Chapter VII: Epilogue: To "asolando" (2)

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! 10 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,° °15 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! 20 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, 30 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 grayness 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. 40 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; 50 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, 60 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, 70 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, 80 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, Tho' 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, 90 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-gray, Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! I know both what I want and what might gain, 100 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 thro' his art--for it gives way; 110 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! °119 Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think-- 120 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°! °130 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, 140 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°! °150 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 160 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 tune, 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 gray: And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt Out of the grange whose four walls make his world, 170 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 180 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, 190 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?) 200 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. 210 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? 220 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 gray 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, 230 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, 240 Get you the thirteen scudi° for the ruff! °241 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. 250 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 love 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, 260 Meted on each side by the angel's reed, For Leonard,° Rafael, Agnolo, and me °262 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.

* * * * *

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS;

OR,

NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself."

['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, 10 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 20 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. 30

'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) 40 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 50 That pricks deep into oakwarts 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; 60 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 tho' 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,-- 70 Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper thro' 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, 80 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 thro' 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 90 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 100 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, 110 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 thro' Him, do naught 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 120 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 thro' 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, 130 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 140 It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos The many-handed as a cuttle-fish, Who, making Himself feared thro' 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 150 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: 160 '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 170 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? 180 '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, 190 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! 200 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! 210 '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; 220 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 230 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, 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. 240

'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. 250 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 thro' 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 260 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?" 270 '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, 280 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 hath 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, 290 His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! So! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos! 'Maketh his teeth meet thro' his upper lip, Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]

* * * * *

"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME"

_(See Edgar's song in "Lear.")_

My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye
Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression° of the glee, that pursed and scored °5
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travellers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh 10
Would break, what crutch 'gin write° my epitaph °11
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

If at his counsel I should turn aside
Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly
I did turn as he pointed: neither pride
Nor hope rekindling at the end descried.
So much as gladness that some end might be.

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What, with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope 20
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope
With that obstreperous joy success would bring,--
I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring
My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

As when a sick man very near to death
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end
The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend,
And hears one bid the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside, ("since all is o'er," he saith,
"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;") 30

While some discuss if near the other graves
Be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves, and staves:
And still the man hears all, and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
So many times among "The Band"--to wit,
The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 40
Their steps--that just to fail as they, seemed best,
And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
Into the path he pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.° °48

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, 50
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; gray plain all round:
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound,
I might go on; naught else remained to do.

So, on I went. I think I never saw
Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:
For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove!
But cockle, spurge, according to their law
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,
You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove. 60

No! penury, inertness, and grimace,
In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See
Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,
"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:
'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,
Calcine its clods and set my prisoners° free." °66

If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk
Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents° °68
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents
In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as° to balk 70
All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk
Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair
In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud
Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.
One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,
Stood stupefied, however he came there:
Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,
With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, 80
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;
Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.
As a man calls for wine before he fights,
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,
Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.
Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art:
One taste of the old time sets all to rights. 90

Not it°! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face °91
Beneath its garniture of curly gold,
Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold
An arm in mine to fix me to the place,
That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!
Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.

Giles then, the soul of honour--there he stands
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.
What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.
Good--but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands 100
Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!

Better this present than a past like that;
Back therefore to my darkening path again!
No sound, no sight so far as eye could strain.
Will the night send a howlet° or a bat? °106
I asked: when something on the dismal flat
Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

A sudden little river crossed my path
As unexpected as a serpent comes. 110
No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath
For the fiend's glowing hoof--to see the wrath
Of its black eddy bespate° with flakes and spumes. °114

So petty, yet so spiteful! All along,
Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:
The river which had done them all the wrong,
Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. 120

Which, while I forded,--good saints, how I feared
To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek
For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!
--It may have been a water-rat I speared,
But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.

Glad was I when I reached the other bank.
Now for a better country. Vain presage!
Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage
Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130
Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,
Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.° °133
What penned them there, with all the plain, to choose?
No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,
None out of it. Mad brewage set to work
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk° °137
Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

And more than that--a furlong on--why, there!
What bad use was that engine° for, that wheel, °140
Or brake, not wheel--that harrow fit to reel
Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air
Of Tophet's° tool, on earth left unaware, °143
Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,
Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth
Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,
Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood
Changes, and off he goes!) within a rood--
Bog, clay, and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth. 150

Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,
Now patches where some leanness of the soil's
Broke into moss or substances like boils;
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim
Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

And just as far as ever from the end,
Naught in the distance but the evening, naught
To point my footstep further! At the thought,
A great black bird, Apollyon's° bosom-friend, °160
Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned
That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,
'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place
All round to mountains--with such name to grace
Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.
How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you!
How to get from them was no clearer case.

Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick
Of mischief happened to me, Gods knows when-- 170
In a bad dream, perhaps. Here ended, then,
Progress this way. When, in the very nick
Of giving up, one time more, came a click
As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den.

Burningly it came on me all at once,
This was the place! those two hills on the right,
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;
While, to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce,
Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,
After a life spent training for the sight! 180

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?
The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart,
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf
He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day
Came back again for that! before it left,
The dying sunset kindled thro' a cleft:
The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, 190
Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,
"Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!"

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears,
Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--
How such a one was strong, and such was bold,
And such was fortunate, yet each of old
Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met
To view the last of me, a living frame 200
For one more picture! in a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew. "_Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came._"

* * * * *

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, 10 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°-- °14 The vagrant Scholar to his Sage° at home °15 Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) Three samples of true snake-stone°--rarer still, °17 One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms° than drugs) °19 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 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. °28 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°; °33 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! °38 '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° °44 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, °48 The Syrian run-a-gate 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, 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-- 60 But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.

Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully, Protested his devotion is my price-- Suppose I write, what harms not, tho' he steal? I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,° °65 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!

'Tis but a case of mania: subinduced By epilepsy, at the turning-point 80 Of trance prolonged unduly some three days When, by the exhibition of some drug Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know, The evil thing, out-breaking all at once, Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,-- But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide, Making a clear house of it too suddenly, The first conceit that entered might inscribe Whatever it was minded on the wall 90 So plainly at that vantage, as it were, (First come, first served) that nothing subsequent Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls The just-returned and new-established soul Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart That henceforth she will read or these or none. And first--the man's own firm conviction rests That he was dead (in fact they buried him) --That he was dead and then restored to life By a Nazarene physician of his tribe: 100 --'Sayeth, the same bade "Rise," and he did rise, "Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry. Not so this figment!--not, that such a fume, Instead of giving way to time and health, Should eat itself into the life of life. As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all! For see, how he takes up the after-life, The man--it is one Lazarus, a Jew, Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age, The body's habit wholly laudable, 110 As much, indeed, beyond the common health. As he were made and put aside to show. Think, could we penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, 120 Now sharply, now with sorrow,--told the case,-- He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. And that's a sample how his years must go.

Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life, Should find a treasure,--can he use the same With straitened habits and with tastes starved small, And take at once to his impoverished brain The sudden element that changes things, 130 That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand, And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? Is he not such an one as moves to mirth-- Warily parsimonious, when no need, Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? All prudent counsel as to what befits The golden mean, is lost on such an one: The man's fantastic will is the man's law. So here--we call the treasure knowledge, say, Increased beyond the fleshly faculty-- 140 Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven: The man is witless of the size, the sum, The value in proportion of all things, Or whether it be little or be much. Discourse to him of prodigious armaments Assembled to besiege his city now, And of the passing of a mule with gourds-- 'Tis one! Then take it on the other side, Speak of some trifling fact,--he will gaze rapt 150 With stupor at its very littleness, (Far as I see) as if in that indeed He caught prodigious import, whole results. And so will turn to us the bystanders In ever the same stupor (note this point) That we too see not with his opened eyes. Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, Preposterously, at cross purposes. Should his child sicken unto death,--why, look For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, 160 Or pretermission of the daily craft! While a word, gesture, glance from that same child At play or in the school or laid asleep, Will startle him to an agony of fear, Exasperation, just as like. Demand The reason why--"'tis but a word," object-- "A gesture"--he regards thee as our lord Who lived there in the pyramid alone, Looked at us (dost thou mind?) when, being young We both would unadvisedly recite 170 Some charm's beginning, from that book of his,° °171 Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. Thou and the child have each a veil alike Thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match Over a mine of Greek fire,° did ye know! °177 He holds on firmly to some thread of life (It is the life to lead perforcedly) Which runs across some vast distracting orb 180 Of glory on either side that meagre thread, Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet-- The spiritual life around the earthly life: The law of that is known to him as this, His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. So is the man perplext with impulses Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, Proclaiming what is right and wrong across, And not along, this black thread thro' the blaze-- "It should be" balked by "here it cannot be." 190 And oft the man's soul springs into his face As if he saw again and heard again His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise. Something, a word, a tick o' the blood within Admonishes: then back he sinks at once To ashes, who was very fire before, In sedulous recurrence to his trade Whereby he earneth him the daily bread; And studiously the humbler for that pride, Professedly the faultier that he knows 200 God's secret, while he holds the thread of life. Indeed the especial marking of the man Is prone submission to the heavenly will-- Seeing it, what it is, and why it is. 'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last For that same death, which must restore his being To equilibrium, body loosening soul Divorced even now by premature full growth: He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live So long as God please, and just how God please. 210 He even seeketh not to please God more (Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please. Hence, I perceive not he affects to preach The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be, Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do: How can he give his neighbour the real ground, His own conviction? Ardent as he is-- Call his great truth a lie, why, still the old "Be it as God please" reassureth him. I probed the sore as thy disciple should: 220 "How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march To stamp out like a little spark thy town, Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?" He merely looked with his large eyes on me, The man is apathetic, you deduce? Contrariwise, he loves both old and young, Able and weak, affects the very brutes And birds--how say I? flowers of the field-- As a wise workman recognizes tools 230 In a master's workshop, loving what they make. Thus is the man as harmless as a lamb: Only impatient, let him do his best, At ignorance and carelessness and sin-- An indignation which is promptly curbed: As when in certain travel I have feigned To be an ignoramus in our art According to some preconceived design, And happed to hear the land's practitioners Steeped in conceit sublimed by ignorance, 240 Prattle fantastically on disease, Its cause and cure--and I must hold my peace!

Thou wilt object--Why have I not ere this Sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene Who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, Conferring with the frankness that befits? Alas! it grieveth me, the learned leech Perished in a tumult many years ago, Accused--our learning's fate--of wizardry, Rebellion, to the setting up a rule 250 And creed prodigious as described to me. His death, which happened when the earthquake fell (Prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss To occult learning in our lord the sage Who lived there in the pyramid alone°), °255 Was wrought by the mad people--that's their wont! On vain recourse, as I conjecture it. To his tried virtue, for miraculous help-- How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way! The other imputations must be lies: 260 But take one, tho' I loathe to give it thee, In mere respect for any good man's fame. (And after all, our patient Lazarus Is stark mad; should we count on what he says? Perhaps not: tho' in writing to a leech 'Tis well to keep back nothing of a case.) This man so cured regards the curer, then, As--God forgive me! who but God Himself, Creator and sustainer of the world,° °269 That came and dwelt in flesh on it awhile. 270 --'Sayeth that such an one was born, and lived, Taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, Then died; with Lazarus by, for aught I know, And yet was ... what I said nor choose repeat, And must have so avouched himself, in fact, In hearing of this very Lazarus Who saith--but why all this of what he saith? Why write of trivial matters, things of price Calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool 280 Blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, Aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange!

Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, Which, now that I review it, needs must seem Unduly dwelt on, prolixly set forth! Nor I myself discern in what is writ Good cause for the peculiar interest And awe indeed this man has touched me with. Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness Had wrought upon me first. I met him thus: 290 I crossed a ridge of short sharp broken hills Like an old lion's cheek teeth. Out there came A moon made like a face with certain spots Multiform, manifold, and menacing: Then a wind rose behind me. So we met In this old sleepy town at unaware, The man and I. I send thee what is writ. Regard it as a chance, a matter risked To this ambiguous Syrian: he may lose, Or steal, or give it thee with equal good. 300 Jerusalem's repose shall make amends For time this letter wastes, thy time and mine; Till when, once more thy pardon and farewell!

The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? So, the All-Great, were the All-Loving too-- So, through the thunder comes a human voice Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here! Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 310 And thou must love me who have died for thee!" The madman saith He said so; it is strange.

* * * * *

SAUL

I