished Austrian diplomatist and determined enemy of Italian independence.
76. Tenebrae: darkness. "The office of matins and lauds, for the three last days in Holy Week. Fifteen lighted candles are placed on a triangular stand, and at the conclusion of each psalm one is put out till a single candle is left at the top of the triangle. The extinction of the other candles is said to figure the growing darkness of the world at the time of the Crucifixion. The last candle (which is not extinguished, but hidden behind the altar for a few moments) represents Christ, over whom Death could not prevail.'' (Dr. Berdoe)
IN A GONDOLA
He sings.
I send my heart up to thee, all my heart In this my singing. For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; The very night is clinging Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space Above me, whence thy face May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.
She speaks.
Say after me, and try to say My very words, as if each word Came from you of your own accord, 10 In your own voice, in your own way: "This woman's heart and soul and brain Are mine as much as this gold chain She bids me wear, which (say again) I choose to make by cherishing A precious thing, or choose to fling Over the boat-side, ring by ring." And yet once more say... no word more! Since words are only words. Give o'er!
Unless you call me, all the same, 20 Familiarly by my pet name, Which if the Three should hear you call, And me reply to, would proclaim At once our secret to them all. Ask of me, too, command me, blame-- Do, break down the partition-wall 'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds Curtained in dusk and splendid folds! What's left but--all of me to take? I am the Three's: prevent them, slake 30 Your thirst! 'Tis said, the Arab sage, In practising with gems, can loose Their subtle spirit in his cruce And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage, Leave them my ashes when thy use Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!
He sings.
I
Past we glide, and past, and past! What's that poor Agnese doing Where they make the shutters fast? Grey Zanobi's just a-wooing 40 To his couch the purchased bride: Past we glide!
II
Past we glide, and past, and past! Why's the Pucci Palace flaring Like a beacon to the blast? Guests by hundreds, not one caring If the dear host's neck were wried: Past we glide!
She sings.
I
The moth's kiss, first! Kiss me as if you made believe 50 You were not sure, this eve, How my face, your flower, had pursed Its petals up; so, here and there You brush it, till I grow aware Who wants me, and wide ope I burst..
II
The bee's kiss, now! Kiss me as if you entered gay My heart at some noonday, A bud that dares not disallow The claim, so all is rendered up, 60 And passively its shattered cup Over your head to sleep I bow.
He sings.
I
What are we two? I am a Jew, And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue, To a feast of our tribe; Where they need thee to bribe The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe. Thy... Scatter the vision for ever! And now As of old, I am I, thou art thou! 70
II
Say again, what we are? The sprite of a star, I lure thee above where the destinies bar My plumes their full play Till a ruddier ray Than my pale one announce there is withering away Some... Scatter the vision forever! And now, As of old, I am I, thou art thou!
He muses.
Oh, which were best, to roam or rest? The land's lap or the water's breast? 80 To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves, Or swim in lucid shallows just Eluding water-lily leaves, An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust To lock you, whom release he must; Which life were best on Summer eves?
He speaks, musing.
Lie back; could thought of mine improve you? From this shoulder let there spring A wing; from this, another wing; Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you! 90 Snow-white must they spring, to blend With your flesh, but I intend They shall deepen to the end, Broader, into burning gold, Till both wings crescent-wise enfold Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet As if a million sword-blades hurled Defiance from you to the world!
Rescue me thou, the only real! 100 And scare away this mad ideal That came, nor motions to depart! Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!
Still he muses.
I
What if the Three should catch at last Thy serenader? While there's cast Paul's cloak about my head, and fast Gian pinions me, Himself has past His stylet thro' my back; I reel; And... is it thou I feel?
II
They trail me, these three godless knaves, 110 Past every church that saints and saves, Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves By Lido's wet accursed graves, They scoop mine, roll me to its brink, And... on thy breast I sink!
She replies, musing.
Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep, As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep, Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame or steel, Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel! Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There! 120 Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass To plait in where the foolish jewel was, I flung away: since you have praised my hair, 'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.
He speaks.
Row home? must we row home? Too surely Know I where its front's demurely Over the Giudecca piled; Window just with window mating, Door on door exactly waiting, All's the set face of a child: 130 But behind it, where's a trace Of the staidness and reserve, And formal lines without a curve, In the same child's playing-face? No two windows look one way O'er the small sea-water thread Below them. Ah, the autumn day I, passing, saw you overhead! First, out a cloud of curtain blew, Then a sweet cry, and last came you-- 140 To catch your lory that must needs Escape just then, of all times then, To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds, And make me happiest of men. I scarce could breathe to see you reach So far back o'er the balcony To catch him ere he climbed too high Above you in the Smyrna peach That quick the round smooth cord of gold, This coiled hair on your head, unrolled, 150 Fell down you like a gorgeous snake The Roman girls were wont, of old, When Rome there was, for coolness' sake To let lie curling o'er their bosoms. Dear lory, may his beak retain Ever its delicate rose stain As if the wounded lotus-blossoms Had marked their thief to know again!
Stay longer yet, for others' sake Than mine! What should your chamber do? 160 --With all its rarities that ache In silence while day lasts, but wake At night-time and their life renew, Suspended just to pleasure you Who brought against their will together These objects, and, while day lasts, weave Around them such a magic tether That dumb they look: your harp, believe, With all the sensitive tight strings Which dare not speak, now to itself 170 Breathes slumberously, as if some elf Went in and out the chords, his wings Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze, As an angel may, between the maze Of midnight palace-pillars, on And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone Through guilty glorious Babylon. And while such murmurs flow, the nymph Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell As the dry limpet for the nymph 180 Come with a tune he knows so well. And how your statues' hearts must swell! And how your pictures must descend To see each other, friend with friend! Oh, could you take them by surprise, You'd find Schidone's eager Duke Doing the quaintest courtesies To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke! And, deeper into her rock den, Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen 190 You'd find retreated from the ken Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser-- As if the Tizian thinks of her, And is not, rather, gravely bent On seeing for himself what toys Are these, his progeny invent, What litter now the board employs Whereon he signed a document That got him murdered! Each enjoys Its night so well, you cannot break 200 The sport up, so, indeed must make More stay with me, for others' sake.
She speaks.
I
To-morrow, if a harp-string, say, Is used to tie the jasmine back That overfloods my room with sweets, Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets My Zanze! If the ribbon's black, The Three are watching: keep away!
II
Your gondola--let Zorzi wreathe A mesh of water weeds about 210 Its prow, as if he unaware Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair! That I may throw a paper out As you and he go underneath. There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we. Only one minute more to-night with me? Resume your past self of a month ago! Be you the bashful gallant, I will be The lady with the colder breast than snow. Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand 220 More than I touch yours when I step to land, And say, "All thanks, Siora!"-- Heart to heart And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part, Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!
[He is surprised, and stabbed.
It was ordained to be so, sweet!--and best Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast. Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care Only to put aside thy beauteous hair My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn To death, because they never lived: but I 230 Have lived indeed, and so--(yet one more kiss)--can die!
NOTES: "In a Gondola" is a lyric dialogue between two Venetian lovers who have stolen away in a gondola spite of "the three"--"Himself'," perhaps a husband, and "Paul" and "Gian," her brothers--whose vengeance discovers them at the end, but not before their love and danger have moved them to weave a series of lyrical fancies, and led them to a climax of emotion which makes Life so deep a joy that Death is of no account.
"The first stanza was written,'' writes Browning, "to illustrate Maclise's picture, for which he was anxious to get some line or two. I had not seen it, but from Forster's description, gave it to him in his room impromptu.... When I did see it I thought the serenade too jolly, somewhat, for the notion I got from Forster, and I took up the subject in my own way.''
113. Lido's... graves: Jewish tombs were there.
127. Giudecca: a canal of Venice.
155. Lory: a kind of parrot.
186. Schidone's eager Duke: an imaginary painting by Bartolommeo Schidone of Modena (1560-1616).
188. Haste-thee-Luke: the English form of the nickname, Luca-fa-presto, given Luca Giordano (1632-1705), a Neapolitan painter, on account of his constantly being goaded on in his work by his penurious and avaricious father.
190. Castelfranco: the Venetian painter, Giorgione, called Castelfranco, because born there, 1478, died 1511.
193. Tizian: (1477-1516). The pictures are all imaginary, but suggestive of the style of each of these artists.
WARING
[Mr. Alfred Domett, C.M.G., author of "Ranolf and Amohia," full of descriptions of New Zealand scenery.]
I
What's become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip, Chose land-travel or seafaring, Boots and chest or staff and scrip, Rather than pace up and down Any longer London town?
II
Who'd have guessed it from his lip Or his brow's accustomed bearing, On the night he thus took ship Or started landward?--little caring 10 For us, it seems, who supped together (Friends of his too, I remember) And walked home thro' the merry weather, The snowiest in all December. I left his arm that night myself For what's-his-name's, the new prose-poet Who wrote the book there, on the shelf-- How, forsooth, was I to know it If Waring meant to glide away Like a ghost at break of day? 20 Never looked he half so gay!
III
He was prouder than the devil: How he must have cursed our revel! Ay and many other meetings, Indoor visits, outdoor greetings, As up and down he paced this London, With no work done, but great works undone, Where scarce twenty knew his name. Why not, then, have earlier spoken, Written, bustled? Who's to blame 30 If your silence kept unbroken? "True, but there were sundry jottings, Stray-leaves, fragments, blurs and blottings, Certain first steps were achieved Already which (is that your meaning?) Had well borne out whoe'er believed In more to come!" But who goes gleaning Hedgeside chance-glades, while full-sheaved Stand cornfields by him? Pride, o'erweening Pride alone, puts forth such claims 40 O'er the day's distinguished names.
IV
Meantime, how much I loved him, I find out now I've lost him. I who cared not if I moved him, Who could so carelessly accost him, Henceforth never shall get free Of his ghostly company, His eyes that just a little wink As deep I go into the merit Of this and that distinguished spirit-- 50 His cheeks' raised colour, soon to sink, As long I dwell on some stupendous And tremendous (Heaven defend us!) Monstr'-inform'-ingens-horrend-ous Demoniaco-seraphic Penman's latest piece of graphic. Nay, my very wrist grows warm With his dragging weight of arm. E'en so, swimmingly appears, Through one's after-supper musings, 60 Some lost lady of old years With her beauteous vain endeavour And goodness unrepaid as ever; The face, accustomed to refusings, We, puppies that we were... Oh never Surely, nice of conscience, scrupled Being aught like false, forsooth, to? Telling aught but honest truth to? What a sin, had we centupled Its possessor's grace and sweetness! 70 No! she heard in its completeness Truth, for truth's a weighty matter, And truth, at issue, we can't flatter! Well, 'tis done with; she's exempt From damning us thro' such a sally; And so she glides, as down a valley, Taking up with her contempt, Past our reach; and in, the flowers Shut her unregarded hours.
V
Oh, could I have him back once more, 80 This Waring, but one half-day more! Back, with the quiet face of yore, So hungry for acknowledgment Like mine! I'd fool him to his bent. Feed, should not he, to heart's content? I'd say, "to only have conceived, Planned your great works, apart from progress, Surpasses little works achieved!" I'd lie so, I should be believed. I'd make such havoc of the claims 90 Of the day's distinguished names To feast him with, as feasts an ogress Her feverish sharp-toothed gold-crowned child! Or as one feasts a creature rarely Captured here, unreconciled To capture; and completely gives Its pettish humours license, barely Requiring that it lives.
VI
Ichabod, Ichabod, The glory is departed! 100 Travels Waring East away? Who, of knowledge, by hearsay, Reports a man upstarted Somewhere as a god, Hordes grown European-hearted, Millions of the wild made tame On a sudden at his fame? In Vishnu-land what Avatar? Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar, With the demurest of footfalls 110 Over the Kremlin's pavement bright With serpentine and syenite, Steps, with five other Generals That simultaneously take snuff, For each to have pretext enough And kerchiefwise unfold his sash Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff To hold fast where a steel chain snaps, And leave the grand white neck no gash? Waring in Moscow, to those rough 120 Cold northern natures born perhaps, Like the lamb-white maiden dear From the circle of mute kings Unable to repress the tear, Each as his sceptre down he flings, To Dian's fane at Taurica, Where now a captive priestess, she alway Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands 130 Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter! In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter! Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall 140 From some black coffin-lid. Or, best of all, I love to think The leaving us was just a feint; Back here to London did he slink, And now works on without a wink Of sleep, and we are on the brink Of something great in fresco-paint: Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor, Up and down and o'er and o'er 150 He splashes, as none splashed before Since great Caldara Polidore. Or Music means this land of ours Some favour yet, to pity won By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers-- "Give me my so-long promised son, Let Waring end what I begun!" Then down he creeps and out he steals Only when the night conceals His face; in Kent 'tis cherry-time, 160 Or hops are picking: or at prime Of March he wanders as, too happy, Years ago when he was young, Some mild eve when woods grew sappy And the early moths had sprung To life from many a trembling sheath Woven the warm boughs beneath; While small birds said to themselves What should soon be actual song, And young gnats, by tens and twelves, 170 Made as if they were the throng That crowd around and carry aloft The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure, Out of a myriad noises soft, Into a tone that can endure Amid the noise of a July noon When all God's creatures crave their boon, All at once and all in tune, And get it, happy as Waring then, Having first within his ken 180 What a man might do with men: And far too glad, in the even-glow, To mix with the world he meant to take Into his hand, he told you, so-- And out of it his world to make, To contract and to expand As he shut or oped his hand. Oh Waring, what's to really be? A clear stage and a crowd to see! Some Garrick, say, out shall not he 190 The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck? Or, where most unclean beasts are rife, Some Junius--am I right?--shall tuck His sleeve, and forth with flaying-knife! Some Chatterton shall have the luck Of calling Rowley into life! Some one shall somehow run a muck With this old world for want of strife Sound asleep. Contrive, contrive To rouse us, Waring! Who's alive? 200 Our men scarce seem in earnest now. Distinguished names!--but 'tis, somehow, As if they played at being names Still more distinguished, like the games Of children. Turn our sport to earnest With a visage of the sternest! Bring the real times back, confessed Still better than our very best!
II
I
"When I last saw Waring..." (How all turned to him who spoke! 210 You saw Waring? Truth or joke? In land-travel or sea-faring?)
II
"We were sailing by Triest Where a day or two we harboured: A sunset was in the West, When, looking over the vessel's side, One of our company espied A sudden speck to larboard. And as a sea-duck flies and swims At once, so came the light craft up, 220 With its sole lateen sail that trims And turns (the water round its rims Dancing, as round a sinking cup) And by us like a fish it curled, And drew itself up close beside, Its great sail on the instant furled, And o'er its thwarts a shrill voice cried, (A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's) 'Buy wine of us, you English Brig? Or fruit, tobacco and cigars? 230 A pilot for you to Triest? Without one, look you ne'er so big, They'll never let you up the bay! We natives should know best.' I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,' Our captain said, 'The 'long-shore thieves Are laughing at us in their sleeves.'
III