Chapter III: Introduction: Life of Browning (2)

PHEIDIPPIDES

[Greek: Chairete, nikômen]°

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock! Gods of my birthplace, dæmons and heroes, honour to all! Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal in praise --Ay, with Zeus° the Defender, with Her° of the ægis and spear! °4 Also, ye of the bow and the buskin,° praised be your peer, °5

Now, henceforth, and forever,--O latest to whom I upraise Hand and heart and voice! For Athens, leave pasture and flock! Present to help, potent to save, Pan°--patron I call! °8 Archons° of Athens, topped by the tettix,° see, I return! °9 See, 'tis myself here standing alive, no spectre that speaks! 10 Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, Athens and you, "Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for aid! Persia has come,° we are here, where is She?" Your command I obeyed, °13 Ran and raced: like stubble, some field which a fire runs through, Was the space between city and city: two days, two nights did I burn Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up peaks.

Into their midst I broke: breath served but for "Persia has come! Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth°; °18 Razed to the ground is Eretria.°--but Athens, shall Athens sink, °19 Drop into dust and die--the flower of Hellas° utterly die, °20 Die with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the stupid, the stander-by°? °21 Answer me quick,--what help, what hand do you stretch o'er destruction's brink? How,--when? No care for my limbs!--there's lightning in all and some-- Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it birth!"

O my Athens--Sparta love thee? did Sparta respond? Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mistrust, Malice,--each eye of her gave me its glitter of gratified hate! Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for excuses. I stood Quivering,--the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an inch from dry wood: "Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they debate? 30 Thunder, thou Zeus! Athene, are Spartans a quarry beyond Swing of thy spear? Phoibos° and Artemis,° clang them 'Ye must'!" °32

No bolt launched from Olumpos°! Lo, their answer at last! °33 "Has Persia come,--does Athens ask aid,--may Sparta befriend? Nowise precipitate judgment--too weighty the issue at stake! Count we no time lost time which lags thro' respect to the Gods! Ponder that precept of old, 'No warfare, whatever the odds In your favour, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is unable to take Full-circle her state in the sky!' Already she rounds to it fast: Athens must wait, patient as we--who judgment suspend." 40

Athens,--except for that sparkle,--thy name, I had mouldered to ash! That sent a blaze thro' my blood; off, off and away was I back, --Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the false and the vile! Yet "O Gods of my land!" I cried, as each hillock and plain, Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past them again, "Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honours we paid you erewhile? Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation! Too rash Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so slack!

"Oak and olive and bay,--I bid you cease to en-wreathe Brows made bold by your leaf! Fade at the Persian's foot, 50 You that, our patrons were pledged, should never adorn a slave! Rather I hail thee, Parnes,°--trust to thy wild waste tract! °52 Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain! What matter if slacked My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to cave No deity deigns to drape with verdure?--at least I can breathe, Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the mute!"

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge; Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden, a bar Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the way. Right! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the fissure across: 60 "Where I could enter, there I depart by! Night in the fosse? Athens to aid? Tho' the dive were thro' Erebos,° thus I obey-- °62 Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise! No bridge Better!"--when--ha! what was it I came on, of wonders that are?

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he--majestical Pan! Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof; All the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly--the curl Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw. "Halt, Pheidippides!"--halt I did, my brain of a whirl: 70 "Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?"! he gracious began: "How is it,--Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof?

"Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no feast! Wherefore? Than I what godship to Athens more helpful of old? Ay, and still, and forever her friend! Test Pan, trust me! Go bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have faith In the temples and tombs! Go, say to Athens, 'The Goat-God saith: When Persia--so much as strews not the soil--Is cast in the sea, Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your most and least, Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with the free and the bold!' 80

"Say Pan saith: 'Let this, foreshowing the place, be the pledge!'" (Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear --Fennel,--I grasped it a-tremble with dew--whatever it bode), "While, as for thee..." But enough! He was gone. If I ran hitherto-- Be sure that the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, but flew. Parnes to Athens--earth no more, the air was my road; Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on the razor's edge! Pan for Athens, Pan for me! I too have a guerdon rare!

* * * * *

Then spoke Miltiades.° "And thee, best runner of Greece, °89 Whose limbs did duty indeed,--what gift is promised thyself? 90 Tell it us straightway,--Athens the mother demands of her son!" Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at length His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered the rest of his strength Into the utterance--"Pan spoke thus: 'For what thou hast done Count on a worthy reward! Henceforth be allowed thee release From the racer's toil, no vulgar reward in praise or in pelf!'

"I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most to my mind! Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel may grow,-- Pound--Pan helping us--Persia to dust, and, under the deep, Whelm her away forever; and then,--no Athens to save,-- 100 Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the brave,-- Hie to my house and home: and, when my children shall creep Close to my knees,--recount how the God was awful yet kind, Promised their sire reward to the full--rewarding him--so!"

* * * * *

Unforeseeing one! Yes, he fought on the Marathon day: So, when Persia was dust, all cried "To Akropolis°! °106 Run, Pheidippides, one race more! the meed is thy due! 'Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout!" He flung down his shield, Ran like fire once more: and the space 'twixt the Fennel-field° °109 And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire runs through, 110 Till in he broke: "Rejoice, we conquer!" Like wine thro' clay, Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died--the bliss!

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word of salute Is still "Rejoice!"--his word which brought rejoicing indeed. So is Pheidippides happy forever,--the noble strong man Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, whom a god loved so well, He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was suffered to tell Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he began, So to end gloriously--once to shout, thereafter be mute: "Athens is saved!"--Pheidippides dies in the shout for his meed. 120

* * * * *

MY STAR

All that I know Of a certain star Is, it can throw (Like the angled spar°) °4 Now a dart of red, Now a dart of blue; Till my friends have said They would fain see, too, My star that dartles the red and the blue!

Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled: 10 They must solace themselves with the Saturn° above it. °11 What matter to me if their star is a world? Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

* * * * *

EVELYN HOPE

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass;
Little has yet been changed, I think:
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink.

Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; 10
It was not her time to love; beside,
Her life had many a hope and aim,
Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir,
Till God's hand beckoned unawares,--
And the sweet white brow is all of her.

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew-- 20
And just because I was thrice as old
And our paths in the world diverged so wide,
Each was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, naught beside?

No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love:
I claim you still, for my own love's sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Thro' worlds I shall traverse, not a few: 30
Much is to learn, much, to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come, at last it will,
When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (I shall say)
In the lower earth in the years long still,
That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,
And your mouth of your own geranium's red--
And what would you do with me, in fine,
In the new life come in the old one's stead. 40

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,
Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me:
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while!
My heart seemed full as it could hold; 50
There was place and to spare for the frank young smile,
And the red young mouth, and the hair's young gold.
So hush,--I will give you this leaf to keep:
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand!
There, that is our secret: go to sleep!
You will wake, and remember, and understand.

* * * * *

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop--
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since 10
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.

Now,--the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to (else they run
Into one),
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires 20
O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed,
Twelve abreast.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
Stock or stone-- 30
Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.

Now,--the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored, 40
While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
Thro' the chinks--
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.

And I know--while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave 50
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished gray
Melt away--
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come, 60

But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then,
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face, 70
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--
Gold, of course.
Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth's returns 80
For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.

* * * * *

MISCONCEPTIONS

This is a spray the bird clung to, Making it blossom with pleasure, Ere the high tree-top she sprung to, Fit for her nest and her treasure. Oh, what a hope beyond measure Was the poor spray's, which the flying feet hung to,-- So to be singled out, built in, and sung to!

This is a heart the Queen leant on, Thrilled in a minute erratic, Ere the true bosom she bent on, 10 Meet for love's regal dalmatic.° °11 Oh, what a fancy ecstatic Was the poor heart's, ere the wanderer went on-- Love to be saved for it, proffered to, spent on!

* * * * *

NATURAL MAGIC

All I can say is--I saw it! The room was as bare as your hand. I locked in the swarth little lady,--I swear, From the head to the foot of her--well, quite as bare! "No Nautch° shall cheat me," said I, "taking my stand °5 At this bolt which I draw!" And this bolt--I withdraw it, And there laughs the lady, not bare, but embowered With--who knows what verdure, o'erfruited, o'erflowered? Impossible! Only--I saw it!

All I can sing is--I feel it! 10 This life was as blank as that room; I let you pass in here. Precaution, indeed? Walls, ceiling, and floor,--not a chance for a weed! Wide opens the entrance: where's cold, now, where's gloom? No May to sow seed here, no June to reveal it, Behold you enshrined in these blooms of your bringing, These fruits of your bearing--nay, birds of your winging! A fairy-tale! Only--I feel it!

* * * * *

APPARITIONS

(_Prologue to "The Two Poets of Croisic."_)

Such a starved bank of moss
Till, that May-morn,
Blue ran the flash across:
Violets were born!

Sky--what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!

World--how it walled about
Life with disgrace, 10
Till God's own smile came out:
That was thy face!

* * * * *

A WALL

O the old wall here! How I could pass
Life in a long midsummer day,
My feet confined to a plot of grass,
My eyes from a wall not once away!

And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:
Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath,
In lappets of tangle they laugh between.

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?
Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims 10
The body,--the house no eye can probe,--
Divined, as beneath a robe, the limbs?

And there again! But my heart may guess
Who tripped behind; and she sang, perhaps:
So the old wall throbbed, and its life's excess
Died out and away in the leafy wraps.

Wall upon wall are between us: life
And song should away from heart to heart!
I--prison-bird, with a ruddy strife
At breast, and a lip whence storm-notes start-- 20

Hold on, hope hard in the subtle thing
That's spirit: tho' cloistered fast, soar free;
Account as wood, brick, stone, this ring
Of the rueful neighbours, and--forth to thee!

* * * * *

CONFESSIONS

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 10
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'er-topping 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. 20

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, 30
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!

* * * * *

A WOMAN'S LAST WORD

Let's contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
--Only sleep!

What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking
While we speak! 10
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek.

What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent's tooth is,
Shun the tree--

Where the apple reddens,
Never pry--
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I. 20

Be a god and hold me
With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love!
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought--

Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands, 30
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow,
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:

--Must a little weep, Love,
(Foolish me!)
And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee. 40

* * * * *

A PRETTY WOMAN

That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!

To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And infold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!

You like us for a glance, you know--
For a word's sake 10
Or a sword's sake:
All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.

And in turn we make you ours, we say--
You and youth too,
Eyes and mouth too,
All the face composed of flowers, we say.

All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet--
Sing and say for,
Watch and pray for,
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet! 20

But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,
Tho' we prayed you,
Paid you, brayed you
In a mortar--for you could not, Sweet!

So, we leave the sweet face fondly there,
Be its beauty
Its sole duty!
Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!

And while the face lies quiet there,
Who shall wonder 30
That I ponder
A conclusion? I will try it there.

As,--why must one, for the love foregone
Scout mere liking?
Thunder-striking
Earth,--the heaven, we looked above for, gone!

Why, with beauty, needs there money be,
Love with liking?
Crush the fly-king
In his gauze, because no honey-bee? 40

May not liking be so simple-sweet,
If love grew there
'Twould undo there
All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?

Is the creature too imperfect, say?
Would you mend it
And so end it?
Since not all addition perfects aye!

Or is it of its kind, perhaps,
Just perfection-- 50
Whence, rejection
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?

Shall we burn up, tread that face at once
Into tinder,
And so hinder
Sparks from kindling all the place at once?

Or else kiss away one's soul on her?
Your love-fancies!
--A sick man sees
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her! 60

Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,--
Plucks a mould-flower
For his gold flower,
Uses fine things that efface the rose.

Rosy rubies make its cup more rose.
Precious metals
Ape the petals,--
Last, some old king locks it up, morose!

Then how grace a rose? I know a way!
Leave it, rather. 70
Must you gather?
Smell, kiss, wear it--at last, throw away.

* * * * *

YOUTH AND ART

It once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

Your trade was with sticks and clay,
You thumbed, thrust, patted, and polished,
Then laughed "They will see some day,
Smith made, and Gibson° demolished." °8

My business was song, song, song;
I chirped, cheeped, trilled, and twittered, 10
"Kate Brown's on the boards ere long,
And Grisi's° existence embittered!" °12

I earned no more by a warble
Than you by a sketch in plaster;
You wanted a piece of marble,
I needed a music-master.

We studied hard in our styles,
Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,° °18
For air, looked out on the tiles,
For fun, watched each other's windows. 20

You lounged, like a boy of the South,
Cap and blouse--nay, a bit of beard too;
Or you got it, rubbing your mouth
With fingers the clay adhered to.

And I--soon managed to find
Weak points in the flower-fence facing,
Was forced to put up a blind
And be safe in my corset-lacing.

No harm! It was not my fault
If you never turned your eye's tail up 30
As I shook upon E _in alt_,
Or ran the chromatic scale up:

For spring bade the sparrows pair.
And the boys and girls gave guesses,
And stalls in our street looked rare
With bulrush and watercresses.

Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power
Of thanks in a look or sing it? 40

I did look, sharp as a lynx,
(And yet the memory rankles)
When models arrived, some minx
Tripped up stairs, she and her ankles.

But I think I gave you as good!
"That foreign fellow,--who can know
How she pays, in a playful mood,
For his tuning her that piano?"

Could you say so, and never say
"Suppose we join hands and fortunes, 50
And I fetch her from over the way,
Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?"

No, no: you would not be rash,
Nor I rasher and something over;
You've to settle yet Gibson's hash,
And Grisi yet lives in clover.

But you meet the Prince at the Board,
I'm queen myself at _bals-parés_,° °58
I've married a rich old lord,
And you're dubbed knight and an R.A. 60

Each life unfulfilled, you see;
It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired,--been happy

And nobody calls you a dunce,
And people suppose me clever;
This could but have happened once,
And we missed it, lost it forever.

* * * * *

A TALE

(_Epilogue to "The Two Poets of Croisic."_)

What a pretty tale you told me Once upon a time --Said you found it somewhere (scold me!) Was it prose or was it rhyme, Greek or Latin? Greek, you said, While your shoulder propped my head.

Anyhow there's no forgetting This much if no more, That a poet (pray, no petting!) Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore, 10 Went where suchlike used to go, Singing for a prize, you know.

Well, he had to sing, nor merely Sing but play the lyre; Playing was important clearly Quite as singing: I desire, Sir, you keep the fact in mind For a purpose that's behind.

There stood he, while deep attention Held the judges round, 20 --Judges able, I should mention, To detect the slightest sound Sung or played amiss: such ears Had old judges, it appears!

None the less he sang out boldly, Played in time and tune, Till the judges, weighing coldly Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon, Sure to smile "In vain one tries Picking faults out: take the prize!" 30

When, a mischief! Were they seven Strings the lyre possessed? Oh, and afterwards eleven, Thank you! Well, sir,--who had guessed Such ill luck in store?--it happed One of those same seven strings snapped.

All was lost, then! No! a cricket (What "cicada"? Pooh!) --Some mad thing that left its thicket For mere love of music--flew 40 With its little heart on fire, Lighted on the crippled lyre.

So that when (Ah joy!) our singer For his truant string Feels with disconcerted finger, What does cricket else but fling Fiery heart forth, sound the note Wanted by the throbbing throat?

Ay and, ever to the ending, Cricket chirps at need, 50 Executes the hand's intending, Promptly, perfectly,--indeed Saves the singer from defeat With her chirrup low and sweet.

Till, at ending, all the judges Cry with one assent "Take the prize--a prize who grudges Such a voice and instrument? Why, we took your lyre for harp, So it shrilled us forth F sharp!" 60

Did the conqueror spurn the creature Once its service done? That's no such uncommon feature In the case when Music's son Finds his Lotte's° power too spent °65 For aiding soul development.

No! This other, on returning Homeward, prize in hand, Satisfied his bosom's yearning: (Sir, I hope you understand!) 70 --Said "Some record there must be Of this cricket's help to me!"

So, he made himself a statue: Marble stood, life size; On the lyre, he pointed at you, Perched his partner in the prize; Never more apart you found Her, he throned, from him, she crowned.

That's the tale: its application? Somebody I know 80 Hopes one day for reputation Thro' his poetry that's--Oh, All so learned and so wise And deserving of a prize!

If he gains one, will some ticket When his statue's built, Tell the gazer "'Twas a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped? 90

"For as victory was nighest, While I sang and played,-- With my lyre at lowest, highest, Right alike,--one string that made 'Love' sound soft was snapt in twain Never to be heard again,--

"Had not a kind cricket fluttered, Perched upon the place Vacant left, and duly uttered 'Love, Love, Love,' whene'er the bass 100 Asked the treble to atone For its somewhat sombre drone."

But you don't know music! Wherefore Keep on casting pearls To a--poet? All I care for Is--to tell him that a girl's "Love" comes aptly in when gruff Grows his singing, (There, enough!)

* * * * *

CAVALIER TUNES