Chapter 2
Stop playing, poet! May a brother speak? 'Tis you speak, that's your error. Song's our art: Whereas you please to speak these naked thoughts Instead of draping them in sights and sounds. --True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up! But why such long prolusion and display, Such turning and adjustment of the harp, And taking it upon your breast, at length, Only to speak dry words across its strings? Stark-naked thought is in request enough: 10 Speak prose and hollo it till Europe hears! The six-foot Swiss tube, braced about with bark, Which helps the hunter's voice from Alp to Alp-- Exchange our harp for that--who hinders you?
But here's your fault; grown men want thought, you think; Thought's what they mean by verse, and seek in verse. Boys seek for images and melody, Men must have reason--so, you aim at men.
Quite otherwise! Objects throng our youth,'tis true; We see and hear and do not wonder much: 20 If you could tell us what they mean, indeed! As German Boehme never cared for plants Until it happed, a-walking in the fields, He noticed all at once that plants could speak, Nay, turned with loosened tongue to talk with him. That day the daisy had an eye indeed-- Colloquized with the cowslip on such themes! We find them extant yet in Jacob's prose. But by the time youth slips a stage or two While reading prose in that tough book he wrote 30 (Collating and emendating the same And settling on the sense most to our mind) We shut the clasps and find life's summer past. Then, who helps more, pray, to repair our loss-- Another Boehme with a tougher book And subtler meanings of what roses say-- Or some stout Mage like him of Halberstadt, John, who made things Boehme wrote thoughts about? He with a "look you!" vents a brace of rhymes, And in there breaks the sudden rose herself, 40 Over us, under, round us every side, Nay, in and out the tables and the chairs And musty volumes, Boehme's book and all-- Buries us with a glory, young once more, Pouring heaven into this shut house of life.
So come, the harp back to your heart again! You are a poem, though your poem's naught. The best of all you showed before, believe, Was your own boy-face o'er the finer chords Bent, following the cherub at the top 50 That points to God with his paired half-moon wings.
NOTES
"Transcendentalism" is a criticism, placed in the mouth of a poet, of another poet, whose manner of singing is prosaic, because it seeks to transcend (or penetrate beyond) phenomena, by divesting poetic expression of those concrete embodiments which enable it to appeal to the senses and imagination. Instead of bare abstractions being suited to the developed mind, it is the primitive mind, which, like Boehme's, has the merely metaphysical turn, and expects to discover the unincarnate absolute essence of things. The maturer mind craves the vitalizing method of the artist who, like the magician of Halberstadt, recreates things bodily in all their beautiful vivid wholeness. Yet the poet who sincerely holds so fragmentary a conception of art is himself a poem to the poet who holds the larger view. His boy-face singing to God above his ineffective harp-strings is a concrete image of this sort of poetic transcendentalism.
[It is obvious that Browning uses the Halberstadt and not the Boehme method in presenting this embodiment of his subject. The supposition of certain commentators that Browning is here picturing his own artistic method as transcendental is a misconception of his characteristic theory of poetic art, as shown here and elsewhere.]
22. Boehme: Jacob, an "inspired" German shoemaker (1575-1624), who wrote "Aurora," "The Three Principles," etc., mystical commentaries on Biblical events. When twenty-five years old, says Hotham in "Mysterium Magnum," 1653, "he was surrounded by a divine Light and replenished with heavenly Knowledge . . . going abroad into the Fieldes to a Greene before Neys-Gate at Gorlitz and viewing the Herbes and Grass of the Fielde, in his inward light he saw into their Essences . . . and from that Fountain of Revelation wrote ," on the signatures of things, the "tough book" to which Browning refers.
37. Halberstadt: Johann Semeca, called Teutonicus, a canon of Halberstadt in Germany, who was interested in the unchurchly study of mediaeval science and reputed to be a magician, possessing the vegetable stone supposed to make plants grow at will, having the same power over organic life that the philosopher's stone of the alchemists had over minerals, so that, like Albertus Magnus, another such mage of the Middle Ages, he could cause flowers to spring up in the midst of winter.
HOW IT STRIKES A CONTEMPORARY
1855
I only knew one poet in my life: And this, or something like it, was his way.
You saw go up and down Valladolid, A man of mark, to know next time you saw. His very serviceable suit of black Was courtly once and conscientious still, And many might have worn it, though none did: The cloak, that somewhat shone and showed the threads, Had purpose, and the ruff, significance. He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane, 10 Scenting the world, looking it full in face, An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels. They turned up, now, the alley by the church, That leads nowhither; now, they breathed themselves On the main promenade just at the wrong time: You'd come upon his scrutinizing hat Making a peaked shade blacker than itself Against the single window spared some house Intact yet with its mouldered Moorish work-- Or else surprise the ferret of his stick 20 Trying the mortar's temper 'tween the chinks Of some new shop a-building, French and fine. He stood and watched the cobbler at his trade, The man who slices lemons into drink, The coffee-roaster's brazier, and the boys That volunteer to help him turn its winch. He glanced o'er books on stalls with half an eye, And fly-leaf ballads on the vendor's string, And broad-edge bold-print posters by the wall. He took such cognizance of men and things, 30 If any beat a horse, you felt he saw; If any cursed a woman, he took note; Yet stared at nobody--you stared at him, And found, less to your pleasure than surprise, He seemed to know you and expect as much. So, next time that a neighbor's tongue was loosed, It marked the shameful and notorious fact, We had among us, not so much a spy, As a recording chief-inquisitor, The town's true master if the town but knew 40 We merely kept a governor for form, While this man walked about and took account Of all thought, said and acted, then went home, And wrote it fully to our Lord the King Who has an itch to know things, he knows why, And reads them in his bedroom of a night. Oh, you might smile! there wanted not a touch, A tang of . . . well, it was not wholly ease As back into your mind the man's look came. Stricken in years a little--such a brow 50 His eyes had to live under!--clear as flint On either side the formidable nose Curved, cut and colored like an eagle's claw, Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate? When altogether old B. disappeared And young C. got his mistress, was't our friend, His letter to the King, that did it all? What paid the Woodless man for so much pains? Our Lord the King has favorites manifold, And shifts his ministry some once a month; 60 Our city gets new governors at whiles-- But never word or sign, that I could hear, Notified to this man about the streets The King's approval of those letters conned The last thing duly at the dead of night. Did the man love his office? Frowned our Lord, Exhorting when none heard--"Beseech me not! Too far above my people--beneath me! I set the watch--how should the people know? Forget them, keep me all the more in mind!" 70 Was some such understanding 'twixt the two?
I found no truth in one report at least-- That if you tracked him to his home, down lanes Beyond the Jewry, and as clean to pace, You found he ate his supper in a room Blazing with lights, four Titians on the wall, And twenty naked girls to change his plate! Poor man, he lived another kind of life In that new stuccoed third house by the bridge, Fresh-painted, rather smart than otherwise! 80 The whole street might o'erlook him as he sat, Leg crossing leg, one foot on the dog's back, Playing a decent cribbage with his maid (Jacynth, you're sure her name was) o'er the cheese And fruit, three red halves of starved winter-pears, Or treat of radishes in April. Nine, Ten, struck the church clock, straight to bed went he.
My father, like the man of sense he was, Would point him out to me a dozen times; "'St--'St," he'd whisper, "the Corregidor!" 90 I had been used to think that personage Was one with lacquered breeches, lustrous belt, And feathers like a forest in his hat, Who blew a trumpet and proclaimed the news, Announced the bull-fights, gave each church its turn, And memorized the miracle in vogue! He had a great observance from us boys; We were in error; that was not the man.
I'd like now, yet had happy been afraid, To have just looked, when this man came to die, 100 And seen who lined the clean gay garret-sides And stood about the neat low truckle-bed, With the heavenly manner of relieving guard. Here had been, mark, the general-in-chief, Thro' a whole campaign of the world's life and death, Doing the King's work all the dim day long, In his old coat and up to knees in mud, Smoked like a herring, dining on a crust, And, now the day was won, relieved at once! No further show or need for that old coat, 110 You are sure, for one thing! Bless us, all the while How sprucely we are dressed out, you and I! A second, and the angels alter that. Well, I could never write a verse--could you? Let's to the Prado and make the most of time.
NOTES
"How it Strikes a Contemporary" is a portrait of the Poet as the unpoetic gossiping public of his day sees him. It is humorously colored by the alien point of view of the speaker, who suspects without understanding either the greatness of the poet's spiritual personality and mission, or the nature of his life, which is withdrawn from that of the commonalty, yet spent in clear-sighted universal sympathies and kindly mediation between Humanity and its God.
3. Valladolid: the royal city of the kings of Castile, before Philip II moved the Court to Madrid, where Cervantes, Calderon, and Las Casas lived and Columbus died.
76. Titian: pictures by the Venetian, Tiziano Vecellio (1477-1576), glowing in color, presumably of large golden-haired women like his famous Venus.
90. Corregidor: the Spanish title for a magistrate, literally, a corrector, from corregir, to correct.
ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES
1842
I am a goddess of the ambrosia courts, And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed By none whose temples whiten this the world. Through heaven I roll my lucid moon along; I shed in hell o'er my pale people peace; On earth I, caring for the creatures, guard Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek, And every feathered mother's callow brood, And all that love green haunts and loneliness. Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns 10 Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem, Upon my image at Athenai here; And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above, Was dearest to me. He, my buskined step To follow through the wild-wood leafy ways, And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low, Neglected homage to another god: Whence Aphrodite, by no midnight smoke Of tapers lulled, in jealousy despatched 20 A noisome lust that, as the gad bee stings, Possessed his stepdame Phaidra for himself The son of Theseus her great absent spouse. Hippolutos exclaiming in his rage Against the fury of the Queen, she judged Life insupportable; and, pricked at heart An Amazonian stranger's race should dare To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord: Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll The fame of him her swerving made not swerve. 30 And Theseus, read, returning, and believed, And exiled, in the blindness of his wrath, The man without a crime who, last as first, Loyal, divulged not to his sire the truth, Now Theseus from Poseidon had obtained That of his wishes should be granted three, And one he imprecated straight--"Alive May ne'er Hippolutos reach other lands!" Poseidon heard, ai ai! And scarce the prince Had stepped into the fixed boots of the car 40 That give the feet a stay against the strength Of the Henetian horses, and around His body flung the rein, and urged their speed Along the rocks and shingles at the shore, When from the gaping wave a monster flung His obscene body in the coursers' path. These, mad with terror, as the sea-bull sprawled Wallowing about their feet, lost care of him That reared them; and the master-chariot-pole Snapping beneath their plunges like a reed, 50 Hippolutos, whose feet were trammelled fast, Was yet dragged forward by the circling rein Which either hand directed; nor they quenched The frenzy of their flight before each trace, Wheel-spoke and splinter of the woful car, Each boulder-stone, sharp stub and spiny shell, Huge fish-bone wrecked and wreathed amid the sands On that detested beach, was bright with blood And morsels of his flesh; then fell the steeds Head foremost, crashing in their mooned fronts, 60 Shivering with sweat, each white eye horror-fixed. His people, who had witnessed all afar, Bore back the ruins of Hippolutos. But when his sire, too swoln with pride, rejoiced (Indomitable as a man foredoomed) That vast Poseidon had fulfilled his prayer, I, in a flood of glory visible, Stood o'er my dying votary and, deed By deed, revealed, as all took place, the truth. Then Theseus lay the wofullest of men, 70 And worthily; but ere the death-veils hid His face, the murdered prince full pardon breathed To his rash sire. Whereat Athenai wails.
So I, who ne'er forsake my votaries, Lest in the cross-way none the honey-cake Should tender, nor pour out the dog's hot life; Lest at my fane the priests disconsolate Should dress my image with some faded poor Few crowns, made favors of, nor dare object Such slackness to my worshippers who turn 80 Elsewhere the trusting heart and loaded hand, As they had climbed Olumpos to report Of Artemis and nowhere found her throne-- I interposed: and, this eventful night (While round the funeral pyre the populace Stood with fierce light on their black robes which bound Each sobbing head, while yet their hair they clipped O'er the dead body of their withered prince, And, in his palace, Theseus prostrated On the cold hearth, his brow cold as the slab 90 'T was bruised on, groaned away the heavy grief-- As the pyre fell, and down the cross logs crashed Sending a crowd of sparkles through the night, And the gay fire, elate with mastery, Towered like a serpent o'er the clotted jars Of wine, dissolving oils and frankincense, And splendid gums like gold) my potency Conveyed the perished man to my retreat In the thrice-venerable forest here. And this white-bearded sage who squeezes now 100 The berried plant, is Phoibos' son of fame, Asclepios, whom my radiant brother taught The doctrine of each herb and flower and root, To know their secret'st virtue and express The saving soul of all: who so has soothed With layers the torn brow and murdered cheeks, Composed the hair and brought its gloss again, And called the red bloom to the pale skin back, And laid the strips and lagged ends of flesh Even once more, and slacked the sinew's knot 110 Of every tortured limb--that now he lies As if mere sleep possessed him underneath These interwoven oaks and pines. Oh cheer, Divine presenter of the healing rod, Thy snake, with ardent throat and lulling eye, Twines his lithe spires around! I say, much cheer! Proceed thou with thy wisest pharmacies! And ye, white crowd of woodland sister-nymphs, Ply, as the sage directs, these buds and leaves That strew the turf around the twain! While I 120 Await, in fitting silence, the event.
NOTES
"Artemis Prologizes" represents the goddess Artemis awaiting the revival of the youth Hippolytus, whom she has carried to her woods and given to Asclepios to heal. It is a fragment meant to introduce an unwritten work and carry on the story related by Euripides in "Hippolytus," which see.
AN EPISTLE CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN
1855
Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs, The not-incurious in God's handiwork (This man's-flesh he hath admirably made, Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, To coop up and keep down on earth a space That puff of vapor from his mouth, man's soul) --To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, 10 Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term-- And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such-- The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) Three samples of true snakestone--rarer still, One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs) And writeth now the twenty-second time. 20
My journeyings were brought to Jericho: Thus I resume. Who studious in our art Shall count a little labor un-repaid? I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone On many a flinty furlong of this land. Also, the country-side is all on fire With rumors of a marching hitherward: Some say Vespasian comes, some, his son. A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear; Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: 30 I cried and threw my staff and he was gone. Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me, And once a town declared me for a spy; But at the end, I reach Jerusalem, Since this poor covert where I pass the night, This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence A man with plague-sores at the third degree Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here! 'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe, To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip 40 And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. A viscid choler is observable In tertians, I was nearly bold to say; And falling-sickness hath a happier cure Than our school wots of: there's a spider here Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back; Take five and drop them . . . but who knows his mind, The Syrian runagate I trust this to? His service payeth me a sublimate 50 Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye. Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn, There set in order my experiences, Gather what most deserves, and give thee all-- Or I might add, Judaea's gum-tragacanth Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry, In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy-- Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar-- 60 But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.
Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully, Protesteth his devotion is my price-- Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal? I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush, What set me off a-writing first of all, An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang! For, be it this town's barrenness--or else The Man had something in the look of him-- His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth. 70 So, pardon if--(lest presently I lose In the great press of novelty at hand The care and pains this somehow stole from me) I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind, Almost in sight--for, wilt thou have the truth? The very man is gone from me but now, Whose ailment is the subject of discourse. Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!