Part 5

Not but that you know me! Lo, the moon’s self! Here in London, yonder late in Florence, Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. Curving on a sky imbrued with colour, Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, Came she, our new crescent of a hair’s-breadth. Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, Rounder ’twixt the cypresses and rounder, Perfect till the nightingales applauded. Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished. Hard to greet, she traverses the houseroofs. Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish.

XVI.

What, there’s nothing in the moon note-worthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy) All her magic (’tis the old sweet mythos) She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman— Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats—him, even! Think, the wonder of the moon-struck mortal— When she turns round, comes again in heaven, Opens out anew for worse or better! Proves she like some portent of an iceberg Swimming full upon the ship it founders, Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals? Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain? Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. Like the bodied heaven in his clearness Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, When they ate and drank and saw God also!

XVII.

What were seen? None knows, none ever shall know Only this is sure—the sight were other, Not the moon’s same side, born late in Florence, Dying now impoverished here in London. God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her!

XVIII.

This I say of me, but think of you, Love! This to you—yourself my moon of poets! Ah, but that’s the world’s side, there’s the wonder, Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you! There, in turn I stand with them and praise you— Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. But the best is when I glide from out them, Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, Come out on the other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, Where I hush and bless myself with silence.

XIX.

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, Wrote one song—and in my brain I sing it, Drew one angel—borne, see, on my bosom!

“Men and Women,” a collection of fifty poems, first published in 1855, is probably the best known of our author’s numerous volumes. Some of the very finest of his work is in it. To this collection “One Word More” is an appendix, in the form of a dedication of the fifty poems to his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. As we learn from stanza 13, this work differs from all others in having been dashed off, the first time of writing being also the last time; and yet (such is the inspiration of love) it stands with the very highest of his works. It needs careful reading, but presents no such difficulties as “Abt Vogler.”

Rafael, painter for the world, becomes for once a poet for his dearest. If only these wonderful sonnets could be found, how we should prize them; but the volume is hopelessly lost (stanzas 2-4).

Dante, poet for the world, prepares for once to paint an angel for _his_ dearest. But, alas! he is hindered by the breaking in of some “people of importance” of the city, the sort of people who served as character models for “the folk of his Inferno” (5-7).

There would evidently be less of art and more of nature in such an outpouring of soul; and, therefore, the true artist would long to do it “once, and only once, and for one only.” “The man’s joy” would be found in the mere utterance of his soul to his dearest, without any thought of art, which, to the true artist, lifts so high an ideal that his shortcoming is always a “sorrow” (8).

So is it with the prophet, the exercise of whose high calling can never be dissociated from its burdens and cares (9). If he dared, which he may not (10), how gladly for the one that he loved would he “put off the prophet” and provide water, not by the forth putting of power, but simply as the man, through the self-denial of love (11).

Browning himself has only the one art, so cannot leave his poetry to paint, or carve, or “make music” (12); but as the nearest equivalent possible to him will write “once, and only once, and for one only,” a purely extemporaneous production (13), which shall not, like his other works, be dramatic in principle, but spoken in his own “true person” (14).

Then follows the wonderful moon illustration, so marvellously wrought out, based upon the familiar astronomical fact that, through all her phases and movements she always presents exactly the same face to the earth (15), the other remaining entirely concealed (“unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman,” &c.), and therefore available as a new revelation (who knows of what grandeur?) for the loved and specially-favoured mortal (16).

The application of the illustration in stanzas 17 and 18 is exquisitely beautiful, as is the gem-like quatrain with which the poem closes.

SAUL.

[The three selections which fill up the rest of this little volume are given as specimens of the distinctively Christian poems of our author. The first gives us Christ in the Old Testament; the second, Christ in the New; the third, Christianity in its essential truth and practical application. As only a portion of “Saul” can be given, a few words will be necessary to prepare the reader unacquainted with the whole for taking up the thread at the 14th stanza, from which, in the selection, the poem is continued uninterruptedly to the end.]

Young David is telling over to himself (see “my voice to my heart,” in stanza 14) the story of his mission to Saul, when, as an inspired poet-musician, he charmed the evil spirit away from him. Stanza 16, consisting of one line, is the hinge of the entire poem; for David has just reached the point where, after several unsuccessful, or very partially successful, attempts—first, by playing one and another and another tune, which might awaken some chord in the apathetic spirit of the king, and then by singing, accompanied by the harp, first, of the joy of life, then of the splendid results of a royal life like Saul’s in the great future of the world—he at last, the truth coming upon him, strikes the high key where full relief is found. As he approaches this crisis in the tale, he cannot go on without an earnest invocation for help to tell what he had been so wonderfully led to sing:—

XIV.

And behold while I sang ... but O Thou who didst grant me, that day, And, before it, not seldom hast granted thy help to essay, Carry on and complete an adventure,—my shield and my sword In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was my word,— Still help me, who then at the summit of human endeavour And scaling the highest, man’s thought could, gazed hopeless as ever On the new stretch of heaven above me—till, mighty to save, Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance—God’s throne from man’s grave! Let me tell out my tale to its ending—my voice to my heart Which scarce dares believe in what marvels last night I took part, As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep! And fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep, For I wake in the grey dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves Dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves Slow the damage of yesterday’s sunshine.

XV.

I say then,—my song While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and, ever more strong, Made a proffer of good to console him—he slowly resumed His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes Of his turban, and see—the huge sweat that his countenance bathes, He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore, And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before. He is Saul, ye remember in glory,—ere error had bent The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose, To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. So sank he along by the tent-prop, still, stayed by the pile Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile, And sat out my singing,—one arm round the tent-prop, to raise His bent head, and the other hung slack—till I touched on the praise I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there; And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was ’ware That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak roots which please To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: thro’ my hair The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power— All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine— And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign? I yearned—“Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, “I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this; “I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, “As this moment,—had love but the warrant, love’s heart to dispense!”

XVI.

Then the truth came upon me. No harp more—no song more! outbroke—

XVII.

“I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke; “I, a work of God’s hand for that purpose, received in my brain “And pronounced on the rest of his handwork—returned him again “His creation’s approval or censure: I spoke as I saw, “Reported, as man may of God’s work—all’s love, yet all’s law. “Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked “To perceive him has gained an abyss, where a dew-drop was asked. “Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare. “Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care! “Do I task any faculty highest, to image success? “I but open my eyes,—and perfection, no more and no less, “In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God “In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod. “And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew “(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) “The submission of man’s nothing-perfect to God’s all-complete, “As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet. “Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known, “I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own. “There’s a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hood-wink, “I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think) “Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst “E’en the Giver in one gift.—Behold, I could love if I durst! “But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o’ertake “God’s own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love’s sake. —“What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, “Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appal? “In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all? “Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift, “That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift? “Here, the creature surpass the Creator,—the end what began? “Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, “And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can? “Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power, “To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower “Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul, “Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole? “And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest), “These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best? “Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height “This perfection,—succeed, with life’s dayspring, death’s minute of night: “Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul, the mistake, “Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,—and bid him awake “From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set “Clear and safe in new light and new life,—a new harmony yet “To be run and continued, and ended—who knows?—or endure! “The man taught enough by life’s dream, of the rest to make sure; “By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss, “And the next world’s reward and repose, by the struggles in this.

XVIII.

“I believe it! ’Tis thou, God, that givest, ’tis I who receive: “In the first is the last, in thy will is my powder to believe. “All’s one gift: thou canst grant it, moreover, as prompt to my prayer, “As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. “From thy will, stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth: “_I_ will?—the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth “To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare “Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? “This;—’tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do! “See the King—I would help him, but cannot, the wishes fall through. “Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, “To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would—knowing which, “I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now! “Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou—so wilt thou! “So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown— “And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down “One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, “Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death! “As thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved “Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved! “He who did most shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak. “’Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh that I seek “In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be “A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, “Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this hand “Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!”

XIX.

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right, Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware: I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there, As a runner beset by the populace famished for news— Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews; And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not, For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest, Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth— Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day’s tender birth; In the gathered intensity brought to the grey of the hills; In the shuddering forests’ held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still, Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill That rose heavily as I approached them, made stupid with awe: E’en the serpent that slid away silent—he felt the new law. The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers; The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers: And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, With their obstinate, all but hushed voices—“E’en so, it is so!”

_Stanza 14._—Observe the meeting of the human and divine in the poet-prophet’s inspiration. As poet, his powers were in their fullest exercise, and still there was an unfathomable heaven of the unknown above him, till “one lift of Thy hand cleared that distance.”

The close of this stanza sets before us the scene of the writing of this reminiscence.

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_Stanza 15._—The soothing influence of the singing begins to appear. Be sure to keep in mind the picture, so wonderfully illustrated, of the attitude of the two; and mark the words of David, “All my heart how it loved him,” connecting them carefully with the next stanza (16), “_Then_ the truth came upon me.” It is only to the earnestly-loving heart that such a revelation of God could be given. “God is Love, and he that loveth not knoweth not God.” Observe, also, in this short stanza the effect of the intense earnestness of his soul, leading him to lay aside his harp and cease his singing, and simply break out in impassioned speech.

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_Stanza 17._—Shall God be infinitely above his creature man, in all faculties except one, and that “the greatest of all,” viz., Love? (Note, in passing, the exquisite beauty of the lines: “With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too,” and “As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet.” The passage immediately following this line is of course ironical at his own expense, which is indicated by the parenthetical “I laugh as I think”; as if to say “how utterly foolish the thought that such a wide province, such a grand gift, as Love, should be mine quite apart from God, the great Ruler and Giver of all!”)

* * * * *

_Stanza 18._—Impossible! God is the giver: all that I have—Love, as well as everything else—is from him; I can wish, but cannot will the thing I would; but God can, therefore God will; his love cannot be frustrated as mine is; it must even for such as “Saul, the failure, the ruin he seems now,” find Salvation; being infinite it must have its will, and find a way, however hard it be (see the striking line “it is by no breath,” &c.); and _there it is_! See THE CHRIST stand!

Remember carefully the position as explained in the 15th stanza as you read the magnificent climax, beginning—

“O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee;”

observe also the effect of the spondee with which stanza 18 closes, instead of the usual anapæst; it gives wonderful dignity and strength to the thought. The same effect is produced several times in the early part of the poem by the same means, but nowhere with such power as in this, the grand climax.

* * * * *

What a contrast here to the petty mechanical notions of inspiration which have so often degraded the loftiest subject of human thought; and how marvellously is the presence and the power of the Unseen on such a soul as David’s imaged forth in the lines of the closing stanza, in words which seem almost to utter the unutterable.

AN EPISTLE

CONTAINING THE STRANGE MEDICAL EXPERIENCE OF KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN.

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 vapour 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, Whereby the wily vapour 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 snake-stone—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.

My journeyings were brought to Jericho: Thus I resume. Who studious in our art Shall count a little labour unrepaid? 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 rumours of a marching hitherward: Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son. A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear: Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls: 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 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-grey back; Take five and drop them ... but who knows his mind, The Syrian run-a-gate I trust this to? His service payeth me a sublimate 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, Judæa’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— 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. 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!